Breaking Down the Draw

All of us in the various Tartan Armies around the world have had a day now to digest George Burley’s first effort as Scotland manager, the 1-1 draw with Croatia at Hampden. Now that I’ve seen the match twice and looked over all the numbers, I wanted to make a more in-depth analysis of what we saw from Scotland, both good and bad, and what it means for the state of our side.

Possession
It might surprise a lot of people who watched the match to learn that we actually came out on top in terms of overall possession, taking 52% to Croatia’s 48%. I don’t have the statistics broken down by half, but for the first 20 minutes, the ball absolutely belonged to the visitors. Their midfield dominated from the opening whistle, and without Barry Ferguson to take control of the central midfield, we looked really lost. Darren Fletcher did a decent job in the middle, but we really did miss Barry early on. Later, we started winning more balls and putting together more passes, but Scott Brown, who has had a really disappointing few months for Celtic, continued to look really poor.

Central defense
The story of the first half, for me, was the amount of control that central defenders Stephen McManus and Gary Caldwell were able to maintain, despite Croatia’s early domination of the midfield. There were only four shots from Croatia in the first half, and all of them from outside of the penalty area. At that distance, the Scotland defense is well aware that Craig Gordon will save most shots. It took a lovely strike from Niko Kranjcar to score for the Croatians, and as disappointing as it was to go down at home so early, I really think the central defense held up well overall. I’m thrilled with Burley’s decision to replace Caldwell not with youngster Christophe Berra, who was on the bench looking for his first cap, but instead with veteran Russell Anderson. The Scotland back line does need Berra’s youth and speed, but at that particular moment, I really think Anderson was the better choice, and the result bore that out. Berra will get his shot.

Attack
I have given a lot of flack over the years to Kenny Miller. I’ve never been a big fan, and have held my head in my hands on countless occasions, watching him flick over the crossbar and begging for his removal. Still, he did a great job with the long ball from Steven Fletcher to score the lone goal for Scotland. Like Kris Boyd, Miller is a poacher. He may not create a lot of opportunities, the way that James McFadden can do, but he gets into the right places at the right times. That being said, we could have done far better on the attack. The struggling midfield can be blamed for the low number of opportunities, five shots to Croatia’s ten, but not for the finishing quality on those chances. Miller missed a header from just outside the six-yard box that he should have been able to bring down on target. Luckily, he made good just six minutes later with the goal. Shaun Maloney missed an early free kick, while Scott Brown’s effort early in the second half crossed the face of the goal harmlessly. We certainly missed McFadden on the day, and his creative touch would have complemented Miller and Boyd well.

Substitutions
As I said above, I think subbing Caldwell out for Anderson rather than Berra was a really smart move, despite recent form saying that Berra was the better choice. Overall, I was pretty happy with the substitutions. Subbing Gavin Rae for Steven Fletcher wasn’t much of a choice, because of the slight chest injury to Fletcher. Rae knew that he was on the roster due to the late dropouts, but he did relatively well with the half of play he was handed. Gary Naysmith was never going to play the entire match, and the 62nd minute substitution of James McEveley for him was a good one. In all the hubbub about young Fletcher and Berra, McEveley is the forgotten young defender on the squad. This was only the third cap for the 22-year-old left back, and though he might be considered lucky to be on the squad since defending for Derby County isn’t exactly a feather in your cap, he is clearly part of the future plans for Burley’s Scotland squad. Scott Brown could have taken off even earlier, and as I’ve said, was a real disappointment. There’s been talk of the squad being built around him, and he needs to start stepping up if that’s going to be the case. It’s too bad that Gary Teale is the best we can muster to replace him, and it just shows how thin the squad is at the winger position. Left back and winger are very open positions on this team. I would have liked to have seen Kris Boyd a little earlier on for Shaun Maloney, who was pretty mediocre on the wing. Again, wingers, please send your resumes to Burley.

Overall
I’m actually hugely encouraged by this draw. We were missing our best striker, James McFadden, our captain, Barry Ferguson, and our most experienced player, Christian Dailly. We started a debutant at striker in Steven Fletcher, and Gary Teale was our only true winger. Still, we hung in there with a top-15 team on their way to the European Championships, a team that beat England twice in qualifying matches. Ferguson was badly missed in the midfield, and we sorely need a true winger to spread the ball wide, but Scotland did very well to draw this match, and even had a good chance to win it with Kris Boyd’s late shot on goal. Very encouraging stuff from the first match of the Burley era, and we’ll keep up with club form and team news as the club season comes to a close, in preparation for the May 30th trip to Prague to play the Czech Republic, another stern test. Just two matches left until World Cup qualifying begins, and I think we look like a very strong contender.