No doubt sickened after what the Daily Record called 'the ultimate kick in the bollocks' on Thursday night, Gordon Strachan told the Scottish media that his boys had been desperately unlucky in their Group D campaign.
He cited as evidence the fact that neither Poland or Ireland had beaten Scotland. This is factually correct and many agreed that the Scots were unlucky in this group.
Given that it was a tough old time for Gordon, Martin O'Neill might have let it go. But then he himself is probably chastened after Ireland's big letdown in Warsaw.
I heard they're out and us and Poland hadn't beaten them. But then we've taken four points off the world champions. Scotland didn't do that. So I think we should put it into perspective.
In the Scottish press, most of the commentary has focused on Strachan's future and rued Scotland's failure to get something in Tbilisi. The Scottish Guardian columnist Ewan Murray did note that Ireland had been 'spectacularly unimpressive' in the two games against Scotland, but the bulk of his column centred on Scotland's failures.
While the Daily Record's Keith Jackson, who was (rightly) bullish about Scotland's prospects of beating Ireland in Glasgow (enough to make a bet with an Irish fan) remarked that Ireland had taken four points off Germany and deserved to go through on that alone.
