Scotland's youngsters follow bad example

Gareth Williams believes his country's youngsters have already proved themselves to be a typical Scotland side – nearly men who play well but cannot win.

The history of Scottish football is littered with teams which had top players but underachieved on the big stage. Sides with Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness in the starting line-up would reach World Cup finals but fail to progress by managing to lose to the likes of Peru and Costa Rica.

The Nottingham Forest midfielder fears the Under-21 side is already following in their footsteps by spurning no fewer than 16 chances in Tuesday's 2-1 defeat here in Lithuania, with Kevin Kyle's second-minute strike somehow the only opportunity to be converted.

"It just seems to be the case with Scotland," he said. "Over the years, I watched as a boy and saw how unlucky we had been.

"We are always the 'so nearly' team and I'm experiencing it as a player now. Sometimes as a player you think there is a curse on us, even for the young boys.

"The chances we had – Kevin had a couple and so did Shaun Maloney. One he had I had already started walking back to the halfway line because I thought it was a cert."

The defeat ended Scotland's 100 per cent record in the European Championship Group 5 qualifiers following home and away victories over Iceland.

Now it gets tougher for Rainer Bonhof's side to end the campaign on top as they have to play Germany twice, with the first match in June at Kilmarnock.

Williams said: "I think for the time being it hurts quite a lot but I suppose at the end of the day we still have the same task on our hands. We still have to beat Germany at home and see where that leaves us after they go to Iceland.

"We might have to beat them away. We should have got the three points here but we are still really confident. We have got a fantastic squad and feel we can go and do the business against Germany.

"Fingers crossed, we will go and do that."

Williams was also unhappy with the referee Jari Maisonlahti after so many decisions went against the Scots at Zalgiris stadium. The most significant was the disallowing of his own strike in the 72nd minute, with the score at 1-1, for reasons still unclear.

Williams, who revealed the referee had first claimed it was offside and then changed his mind to 'foot up,' said: "The goals have been, dare I say, flying in for Forest recently so it would have been nice to cap it all with a goal at international level.

"It would perhaps send a message to the manager as it is a part of my game I need to improve on and I'm going the right way about it."

Kyle may have scored Scotland's only goal but the lack of regular action at Sunderland showed when he missed two sitters and he held his hands up afterwards. He said: "When you are not playing every week it is hard to get thrown in there.

"I'm disappointed. I've scored a goal but I have missed two good chances to put the game out of reach. We have got three games left and the boys are confident we can get the points to qualify."