“There was such a hype surrounding Scotland going into the tournament, and I know their form hasn't quite been there since they qualified, but we thought they were going to go and do really well against a real difficult opponent. We had to play to our best and we didn't. Being 3-0 down at half-time, Porteous sent off for a horrendous challenge and it's an uphill battle from there. But Germany showed their class, didn’t they?” Hutton tells Tribalfootball.com.
They certainly did, but there’s still questions to be asked about the Scottish performance with the highlight of the evening being the national anthem belted out over Allianz Arena by the Tartan Army. It all went downhill from there, but did Steve Clarke get the tactics completely wrong or did his players let him down?
“It's a bit of both. Billy Gilmour is a player who he can give you a breather, and he should have played. Maybe instead of Ryan Christie. It was just attack after attack from the Germans. Kroos had all the time in the world. Their full-backs were bombing on. It was just wave after wave and Scotland didn't really know how to deal with it.”
Supposedly, the Scottish midfield is their main asset, but Germany was allowed acres of space to create chance after chance even with seasoned pros like John McGinn and Scott McTominay in there.
“It's been a long, tough season for John McGinn. He's put the bar really high in terms of his quality and what he gives the team. When he drops off, even if it’s ever so slightly, it's easy to pick up on. McTominay hadn't played since the FA Cup. I don't think that's ideal. He didn't get the minutes in his legs with the two warm-up games and he got thrown into the deep end against one of the top nations.
“You could see he was off it a little bit. So, the dynamic didn't quite work. Christie tried hard, but he never got into the game. Maybe it was the stage that they were at. Maybe they just got a little bit flustered, but you have to look to the next two games and get positive results now,” states the former Rangers, Tottenham and Aston Villa fullback.
Assuming for a while that Hutton is the Scotland manager, how would he approach the next game against Switzerland?
“Well, Grant Hanley is probably replacing Porteous. Up front, this is possibly a game for Shankland to come in. We know in tournament football, you don't get a lot of opportunities to score, especially if you're like Scotland. You need somebody to be able to take that one chance. He could replace Che Adams here.
“Maybe Jamie Forrest could come in there and then obviously Billy Gilmour. I think he comes into the midfield with Christie dropping out. So, there are two or three changes that could happen which could help them improve moving forward because we know how big a game this is now. They really need to get something out of it,” continues Hutton who would stick with Angus Gunn in goal although he didn’t cover himself in glory.
“I think Steve Clarke has made his decision, he'll stick with him throughout this tournament, unless it continues to get worse which I don't think it will. I think it was just one of those cases where you're under pressure for the whole 90+ minutes,” Hutton hopes, while keeping an upbeat outlook of the game against Switzerland.
“Scotland’s showed in the past that they can do it. We've seen in the qualifying campaign with the five wins in a row. The games against Spain were high quality so as a Scotland fan I know they can get there and that's where they have to be. The problem is they've got one win in the last ten.
“Also, the Swiss were better than what I thought and that's not me saying I thought they were a poor team, but just looking at them the other day it made me a little bit nervous. The next two games are going to be really hard,” Hutton concedes.
- Alan Hutton was talking to Tribalfootball on behalf of Best Online Poker Sites