GORDON Strachan will use the Celtic contingent in his Scotland squad in the same way his legendary predecessor Jock Stein utilised players from the great Liverpool sides of the 1970s and 1980s in the Russia 2018 qualifier against Lithuania tonight.
Strachan is set to play all six members of Brendan Rodgers’s team – Stuart Armstrong, Scott Brown, James Forrest, Craig Gordon, Leigh Griffiths and Kieran Tierney – in the Group F match in the LFF Stadium in Vilnius again this evening and believes the experience that sextet have gained with the Parkhead club both domestically and in the Champions League in the past two seasons will prove invaluable in a game which is of a huge importance to his side’s chances of reaching the World Cup.
The 60-year-old recalled how Stein tapped into the expertise of the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen, Steve Nicol, Graeme Souness and John Wark when the Anfield club were dominating both English and European football.
“What you have got to do is use the experience of the players that are there, like the boys in the Celtic team,” he said. “They have played in games like this so you use their experience. I am sure Jock Stein used all the Liverpool boys’ experience in that way when they were winning things. I am no different.”
Strachan revealed that Griffiths, who scored two late free-kicks against England in the 2-2 draw at Hampden in June, and his Celtic team-mates are in a positive frame of mind entering this match as a consequence of their success at club level.
He said: “Griffiths is like that, but the Celtic players as a whole are like that. Andy [Robertson] will probably be feeling like that after signing for Liverpool. There are one or two feeling good about themselves.”
Meanwhile, Strachan, whose side is in fourth place in their section with four games remaining, has denied Scotland must win their game against Edgaras Jankauskas’s team if they hope to make it to the World Cup next summer. He feels that a draw could be good enough to secure a play-off spot – if his team then go on and triumph in their remaining fixtures against Malta at home on Monday and then Slovakia at home and Slovenia away next month.
“You don’t just have to win the game,” he said. “If you get a point and you win the next three games then that is 10 points.
“You couldn’t tell me 10 points couldn’t do it. It could be. That is why it isn’t a ‘must-win’. We are going to try and play like it is a must-win, but play it in a way where we don’t try and win it by being silly and then losing it.”
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