Scotland 3 Northern Ireland 0

February 10th, 2011 | by: Lewis Orr | Comments Off

Craig Levein will be feeling an awful lot better after last night’s game.

A good result and a good performance with players like Phil Bardsley and Kris Commons cemented their place in the side.

The first goal came from a brilliant Charlie Adam corner, Bardsley winning a flick on at the near post, it took a richocet off two Northern Ireland defenders before Kenny Miller prodded it home into an empty net from about a yard.

The second was, debatably, a fluke. James McArthur looked up from the edge of the box and aimed for the back post. It was a delicate chip and landed right on the proverbial postage stamp. It made it 2-0 after just half an hour.

The 2nd half was played at a relaxed pace, Scotland were just vastly superior to Northern Ireland, however Scotland did score a fantastic 3rd. About 15 passes were played before Naismith flicked it beautifully to Commons, who put it through the keeper’s legs to make it 3-0.

Craig Levein should keep the same formation. The 4-2-3-1 worked a treat and if everyone was fit then this would be who I would choose (in brackets would be my ideal replacement for that player).

Gordon (McGregor)
Hutton (Whittaker)
Bardsley (Crainley)
Berra (Webster)
D Wilson (G Caldwell)
D Fletcher (McArthur)
Adam (Brown)
Commons (Maloney)
Morrison (Snodgrass)
Naismith (Dorrans)
McFadden (Mackie)

We need to get McFadden back fit, although he probably won’t be back in May for the Carling Nations Cup. We need a solid centre half partnership and our two most talented centre halves are Christophe Berra and Danny Wilson.

I’m optimistic because in that ^ list of players I didn’t pick fantastic young talent like Grant Hanley, Barry Bannan, Jamie Ness and Davie Templeton.

That squad I just named could all realistically play till the end of the Euro 2016 qualification process and that is also good news.

February 2011

Lewis Orr.