Andy Robertson delivered a damning assessment of Scotland’s 2-1 Nations League defeat by Slovenia at Hampden Park, saying the team were “outfought” and “not good enough.”
Scotland had won in North Macedonia on Saturday and were favourites to back that up with another victory at Hampden Park. They led at half-time through Ryan Christie’s close-range backheel, but were alarmingly open defensively. Second-half goals from Danijel Sturm and Aljosa Matko turned the game on its head.
“Not good enough,” Robertson told BBC Sport Scotland. “The whole team. We didn’t do the good things we did on Saturday, I don’t know what that’s down to. They caused us a lot of problems and we have to find the reasons why.”
Robertson said Scotland had wanted to build on Saturday’s win, which had created a positive feeling about what the team were doing and where they were going. He suggested tiredness may have been a factor after a long camp, but noted Slovenia had played the same number of games and looked “a lot fresher, more hungry.” He added: “As Scotland, we might lack quality or make mistakes, but I don’t think people accept being outfought. I think that’s what happened tonight.”
Manager Sebastien Pocognoli echoed his captain’s assessment. “We didn’t deserve to get the win, that’s the reality,” he said. “On the ball we were not clever enough. We were far from strong enough in the duels. The reality is each game teaches us some information. We will try to go through the process we want and learn from this one and do better in the next one.”
Pocognoli took over as Steve Clarke’s successor in August. The Belgian was clear he would try to take Scotland in a new direction, promising a more aggressive, more attacking style and calling up several new faces. Josh McPake made his debut against Slovenia, following Stephen Welsh, Robbie Ure, Luis Binks and Luke Graham in the three previous fixtures.
Scotland should have won in Slovenia in Pocognoli’s first match in charge, which ended in a goalless draw, before Jack Hendry’s early red card hamstrung them in a 3-0 home defeat by Switzerland. The win over North Macedonia was convincing and delivered a dose of optimism, but that has been severely dented. Former Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday believes Pocognoli’s honeymoon period is over already.
“I thought coming into this camp, Pocognoli would probably need a period of grace,” Halliday said on Sportsound. “I think that period of grace is now over. That was as poor a Scotland performance as I can remember for a while against an opposition you are expecting us to go and beat.”
Slovenia repeatedly got in behind Scotland’s high defensive line. Former national team captain Willie Miller is unsure whether Pocognoli will stick with his back three. “This is Pocognoli’s preferred system and he’s had time to work with the system, it was just all over the place,” Miller said on Sportsound. “Time and time again there were huge gaps appearing and Slovenia were taking advantage. Our situation is we’ve got a new manager in, he’s got a preferred system, what does he do? Does he just bin it? Are we back to a back four? His preferred system is a back three, but it was unbelievably poor.”