Alex McLeish has explained his decision to leave James Forrest out of the Scotland side that laboured to a 2-0 win over San Marino.
In October Forrest was named as a substitute away to Israel after scoring four times against St Johnstone before responding with five goals in two matches the following month to book Scotland’s place in the Nations League play-offs.
Needing pace and a goal threat to break down the worst team in international football McLeish decided to drop Forrest for the San Marino match with Ryan Fraser and Callum Paterson brought in.
Eventually after 71 minutes the Celtic forward replaced Stuart Armstrong taking just three minutes to provide the assist for Jonny Russell to score Scotland’s decisive second goal.
“We made a lot of changes, fresh players coming in,” McLeish told The Sun. “James has played a lot of football I explained to him he’s an integral part of the team and the squad.
“I know he wanted to play, everyone wanted to play, but I said I was going to change the team regardless. There was nothing frightening about that.”
Yesterday’s 2-0 win over San Marino did nothing to halt the criticism of McLeish with the result following soon after Kazakhstan fell to a 4-0 defeat at home to Russia.
With no more internationals until June the SFA are unlikely to take any action about McLeish despite some polls showing over 90% of fans wanting the manager sacked.
