Tom English’s extends his Jambo love-in to blanker Shankland

It seems that Tom English had his ‘thought piece’ tucked away in draft before watching Scotland get hammered 4-0 by Holland.

There wasn’t any silver lining. Scotland gave it their best but a variety of players passed up decent chances, when Holland moved up a gear in the last 20 minutes they exposed the limitations in Steve Clarke’s squad.

Beyond John McGinn, Scott McTominay, Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson Clarke is selecting Championship level players.

Rather than own up to the reality of a worrying performance for Scotland fans English put his name to an incredible tribute to Lawrence Shankland, using the same sort of Mills & Boon prose that he offered up to any idea from Ann Budge when she was in charge of Hearts.

Shankland was out of his depth, no harm in that, a Hearts striker up against a defence that included Virgil van Dijk and Jeremie Frimpong isn’t going to get much of a look in.

That sort of reality never occurred to English who offered the following on the BBC Scotland website:

Just after the hour mark, before the Dutch deluge washed Scotland away, Lawrence Shankland was finally presented with an opportunity to show his undeniable strengths.

The Hearts captain had spent his night doing the very things that some thought were potential weaknesses – working the channels, holding the line, bringing others into the game.

Then the Dutch got themselves into a desperate muddle at the back. Scott McTominay ransacked them in their own penalty area and, suddenly, Shankland was one-on-one with Mark Flekken.

In that moment you’d have bet the house on the most prolific finisher in the Scottish Premiership to execute.

He stood up Flekken and picked his spot, which happened to be the face of the crossbar. You almost did a double take. Shankland scores in his sleep from that position.

All season you could have blindfolded him, spun him around three times and still he would have put away that chance. Different stage, though. Different planet.

That was a black mark against his name for sure. He had to score. Just had to. And it was a shame because he’d worked efficiently to that point, a surprise selection to start the game but one who was fitting in.

His one-touch lay-offs to team-mates were precisely the kind of thing that Che Adams does. His presence up top was not as physically powerful as Lyndon Dykes but he was performing the nuts and bolts in his own quiet way.

This was a different type of night for him, a night of subtleties, a night of being part of a team rather than being the focal point, the main man, the goal machine.

Shankland had to show his manager that this team can still function as his manager wants it to with him at the heart of the attack. And he did that.

That sort of content sounds like the thinking of an egg-chaser without a clue about the round ball game, which is a perfect description for the Chief Sports Writer with the state broadcaster.

Last weekend English was networking at the Ireland v Scotland Six Nations match in Dublin but it is believed that there is still no demand for his skill-set in the commercial sector.

The really interesting thing to take from this email, is the collaboration in fabricating a narrative to get a point across.
It’s all staged.

“Tom English has said he’ll have a pop at Paul Murray… Scotsman used his comments on the back page with our responses ie. irrelevant.” pic.twitter.com/UQz9KDfDZQ

— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) August 20, 2019