CHARLIE Mulgrew has asked the Tartan Army to judge them on tonight’s Uefa Nations League opener against Belgium rather than Friday night’s friendly defeat against Belgium - but insisted this new expansive brand of football is here to stay. Mulgrew was one of a number in Scotland colours guilty of gifting Belgium glaring opportunities on Friday night, but he reckons that we do have the personnel to play Alex McLeish’s new 3-5-1-1 shape and is determined that it will be a different story tonight at Hampden.

“Friday night was always going to be a difficult game,” said the Blackburn sweeper. “We started well even if they had a lot of the ball. But against the third best team in the world that is always going to be the case.

“The main thing for us was to get a way of playing with the Albania game in mind,” he added. “There’s a certain way we want to play and against better opponents a few wee frailities cost us but we have to take the positives and make it right when it matters most against Albania.

“We have the personnel to play three at the back and everyone knows their role. It’s about working hard in training to make it better. If anyone is going to exploit mistakes in a new system then it was going to be Belgium. The big game is Monday. We tried to play how we will play against Albania against Belgium which proved difficult to do. But we are all looking forward to the game and know what we have to do.”

The bald statistics show four defeats from five under McLeish, with just one goal scored, but Mulgrew believes that doesn’t tell the whole story. “If you look back at the games, they were all difficult,” he said. “The two summer games were tough because we never really had a full squad. Against really good teams who were on their home patch and preparing to go to the World Cup then it’s difficult. It matters on Monday and we’ll be judged then.”