As the dust settles on the latest international break, the Scotland manager Steve Clarke was right to declare himself happy with what his team had achieved.
The one main objective was to win in Cyprus and strengthen our bid to reach the Euro 2024 finals in Germany, and the Scots did that in impressive and convincing fashion.
The game against England to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the sides’ first meeting was nothing more than a glorified friendly. Yes, it would have been nice to win, to put on a good performance, but in the grand scale of things, the 90 minutes at Hampden was largely irrelevant.
What it did show was, when one of the best teams in Europe hits top form – as the English absolutely did – we are still some way short, and it was a reminder that, despite the incredible run the Scots are on in competitive matches, significant improvement will still be required if we are to genuinely compete at the top level.
We did that against Spain earlier in the campaign when they were a little off, missed a couple of chances, and allowed us to do what we do best. The players capitalised in a way that evening England never allowed us to do on Tuesday night.
A few days prior to that, the team sparkled in Larnaca, and the first 45 minutes was as good as anything I have seen from Scotland in years.
There were no failures in the side and the performances of John McGinn and Scott McTominay were absolutely outstanding.
The Scots took the foot off the gas after the interval, but had earned the right to do so, and they played out the game comfortably to rack up a fifth successive win in the group.
It was also an 11th straight victory in qualifying matches, following on from the conclusion to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, and those statistics have seen us surge back up the Fifa world rankings.
It is an unprecedented sequence, and a clear indication of the improvement Clarke has overseen in the last couple of years.
In the process, he has made the country fall in love with the national team again, and I have no doubt he will build on that by leading us to the Euros finals in Germany next summer.
It would take a catastrophic collapse for us to miss out.
Not only would we have to lose our three remaining qualifiers, Norway would also have to win all theirs – including their home encounter with Spain next month, and that is not going to happen.
If the worst case scenario does unfold, and we are beaten twice while they win, it would certainly set up a nail-biting climax at Hampden against the Norwegians on November 19th. But I would absolutely hope it has all been tied-up before then!
Next up for the Scots is a trip to Seville, and you can be guaranteed the Spanish will be up for that one.
They were hurt by the loss in Glasgow, as was evidenced by Rodri’s after match comments, and will be determined to make amends.
They have responded since, and banged in 13 goals in this month’s double-header, so it might be a stretch to imagine we can get something across there, but with this Scotland team, you never know.
Have Aberdeen found spark during break to take much-needed points at Hearts?
Aberdeen face a massive game at Tynecastle on Saturday afternoon.
Even this early in the season, given the respective positions of the two sides, the meeting with Hearts has the feel of a pivotal fixture for both, and I do not imagine it will be a place for the faint-hearted.
The match is the start of a busy, and demanding, run for Barry Robson and his team, and leaving the capital with the points would be a massive boost.
To do so, despite the hosts’ poor form, it is still going to take a much-improved performance from what the Dons have so far produced, and it will be interesting to see if they have found something during the break to ignite the spark which has largely been missing since the campaign kicked-off.
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