Scotland's stand-in skipper John McGinn has urged his men to avenge the Aviva horror show in Dublin by beating the Republic of Ireland at Hampden tonight to take the country closer to Nations League glory.
Midfielder McGinn will enter the Scotland Hall of Fame by earning his 50th cap and will wear the armband in place of injured Andy Robertson but he is more concerned with building on Wednesday’s fabulous win over Ukraine and righting the wrongs of June’s 3-0 defeat to the Irish at the Aviva Stadium.
He said: “That night certainly hurts. A lot of the summer games hurt us and probably put a little bit more doubt in the back of our heads and the back of everyone’s heads about where we were progressing. That night in Ireland epitomised everything that was going wrong in the summer so we certainly have to try and avenge that on Saturday.”
McGinn revealed that Scotland boss Steve Clarke had a heart to heart with his squad at their Edinburgh base within hours of meeting up on Sunday, in a bid to draw a line under the summer disappointment.
The Aston Villa star said: “The manager was first class on Sunday night. He got us in, even though the (Ukraine) game was Wednesday. He showed us clips from the summer and said ‘why have we got away from doing x, y and z?’ Which was right.
“The things that had made us brilliant as a team, the thing that got us to the Euros, the thing that got us to second in the World Cup group was first and foremost being horrible to beat, winning every second ball.
“It’s not a case of just turning up just because we beat Ukraine at home. We’re aware of that. We need to put in the same performance as the other night and play the complete opposite way to how we did in Dublin.”
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