Scotland’s failure to handle late pressure is killing us as rotten run goes on

WE can play the glorious failures all we like.

We can ignore the result and home in on how well we played.

4

4

But I’m sorry – we’ll simply be kidding ourselves.

Because if the definition of insanity is the repetition of the same mistakes while expecting a different outcome, then this Scotland team are officially mad as hatters.

Done for with the last kick of our Euros campaign against Hungary.

Done for by a brainless challenge that let Poland beat us on Thursday with a 97^th minute penalty.

Done for here when we switch off six yards from our own goal with two minutes left on the clock.

Had we kept our shape right down to the last kick in these three massive games, the outlook for Steve Clarke might be a whole lot brighter.

Sadly, though, we seem incapable of going the distance when the pressure’s on.

And it’s killing us.

This time, after a heroic performance from back to front, we somehow let Cristiano Ronaldo – I mean, Cristiano b****y Ronaldo – find space in a crowded area for the tap-in that left us pointless from two Nations League and extended a horrible run of results to one win in 14.

That win, let’s never forget, being against Gibraltar.

Sure, this wasn’t a repeat of the night in 1993 when we lost 5-0 to the Portuguese and Andy Roxburgh famously groaned that a team had died.

In fact, there were long spells this time when Clarke’s team had a chance to be reborn, when they were quite outstanding.

Scott McTominay did what he does best to put us ahead early on.

Angus Gunn recovered from the blunder that let Bruno Fernandes equalise to pull off a string of quite remarkable saves.

All over the Estadio da Luz pitch, we had guys who lifted themselves and the badge back to the levels of THAT win over Spain, THAT victory in Oslo.

Yet in the end, none of it matters. Thanks to our inability to stay focussed until the fat lady sings and we’re back in the dressing room joining in with the chorus.

The frustration of it all is overwhelming.

The way the desire you have to see this team of ours – a great bunch of lads led by a smashing manager – emerge from the pit of despair is crushed by the seeming inevitability of us caving at the death…well, it makes you wonder if all those great nights we enjoyed together really were just some bizarre dream.

Thirty-one years ago, Roxburgh refused to hand in his blazer despite his own admission that his team was dead in the water.

It took six months for the SFA to grow a pair and quietly pension him off.

I’m not calling for Clarke to go. I never have.

But it’s getting harder all the time for him to justify his claim that he deserves one last crack at a World Cup. 

Unless he finds a way to stop this insanity, to rid of us of the madness that has infected our performances, then the future feels inevitable; in a results-driven business, too many bad results will drive him out.

4

And yet…well, and yet there was so much to admire here.

If you were writing a thesis on how to play Portugal on their own turf, it would simply read: See Scotland’s first half on September 8 2024.

Because in those opening 45 minutes, we got everything right – and I mean everything. 

We were calm in defence, we took no needless risks, we shifted the ball simply and sharply. 

We carried it when the change arose, we knew when the time was right to relax in possession, we understood when there was a need to go long.

No one dived in to silly challenges. If one man dozed off and let a runner go, someone else would have his back.

We shifted as a unit, not the collection of confused individuals we’d been at the Euros.

On the couple of occasions Gunn was called into action, he looked like the magnet he’d been in his early days as our No1.

Our New YouTube Channel

Subscribe to our new Scottish Sun Sport YouTube channel for all the latest football news, views and amazing moments.

We’ve got every major development covered from Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and the rest of the Scottish Premiership.

Plus we have TWO brilliant new podcasts to watch every week…

MONDAY

Go Ballistic with Roger Hannah and special guest Kris Boyd will dissect all the weekend action and deliver their no-holds-barred reaction.

WEDNESDAY

Robert Grieve and Bill Leckie chew over the tastiest topics in Scottish football and offer their unique takes in their Coffee Club.

FRIDAY

Go Ballistic is back with Roger Hannah and top tipster Jim Delahunt looking ahead to the weekend games and analysing the biggest talking points.

Subscribe now and don’t miss a thing.

As for the goal? Clinical doesn’t begin to do it justice.

Andy Robertson’s roll back to Kenny McLean to create a better angle for the cross. The kind of first-time, whipped delivery any striker on earth would bite your hand off for.

A run and a header from McTominay that no defender in the business was getting in the way of.

Even after Gunn sold that equaliser, the way we tried to take the game back up the other end deserved huge praise.

That we were never out of it is a shred of positivity to cling onto.

But when all’s said and done, we still blew it.

Again.

We still couldn’t hold out.

Again.

All over the country we were trying to believe what we’d seen.

Again.

Well, believe it, because it keeps on happening. And the reason it keeps on happening us that we keep on LETTING it happen.

Sort that out, Steve.

Or there’s only one sane solution.

Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page