Sir Kenny Dalglish: Serbia will be a tough nut to crack… but we can do it

It wasn’t a great spectacle. It wasn’t overly pretty on the eye. But the job got done. Scotland are through to the Euro 2020 Play-Off Final away to Serbia.

For that, we are grateful to Steve Clarke and his players for holding their nerve to win the penalty shoot-out against Israel at Hampden Park on Thursday night.

Also, we shouldn’t overlook the contribution of previous gaffer, Alex McLeish and his staff, for guiding the team to the semi, after he led the nation to the top of their Nations League last year.

We know we face an extremely tough challenge on November 12 in Serbia. They defeated Norway away from home, also on Thursday evening. That shows they have quality and pedigree.

They are a force, let’s be honest. With the likes of Aleksander Mitrovic, Dusan Tadic and Sergei Milinkovic-Savic in their team, they cannot ne underestimated.

The Scotland players, to a man, will need to turn in their best-ever performance under Steve to win this Play-Off Final.

But that shouldn’t scare us.

Listen, at this stage, the quality of opposition is what it is. We can do nothing about it.

But even if we were playing the lowest-ranked country in the world, we wouldn’t make it easy. That’s just the way it is with Scotland. We all know that by now.

However, let’s get behind Steve and the team. His players kept their cool by slotting away their five penalty-kicks. David Marshall pulled off a great save to deny Israel’s opening spot-kick.

We got a clean sheet. It’s another game without defeat.

We now roll into today’s game and it’s back to Nations League duty at home to Slovakia. We have four points from our opening two games and aim to make that seven.

It’s important to stay focused on the next two games – we host the Czech Republic on Wednesday. However, we know everybody in the country will be thinking about the Serbia game.

It’s impossible to know what state of affairs everything will be in by then in terms of Covid-19, but I can only hope Steve has a smoother lead-in to the game than he had last week against Israel.

To lose three players 24 hours before kick off to Covid-19 rules and regulations must have been sore to take, particularly when two of them would have been more than likely to start.

It was a disruption he didn’t need. But he, his staff and the players got on with it. They are to be commended for that.

We are now just 90 minutes away from qualification for a major tournament for the first time in 22 years. I think we can do it. Let’s go for it.