Marvellous midfield trio is the blueprint for success

IT was brilliant to experience the euphoria of a dramatic late winning goal.

And the sight of Scott McTominay scoring deep into stoppage-time in front of a full Hampden Park will live long in the memory.

But my over-riding thought is that it really doesn’t need to be so difficult for Scotland.

I said after the win over Austria last month that we had set a standard of performance to aspire to going forward. Once again there was plenty of that in last night’s second-half display against Israel.

I thought Billy Gilmour was majestic in the middle of the park. That combination he has with Callum McGregor is so effective and in John McGinn they have the perfect foil just ahead.

But when you have a midfield that is so good you shouldn’t have to go chasing results.

I thought those three played really well throughout but I don’t think we defended well enough in that first half and we were not strong enough to get first contact at the second goal. It was too easy for Israel.

Those unnecessary goals left us in a position where we needed to score three times to win and that’s not a recipe for success.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved McTominay’s goal. And having watched him take set-pieces earlier in the match it was just good to see him the opposition box getting on the end of things.

I watched Thomas Muller score an almost identical goal for Germany on Friday night, and it was great to see him getting his reward on what was a testing evening.

But our second-half performance, with our midfielders dictating everything in the middle of the pitch, is a blueprint for the level of performance we can aspire to.

I also have to reserve some special praise for Lyndon Dykes. He came back out determined to make up for that penalty miss and scored a fine equalising goal.

That determination summed up how committed the players are to the cause. It doesn’t need to be so hard.