Naismith: ‘Immature’ Scotland team need to perform

PLAYED five, won none. Three defeats in a row. An eighth successive failed attempt to reach the finals of a major tournament all but mathematically confirmed just halfway into the campaign.

Whatever way it is viewed, Scotland’s plight at the bottom of their 2014 World Cup qualifying group paints the bleakest possible picture of the national team.

Gordon Strachan’s squad trained indoors yesterday at the Toryglen Football Centre, just across the road from Hampden where their limitations were brutally exposed to the wintry elements on Friday night in the demoralising 2-1 defeat against Wales.

While the manager now bears the burden of trying to restore Scotland’s diminishing fortunes, one of his players has admitted it is time for those on the pitch to accept responsibility for the decline.

“We need to grow up and face facts,” said Steven Naismith. “The group table obviously isn’t telling lies. We’ve lost our last three games and haven’t got a win yet. That’s where the immaturity of this squad maybe comes in. If you are in the team, you need to go out and perform and get results.

“I do still believe progress is being made when I look at the quality in the squad. As a forward-going player myself, even just looking at the players in my position tells me that.

“I’m not getting a game now, whereas a year or two ago I was playing in most of the games. Circumstances dictate that a bit, but the squad has definitely got stronger.

“A lot of the boys are still quite young, so maybe it is an immaturity thing, but it is something we do need to get over. We can’t continue to say we are progressing, but not producing it on the pitch.

“Friday night was frustrating for everyone. It was there for all to see that we made a nervy start. If you look through the team, you would say it was a bit more inexperienced than usual.”

Having been a regular in the starting line-up during the Euro 2012 campaign, Naismith was in unfamiliar territory on Friday night as he remained an unused substitute against Wales.

With Robert Snodgrass suspended as a result of his dismissal in conceding the penalty-kick from which Wales equalised, Naismith is in contention to return to the side and win his 21st cap against Serbia tomorrow night.

Having failed so far to nail down a regular place in the Everton team following his move from Rangers last summer, the 26-year-old has no complaints with Strachan’s decision to leave him out on Friday.

“I’ve got to be doing all I can in training to earn my place,” he said. “There are a few others in the same boat. For the ones who haven’t been playing, that is a motivation.

“For the boys who did play, it is about keeping their place. We have got a strong squad and the boys who haven’t been playing are going to try and take the place of those who have been playing.

“The manager has made it clear he is going to be playing players who are playing week in, week out for their clubs. Unfortunately for me, I’ve not been doing that this season at Everton.

“It’s something I’ve had to deal with. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it will become.

“I’ve given myself a bit of leeway this season because so much happened. I came back from injury and it’s only in the last month that my knee has started to feel normal again.

“With that added to moving clubs and different things which went on, it has been difficult. The longer it goes on, it will definitely become a frustration. Hopefully Tuesday night is another chance to get in the team and show what I can do for Scotland.”

There is now a serious threat of Scotland dropping down into the pot of fifth seeds for the Euro 2016 qualifying draw, adding an additional degree of difficulty to the task of ending the country’s exile from major tournament finals which stretches back to 1998.

Naismith admits the prospect of never representing Scotland on the biggest stage has started to enter his mind.

“Kenny Miller touched on it a bit over the weekend and he has been in the national team for many years,” added Naismith. “It definitely makes guys like myself, who are coming to the middle of their careers, think about it.

“There is a great opportunity to go and play in the best tournaments in the world and you don’t want to give that up without a fight. You remember the days when we were qualifying on a regular basis.

“Dropping down another pot in the draws is not what we want at all. But if you are in there, you just need to roll your sleeves up and get back out of it. This squad have not won enough games to keep us in the higher pots. But look at Wales, they are in the bottom pot and they are an up and coming team. If you drop down there, it does make your job a bit harder because you are one of the lower seeds. But we still have to fancy ourselves against a lot of teams at home.”

The “worst Scotland team ever” jibe aimed at Naismith and his team-mates by Welsh legend Mickey Thomas in the build-up to last Friday’s game was hardly rammed back down his throat by the home team’s performance.

“Everyone has an opinion,” shrugged Naismith. “I don’t think we have the players we did back in the day, the match winners like Kenny Dalglish and guys like that. But as a team, we have definitely got something. The bottom line is we need to start winning. We need to start picking up points, especially at home.”

The crowd will most certainly be against Scotland in Novi Sad tomorrow night. But Naismith, whose off-the-ball elbow in the face of Srdan Mijailovic during the 0-0 draw with Serbia at Hampden last September earned him a two-match suspension, is ready to make amends. “We should have beat them at Hampden,” he said. “We had some good chances and played well. I was a culprit myself with the chances we missed. It will be a different game over there.

“There will be a hostile crowd and they are coming off a defeat to Croatia. There are a few places up for grabs now, with Steven Fletcher being injured and Robert Snodgrass being suspended, so the boys who come in will want to make an impression.

“There are some really tough games coming up in the rest of this campaign. But I’m not going to say, and I don’t think anyone in the squad will, that we have a target of where we want to finish in the group.

“Our target is just to start winning games, that’s the bottom line. We haven’t picked enough points up. It’s not about setting bigger targets than that. We just want to starting getting results and picking up a bit of 
momentum.”