[0762]

Re Griffiths being played from the start, as said previously I'm convinced that his injury recovery was paramount in the way that Strachan has used him. I watched that woeful header by Steven Fletch again, IMO one of the best scoring opps of the night from a good 'through ball/pass' from his namesake but a header from that distance was not the required action and I know that Sparky would not have done it that way either. That incident was 'sore' to watch. There were good periods of this game where I thought Scotland played fairly well but IMO the two main game changing players were in the Slovakian team - Hamsik and Mak made a huge difference to their game plan and these players are multi-million pound top players who play for Napoli and Zenet SP respectively. I wish we had players of that quality because it would definitely make a difference and a positive one at that!
When Slovenia played Slovakia on Saturday, their manager assigned a 'man marker' on Hamsik who was totally ineffective during the match. He showed some respect to their threats, dealt with them and won the match. Strachan concerns me when it comes to 'thinking out the box' and basically tackling these kinda threats. It's a SAF mentality and I don't think the manager has that attribute.