Scotland boss Sebastien Pocognoli emphasises upside of missed chances
Sebastien Pocognoli preferred to focus on the positive side of profligacy as Scotland prepare for their Nations League clash against Slovenia on Tuesday night.
The Scots missed several opportunities in the second half of their goalless opening game against Slovenia in Ljubljana.
And after a 3-0 home defeat to Switzerland where they struggled after defender Jack Hendry was sent off after just 11 minutes, the Scots responded with a 2-0 win in North Macedonia on Saturday.
Kieron Bowie opened his international account before John McGinn scored a penalty. but Pocognoli’s side passed up chances to make the scoreline more convincing.
After three Group B1 fixtures, Scotland are in third place with four points, behind Slovenia on goal difference, with Switzerland top of the table with nine points from nine.
Ahead of the game at Barclays Hampden, Pocognoli, who recalled Findlay Curtis from the under-21s, said: “That’s a position of life.
“You look at the positive or you look at the negative and you look also at what we needed to improve before I arrived and we create more chances.
“So that’s positive with a new group of players with a totally new principle and that’s quite good if it’s like this for games.
“But in football sometimes you have luck and sometimes not, but we definitely should score in the second half in Slovenia and we would have a different ranking today.
“But it’s like life, with the ‘if’ you never know where you go, but the reality is we have to win tomorrow and try to score goals.
“But Kieron scores goals at his club, Oli (McBurnie) scores goals with Hull City, Robbie (Ure) scored goals last season, this season is more challenging because he needs to adapt to a different level, it is the same at the national team.
“You have adaptation, you sometimes have luck on the day and sometimes, yeah, it’s just to have the quality.
“But we create chances and we have good strikers and we have good midfielders and we have also wingers who create a lot of chances, with Robbo (Andy Robertson) and (Aaron Hickey) also.
“So it’s also to create a danger from many positions as possible.”
Rangers’ 20-year-old attacker Curtis was named Pocognoli’s first group for the four-game international break, along with Hearts striker James Wilson, but both were moved to the under-21 squad for the European Championship qualifier against Azerbaijan last Wednesday.
Curtis, who has scored once in five appearances for Scotland’s senior team, provided four assists in the comprehensive 5-2 win for the young Scots at The BBSP Stadium Rugby Park and has been recalled by Pocognoli, who said: “Regarding what we try to build as a connection with the under-21 group, we selected Findlay because he deserved to be here.
“But he needed playing time and the fact that (under-21s boss) Tony (Docherty) is playing a similar style of play to us, it’s a good window for him to show it live and he did fantastically well against Azerbaijan.
“It was clear for us that we want to make this bridge between the two groups, to show also that when you do well, you come back, and it is also a signal for the rest of the group.”
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