Three days on from their embarrassing defeat at home to Iceland, Scotland travel to Rheinpark Stadion to take on minnows Liechtenstein in their final friendly before their upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
In their first match since relegation to League B in the Nations League, Scotland were comfortably beaten 1-3 at home to Iceland at Hampden on Friday night on an evening where two of my selections cruised in before halftime.
That was yet another poor performance from Steve Clarke’s Scotland side, which has become a recurring theme over the last couple of years.
Scotland will face Greece – who relegated them to League B in the Nations League in March – as well as Denmark and Belarus in their World Cup qualifying campaign, which begins in September and will look to get some sort of momentum in Vaduz on Monday.
Liechtenstein were also in action on Friday night, and they too were beaten, as they lost 3-0 in Cardiff against Wales in a World Cup qualifier.
Prior to that Welsh loss, Konrad Funfstuck’s hosts had also lost their opening two qualifiers at home to North Macedonia and Kazakhstan, meaning they have yet to score in qualifying, shipping eight goals.
How the bookies view it: Scotland favourites
Unsurprisingly, Scotland are short-priced favourites to win in Vaduz, with BoyleSports pricing them up at just /.
A shock Liechtenstein victory is priced at / with the same firm, whilst the draw is /.
Head to head: Three in a row for Scotland?
Scotland won both meetings with Liechtenstein when they last met in qualification for Euro 2012, scraping 2-1 and 0-1 victories against the minnows.
Players to watch: McFratm to bag again?
Scott McTominay is off the back of a historic season in which he won the Scudetto with Napoli and is generally Scotland’s best bet for goal.
Captain Nicolas Hasler is Liechtenstein’s best player, with the Vaduz man scoring seven goals across his 102 caps for his country.
Predicted line-ups:
Kenny Kindle and William Pizzi both came off the bench at halftime in Liechtenstein’s loss at Wales on Friday night and may come in from the start here.
Steve Clarke will have a selection dilemma in goal following on from Angus Gunn’s early injury on Friday night and Robbie McCrorie getting injured in the warm-up, whilst substitute goalkeeper Cieran Slicker had a horrendous debut, meaning Ross Doohan may come in from the start.
Liechtenstein: Buchel, Traber, Wieser, Hofer, Kindle, Luchinger, Hasler, Sele, Goppel, Saglam, Notaro
Scotland: Doohan, Johnston, Souttar, Hanley, Tierney, Robertson, Gilmour, Miller, McGinn, McTominay, Adams
Anything else catch the eye?
Scotland were embarrassed by Iceland at Hampden on Friday, but it would be ten times worse if they failed to topple Liechtenstein on Monday.
As bad as Scotland were defensively, it would be a surprise if they failed to keep a clean sheet against a Liechtenstein side that has failed to score in 18 of their previous 23 internationals.
Scotland won 0-2 away to Gibraltar last year in a friendly – and given Liechtenstein’s three defeats in World Cup qualifying have all seen fewer than four goals – a Scotland win & Under 3.5 Goals seems a solid selection.
*Will update once markets have been released
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