Iceland 1-2 Scotland: An improvement, but only just

There are positives, and there are negatives, from today’s second World Cup 2010 qualifier for Scotland. But the most important bits are also the positive ones – George Burley has his first win as Scotland manager, and we have three important road points. We managed a clean sheet from open play, and we scored two goals of our own.

Then again …

It was Iceland. Ranked 107th by FIFA. This is the team that lost 3-0 to Liechtenstein in Euro 2008 qualifying. They are the weakest member of Group 9, and we expected to beat them. We needed to beat them.

There will be time for more analysis later, and more raining on our parade. It wasn’t a great game, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Saturday’s poor effort in Macedonia. And we won, which is really all that matters. If we’re going to make our first World Cup since France 98, we’re going to have to win some ugly ones. One down.

Extra congratulations to Kirk Broadfoot on scoring in his first Scotland match. Well done, lad. And Barry Robson, you continue to have a hell of a fan in me – I look forward to seeing a lot of this from you in a Scotland shirt. After Steven McManus’ red card, drawing Iceland’s penalty with his blatant handball, we’re gonna need ourselves another captain for a few matches. But that’s a question for another day.

More later. Mon the Scots.