Please, try again later
We have seen with Astana that Kazakhstan have some decent footballers and they recently beat Moldova and held Latvia twice and Andorra in the Nations Cup. They beat Azerbaijan and Hungary in friendlies last summer so they will not be bullied on their own patch. The Scots are not great away from home and I am backing a BTTS Score Draw in this qualifier.
The appetite for international football has very much been waining in Scotland for quite a few years now with their last qualification for a major tournament being the French 1998 World Cup. Many managers with impressive CVs have tried and failed to bring glory back to Scotland and now Alex McLeish faces the task. The appointment of ‘Big Eck’ wasn’t exactly welcomed by the masses and he has struggled to change those opinions since.
After ten matches in charge, Scotland have won four of those games. Crucially three of these came in the UEFA Nations League, seeing them get promoted from League C to B and guaranteeing them a play-off place for the European Championships. Therefore even if they crash out of Group I, they still have a chance to qualify. The prize is too great to be complacent over though and with a rather favourable set of opponents ahead of them, they should be targeting 2nd spot and automatic qualification.
They have definitely been impressive going forward in recent games with eleven goals scored in their last five games. However, they have done this by sacrificing much of their defensive resoluteness as they have kept just three clean sheets under McLeish with their four goals conceded against 92nd placed Israel (3-2, 1-2) being a particular disappointment in their Nations League campaign.
Scotland have a lot of exciting talent called up to the most recent squad and this should be enough to win the game, especially with them winning their last two, scoring three against a much higher ranked side than Kazakhstan. Andy Robertson, James Forrest and Ryan Fraser make up some of the more exciting players to watch but also Marc McNulty who has been handed his first welcome to the national side following his good form at Hibs.