Caledonian Craig

Neither was Don Hutchison but I bet they all forgot that when he scored against England.

I think Scotland fans should watch the Portugal V Luxembourg match for what can and does happen now in international football. The European Champions are 1-0 up in Luxembourg but sweating on the result. Proof that there are far fewer easy games now in international football.

Oh don't get me wrong. We have big issues that need addressing but where are the answers? Central defence is an issue and many players and partnerships have been tried to no avail. All options exhausted. The same could be said about right-back too. Up front we are so weak it is untrue. We have no international class strikers at present. Perhaps the best we have at present is Leigh Griffiths and he is unavailable. And again there are no other options on the horizon either.

Perhaps. But Serbia only laboured to a 3-2 win at home to Luxembourg a few days ago.

Ukraine have equalised though and Portugal now lead 1-0 at half-time.

I'd agree with all of that except about should be closer to Russia. All evidence points to Russia being far superior to us going by their strong showing in the last World Cup and in this campaign plus looking at how much higher Russia are in rankings to us plus looking at domestic level where their clubs do better in Europe. All points to them having a much stronger infrastructure.

Lets be honest - Belgium and Russia are on a different level to us altogether so it should be no surprise we finished third (or should I say look like finishing third). It just demonstrates where we are at present. Whereas Belgium and Russia are possibly at an all-time high team-wise, results-wise, standings-wise and confidence-wise we are at the other end of the spectrum at all-time low. Hence we have got nowhere near them in this group.

Precisely. Start throwing 'what if's' into matches is daft. Once you start changing one outcome then everything else thereafter gets altered as the whole match pattern has been altered. We had a defence yesterday with less than 20 caps between them. People can say they expect more but then say we are shite? Sorry that is contradiction big time. We are like a punch drunk boxer been taking knockout blows for too long. Thrashed twice by Russia, three times by Belgium and once by Kazakhstan. Those results impact confidence and team morale and self-belief big time. I question anybody to put on a stellar performance in those conditions AND when you have a number of your best players unavailable. I do not care who you are in the sporting world - big defeats and long losing runs impact you mentally and hampers you from performing to a great standard. Also we have had no stability in the team selections due to injuries and poor form which also impacts on things. Key thing is we won. Think back to us in 1989 when we qualified for tournaments - we only beat Cyprus in the 98th minute with a winner that saw us win 3-2.

Don't get me wrong - we should be doing better BUT currently we are like a punch drunk boxer. We have taken a lot of hammerings lately - soul destroying and confidence sapping defeats against not only Belgium, Russia but minnows Kazakhstan too. We need to clear our heads and build again and wins like these will help to put some confidence back into the side and we may then be able to build momentum and reach those higher expectations.

Our defence was very inexperienced - less than 20 caps between the back four at international level. We, by our own fans opinion, are about the weakest we have ever been. We were missing several key players who would definitely have started today. But we won 2-1. Really not sure what fans were expecting today considering how low the confidence is in the squad and how many call-offs there were.

Far more inspiring than 3-0 defeat in Kazakhstan and hammerings against Belgium and Russia though.

A desperately needed win that. Lots still to work on but would rather play average and win than play well and lose.

We are where we are - our standard is very low just now. Confidence is low too. However, a scrappy win here helps on the confidence front and could help raise those low standards in the very long term as a result.

Some people here need a reality check. We are about as weak as we ever have been but winning away from home against Cyprus without many key players to boot. I'd love to know that equates to people severely criticising us.

Who said that?

Fair dos. Cracking goal that.

Welcome to the real world. The heady days of the 70s, 80s and 90s are long gone.

I agree with much of that. The most important thing to do is the result - to build confidence and go towards securing third in the group to protect our ranking.

Can't complain about that. First and foremost get the result and continue to rebuild confidence. Remember this is a different looking Scotland team what with Taylor, Palmer and Gallagher in the defence and Jack in midfield.

So looking at those two results and just presuming you played it the Westminster way then over the two results two parties backing independence (SNP and Greens) took 51% of the vote share. Majority backing independence.

I'd say if the SNP get 40+ seats it will have been a fair election. 45 - 49 seats a good election and 50 or over a superb election.

That just beggars the question of why does the Brexit Party exist? Obviously, they were set up as a means to ensure/force a No Deal and complete exit from the EU. Since Boris' deal is certainly neither of them and Brexit Party refuse to stand in Tory held constituencies then they are totally going against their reason for being. Unless, of course, they know or have been told something by the Tories that we haven't yet. I mean, a thought here, Boris' deal has virtually been flung on the rubbish tip so what happens if (as looks a good possibility) the Tories win a majority and try to push through a new No Deal Brexit?

A bit young I know but Mhairi Black would suit a leader's role. She commands respect and is passionate about Scotland and independence and is sharp as a tack.

I suppose it is something akin to some Scotland fans who feel they must hate England. It gives them some sort of false sense it makes them even more of a supporter. Like they have a perceived idea of what is a must for them.

My guess is the Tories will be desperate for his seat seeing as he is the leader of the SNP at Westminster. They plotted successfully to unship Angus Robertson so will try again here and will try to find the best candidate to stand against him.