Scotland winger James Forrest has experienced the ultimate swing from high to low in his last two national team outings.
Forrest was part of the Scots’ side which went down 3-0 against Kazakhstan on Thursday, getting the Euro 2020 qualifying group campaign off to the worst possible start.
It was Scotland’s first outing since Forrest’s hat-trick helped them to a 3-2 victory over Israel in November, in a victory which saw Alex McLeish’s side win their Nations League group and guarantee a European Championship play-off place should they fall short in their qualifying group.
Forrest was at a loss to explain the disparity between the displays, and he said: “The last camp was probably the best time I’d had ever being away with Scotland – there was a real feel good factor and now we’ve had this terrible night and we have to pick ourselves up.
“It couldn’t have gone worse with it being the first game of the campaign, it’s really disappointing. We have to try and lift ourselves and take three points forward against San Marino on Sunday.
“Obviously, after the last camp we topped the group in the last couple of games and got there and it proves we’ve got the players. We’ve just got to show it more on the park.
“We didn’t do that against Kazakhstan but hopefully we can redeem ourselves on Sunday and then we’ve got two games in the summer to kick start what we didn’t on Thursday.”
Thursday was Forrest’s third trip to Kazakhstan’s national stadium, having twice failed to get the better of FC Astana away from home on Champions League duty with Celtic, albeit the Hoops progressed on aggregate on both occasions.
Forrest, who was Scotland’s oldest starting player against the Kazakhs at 27 years and eight months, added: “I’ve been here a couple of times with Celtic so I knew what I was going into. A lot of people won’t know their players, but they are still a good team.
“It felt similar to that time we were 4-1 down – they scored and grew in confidence and we were sloppy in possession and just never really got going. We can talk but everyone was here and felt good and were working on things, but we just never got going.
“We were all right for the first few minutes but it meant nothing after they scored and then scored again not long after the first one. From there, they grew in confidence and we didn’t get started at all.”
