oh dear....

It's probably a fair reflection on how yesterday panned out for me vis-a-vis the football (worked late so missed the first half, had to sit outside in the freezing cold in a pub's smoking area to watch while drinking out a plastic glass) that the post I wrote on the train to work (WHICH WAS 45 MINS LATE!!!) was based on a false premise...... and also failed to appear.

oh dear.

here it is in it's full glory anyway:

CHRISTIAN DAILLY: AN APPRECIATION

Christian Dailly is what Scottish football is all about. He is an honest, talented, hard working, adaptable player who is absolutely committed to winning.

We know that he's one of us, who'd be in the North Stand at Hampden if not on the pitch. No-one can doubt the commitment of a man who is vocally disappointed about being beaten away from home by Germany with only ten men, an off-field performance which merited an unsuccessful campaign to get him on the shortlist for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. I love Nigel Quashie and Jay McEveley as much as the next Scotland fan, who can doubt big Nigel's commitment to winning, but there is a real affinity between Christian Dailly and the Tartan Army.

He has 17 years of international experience with Scotland, and has played regularly at both centre half and right back. But it's his technical and tactical awareness has made him the choice of three Scotland managers to take on specific tactical duties in key games.

Craig Brown may have looked as though he was playing him out of position as a left back against Brazil in Paris in 1998, but the effectiveness of Brown's tactics were such that we were only denied a draw by a painful Tom Boyd OG. On Saturday Alex McLeish brought him on later in the game as a holding midfield player to provide an additional line of defence against the Ukrainian forwards' penchant for dropping of the line to take the ball 30-40 yards out. I'm sure I'm not alone amongst Scotland fans to be nervous about tonight's game. I'm a realist, not a defeatist and so I know we're still not favourites to qualify from Group B. What I do know is that if we had 11 Christian Daillys on the pitch in Tbilisi tonight I know we'd have all the guts, drive and determination we need to do our best.

postscript:

Alex McLeish changed his mind before kick-off and played Shaun Maloney wide on the left as opposed to Dailly as a deep midfielder. Scotland were beaten 2:0).