SCOTLAND can’t feel sorry for themselves after their defeat to the Czech Republic according to John McGinn, with the Aston Villa midfielder saying they will just have to qualify for the European Championship knockout stages the hard way.
McGinn was gutted as the Scots fell to a deflating 2-0 defeat at Hampden, feeling that his side were their own worst enemy at both ends of the field, squandering numerous chances to score and then losing preventable goals.
But the former Hibernian and St Mirren man was in no mood to give up on making it out of the group stage despite such a dispiriting start to the tournament, and he still believes Scotland can get a result at Wembley on Friday.
“We got beat so we’re disappointed,” McGinn said.
“We played pretty well first half without threatening them too much. We got in behind them, but the first goal was a poor one to lose.
“It was a brilliant header but from our point of view, we’re extremely disappointed with it. You don’t want to lose a goal from a set-play or the second phase of it.
“Then the second one is a brilliant strike, but again, we could do better.
“We can sit here and say we played alright – we did play alright – and the 2-0 scoreline probably flatters them a wee bit, but they found the quality in the right moments and we need to find that on Friday.
“We can either sulk about it or go to Friday with the same attitude and hopefully get a better result.
“I don’t think it’s a reality check. Overall we played pretty well.
“There were things we could improve upon, but it’s the first game of the tournament and we’ve got two games to fix what we need to fix.
“It’s important we don’t sulk too much. We’ll deal with it tomorrow, have a look back at it and from there we’ll build towards England. We need to do it the hard way now.”
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