Scotland win can’t disguise fact we’ve lost mojo at worst possible time

SEVEN months back, France stuck away 14 chances against this lot.

On Monday night, Scotland MISSED 14.

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And not even two clinical strikes from Ryan Christie and Che Adams could disguise the fact that we’ve lost our mojo in front of goal at the worst possible time.

Christie’s effort on the hour was our first of 2024. When sub Adams ripped home a late volley, it guaranteed our first win in eight.

Yet before then, you couldn’t help but be worried by our inability – once again – to hit a cow’s backside with a banjo.

Against Holland in Amsterdam back in March, we’d passed up five golden opportunities when we were playing them off the park and ended up losing 4-0.

That should have been the harshest of lessons in how paper-thin the line between glory and disaster is against the top guns – yet here, given the chance to fill our boots against one of football’s ultimate whipping boys, we were even more wasteful.

Gibraltar didn’t defend heroically in the sunshine of a near-empty Estadio Algarve. We weren’t cursing our luck as shots cannoned off the woodwork.

We just kept missing. And missing. And missing.

I’d written yesterday about the belief that’s needed to lift teams from nearly making it to actually making it. Sadly, whenever we got into their box here, that belief simply wasn’t there.

Bottom line? Until Christie’s decisive finish just before the hour, we never looked like we genuinely thought we could score, with the guilt shared all the way from debutant right-back Ross McCrorie to James Forrest on the left-wing.

We didn’t play badly on a night that was more about minutes in the legs than anything else.

We moved the ball well. We had so much possession that it was THIRTY-FOUR minutes before keeper Zander Clark touched the ball in open play. Our effort levels were good, our shape was solid, our attitude was good.

Trouble was, it all fell apart when we got within shooting distance of Jaylan Hankins, a 23-year-old keeper playing his first international and who, if life is fair, is a Country & Western singer by night.

Ten minutes in, Grant Hanley headed into the deck and over the bar when a corner found him all alone and eight yards out. Soon after, James Forrest sidefooted Andy Robertson’s cutback wide with Hankins nowhere.

Christie, totally unmarked, volleyed yards high and wide from Kenny McLean’s cross. Shankland screwed miles wide as the box opened up in front of him. Forrest smashed one that nearly landed on Albufeira beach. Ross McCrorie sneaked in at the back post only to nod John McGinn’s cross tamely behind.

McLean bulleted a header over from Robertson’s next pinpoint cross then scuffed another wide when McCrorie slung one in. Billy Gilmour found Shankland on the shoulder of the last defender, but his right-foot effort was as far adrift as the one he’d hit before.

Hanley saw another header shovelled out by Hankins straight to the feet of Ryan Porteous, who couldn’t scramble the scraps home. By five minutes from the break, when he somehow swiped one wide after Porteous knocked down Shankland’s cross, the bearded Norwich stopper could have had a hat-trick.

It was the ELEVENTH clear-cut opening we’d passed up.

Come half-time, Hanley stayed inside, replaced by Liam Cooper – and guess what? Inside a couple of minutes he’d met Gilmour’s corner and headed one three yards over the bar.

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We were off and running again, Christie nodding yet another perfect Robertson cross straight into the arms of the grateful Hankins.

In all by now, we’d had 21 efforts at goal, with a measly TWO of them on target. It was as baffling as it was worrying as it was – let’s be honest – embarrassing.

Then, with half an hour left, we finally scored.

Robertson linked with Forrest down down the left, his umpeenth beautifully-clipped delivery was brought down by Christie, who took a touch to steady himself and fired high beyond Hankins.

The ironic cheers from the 1,000 or so Tartan Army troops scattered along the front of the main stand said it all. They’d known all along that this would be more of a training exercise than a full-blooded challenge, but they still hadn’t quite been able to believe their eyes at how sloppy we’d been up until that moment.

With boss Steve Clarke watching from up above the punters, No2 John Carver rang more changes, with Kieran Tierney, Che Adams, Callum McGregor and Ryan Jack all given a run. And, after Shankland had hooked our fourteenth decent opening of the evening over the bar, it was Adams who sealed the deal in the steal we’d been begging for from the off.

John McGinn ratted away to win a loose back on the left-hand corner of the box, hung up a cross and the little man newly-promoted with Southampton didn’t half volley into the top corner.

It was the kind of finishing we’ll need in Germany, when we might be lucky to carve out FOUR openings in 90 minutes and where our aim simply has to be true.

We face Finland at Hampden on Friday night in our final warm-up.

If training between now and then isn’t shooting, shooting and more shooting, the gaffer’s not doing his job right.

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