The Poverty Of The Scotland Side Without The Celtic Captain In It Stands Out A Mile.

Watching Scotland is not like watching paint dry. There are differences.

But there are similarities too.

Paint dries much more quickly than some of our defenders move.

The stuff itself is often thick, but not as thick as the average ex—Ibrox studio pundit.

Today it was the turn of Kenny Miller. Watching them watching as our players hoist trophies into the air is mildly amusing.

The rest of the time they are just irritating.

The game was terrible. I was not impressed in the least. Scotland are a really poor side to watch at times. You know what a lot of those times have in common?

The times when Callum McGregor isn’t in the side. There was a spell last season when some of the pro-Ibrox Twatterati had suggested that he might “struggle” to get back into the midfield after he’d been out with an injury … a couple of rank rotten performances later, without him, that was held up as the stupidity we all thought it was.

This evening, Scotland benched him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on the record here as saying that I’m always glad when the man gets an extended break. But that midfield was a shadow itself without his drive and his energy in it. I cannot believe the talk in the media this past week about Ryan Jack; I will be astounded if the ex-Ibrox player gets a kick in competition football. The beating heart of this Scotland side is the guy it’s always been.

Callum didn’t feature in any player of the year lists this time around; they couldn’t wait to give the award to Shankland, and I am not really arguing with that, but Tavernier appeared on those lists as well and that’s a joke considering how completely McGregor ran those games against them where he was fit and on it. He’s almost always on it.

I would prefer we had no players at this tournament, but I will be cheering on the guys who are and it’s obvious that none of them is more important than our captain is.

Some in the media have been in denial about this for a long time, but without him this Scotland team does not stand a chance. They spend a lot of their time, of course, praying for Ibrox to develop a midfield general who can stand up to him, and the rest of their team acting as if he’s somehow inferior to those in the Scotland squad who play south of the border.

The thing is, McGregor is better than all of them.

And when he is not in this team his absence stands out a mile.