Billy Gilmour shocked by damning Scotland stat as Napoli midfielder admits it can't continue

Billy Gilmour is now as polished and professional talking to the media as he is on the pitch but the midfielder couldn’t mask his shock as one damning statistic was relayed to him following the 3-2 Nations League loss to Poland on Thursday night.

Told that the wait for a competitive victory would now extend beyond the one-year mark, the recent Napoli recruit wore the look of surprise all over his face as he quietly mouthed “is that right?” before searching for words to try to put it all into some sort of context.

That 3-0 win over Cyprus in Larnaca on September 8, 2023 now almost feels like it belongs to a different era, a fifth successive victory that took Steve Clarke’s side to the cusp of qualification for Euro 2024. It was also a ninth competitive game without defeat in a period when Scotland were resolute at the back and clinical in attack, night and day from the recent wretched defending and – for the most part – wasteful finishing.

Billy Gilmour celebrates scoring for Scotland in the 3-2 defeat to Poland at Hampden Park on Thursday. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

It will likely get worse before it gets better. While the Tartan Army loudly trumpeted their delight when the team clinched promotion to the top-tier of the Nations League – augmented by England’s concurrent relegation – the reality was this campaign was always going to represent a significant elevation in difficulty.

Scotland played well – or at least better than their sorry showing at the Euros – for long spells against Poland but still found a way to lose. Given that it was, in theory, their easiest game in a group also containing Portugal (eighth in the world) and Croatia (12th) then it is going to take a substantial improvement at both ends of the pitch if this sorry sequence of draws and defeats is going to come to an end.

Sunday’s night mission against the Portuguese in Lisbon has danger written all over it and Gilmour conceded that this run of form couldn’t go on.

“When you say it like that, it’s a tough one, isn’t it?” was how he reflected on 12 months without a meaningful win. “We need to be better. We will be better. We showed in the qualifying stage last year to get to the Euros how good we can be, competing against Spain. We need to get back to our best and I'm sure we'll show that against Portugal.”

In truth, this was a solid enough performance marred by occasional moments of madness, most notably the penalties conceded in either half by first Anthony Ralston and then, deep into injury time, Grant Hanley.

“There were a couple of mistakes that led to the goals but we'll look back at that as a team where we could have been better,” added Gilmour. “At the end of the day we all played and never did well enough to win the game after going 2-0 down in the first half.”

A first Hampden goal early in the second half looked to have created the platform for a stirring comeback when Scott McTominay equalised but, given how the match finished, it gave Gilmour little satisfaction.

“I think when I score but we get beat it's maybe not the best thing to think about too much,” he admitted. “I'm happy with the goal but ultimately the result is the most important.”

ends