Scotland 2 v 2 Poland

Before I go any further, if anyone and I mean ANYONE quotes bad luck I will remove their comments.

Yes Ireland were fortunate to win and it wasn't expected but that does not mean we have bad luck, you make your own luck and ultimately we only have ourselves to blame with some baffling defending and decision making from players and the manager.

I'll start with that ridiculous first goal, Strachan, Whittaker, Martin and Marshall all at fault for me. Now the reason Strachan is at fault is he puts in Whittaker and by doing so, you put a right footed player at left back which leads to him having to come inside a lot on to his right foot, this led to him running inside and losing possession and Poland broke, next we have Martin doing something I still can't get my head round, he runs the opposite direction from Lewandowski this allows lewandowski to get in on goal and then Marshall once more lets in an easy goal at his near post.

After this we didn't exactly play well, one bit of magic from Forrest and one incredible strike from Ritchie got us back into the game, it wasn't deserved but our second was and it was a terrific finish from Fletcher, I thought he had a decent game in fairness.

Now comes the calamitous defending for the goal that's knocked us out, Ritchie doesn't need to foul the guy but he barges right into him, it looked a tired and lazy challenge, then the ball comes in low and Hanley somehow manages to let it hit his hand and head towards our goal and then Marshall INEXPLICABLY thinks it's going wide at first and by the time he realises it's not he's too late and then the lack of reaction from our players meant Lewandowski could slide in to end our Euro 2016 hopes.

What started as a decent campaign has been left in ruins and the blame lies firmly at the door of the manager, 2 points picked up from our last 12 and I'm sure it will be 5 from our last 15 come Sunday night, that's just not good enough.

Another tournament has passed us by and this one must hurt the most in my view as we had a genuine chance to get to France.

Ratings:

Marshall - 5

Hutton - 4
Martin - 6
Hanley - 5
Whittaker - 5

Brown - 7
Fletcher - 6

Forrest - 7
Naismith - 7
Ritchie - 8

Fletcher - 7

Hurry up club football

NNH