Tony Docherty is determined to get off to a positive start and build a winning mentality as he begins his Scotland Under-21s tenure on familiar ground.
Head coach Docherty and assistant Steven Naismith return to Rugby Park on Wednesday as their team take on Azerbaijan in the UEFA Under-21 Championship qualifiers.
Docherty has succeeded Scot Gemmill with two games left of the campaign and will be hoping for Bulgaria to take something against Czechia beforehand to maintain hopes of finishing second in the group.
The former Dundee and Ross County manager said: “It’s eight games into this campaign and there’s two games to go. So there is a chance, a slim chance, of qualification. You need to obviously win your two games and hope that Czechia slip up.
“So you’re all out to try and win the two matches that you can because it also impinges on pot three and pot four for your next campaign, that you would be starting if you weren’t successful in qualifying here.
“So you need to take all of that into consideration that, yes, you want to blood new young ones but you also want to give players the opportunity that started this campaign to finish it off.
“And the biggest thing for me, coming into this under-21 role, yes it’s very much about developing young players and you can see now there’s seven eligible that went into the A squad which is fantastic, but it’s also about winning football matches.
“And that would be key for me. Trying to combine both issues, to promote young players but also to win football matches and try and qualify for campaigns.”
The former Kilmarnock assistant manager is delighted to be making his debut at Rugby Park alongside former Killie favourite Naismith.
“I’m delighted that Rugby Park is now back to grass and I’m really looking forward to getting down there,” he said.
“And hopefully, Seb (Pocognoli) alluded to his playing style and how the 21s will mirror that playing style, and it will be an attractive style of football.
“It’s something that myself and Naisy are very big on. Hopefully we’ll get a good crowd and hopefully we’ll get a good atmosphere for that one.
“It’s a game that we’ll be all out to win. But we’ll be all out to play an attacking style of football that is attractive to watch and pleasing on the eye.”
