Ryan Christie reveals smarting Scotland's dressing room mantra

“A few of the boys said, ‘It’s time we won a game again’,” recalled Bournemouth midfielder Ryan Christie yesterday as he looked back on the painful defeat to the Dutch in Amsterdam and ahead to the important friendly with Northern Ireland at Hampden tomorrow evening.

Christie, like so many who donned a dark blue jersey in the opening Euro 2024 warm-up match, performed brightly against Ronald Koemann’s side.

However, the former Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Aberdeen and Celtic player, who was deployed in an advanced role alongside John McGinn, was unable to convert any of the scoring chances which his team mates created for him in the opposition penalty box during his time on the park.

Billy Gilmour, McGinn, Scott McTominay and Lawrence Shankland, who helped Steve Clarke’s men to dominate the opening hour of the encounter, were all guilty of the same lack of composure and ruthlessness in the final third. 

Christie knows, after a run of six games without a victory, they must do better in their forthcoming matches against Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and Finland if they are to build up some much-needed momentum before the Euro 2024 finals in Germany in June. But he is convinced fans will see a reaction tomorrow.

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“We are desperate to put it right,” he said when he was asked about the national team’s worst run of results since way back in 2008. “We have three more friendlies before the Euros. Hopefully we can go three out of three.

“There are a few people talking about the lack of wins recently. But we’ve been in the nice position of not really needing to win games because we did the business early on in the qualifiers.

“Look at the Georgia and Norway games at the end of the qualifying campaign (Scotland drew 2-2 away and 3-3 at home in November). If everything was aligned, I would imagine there would have been different scorelines. It was a nice feeling to be able to sit back knowing we’d already qualified. But now it’s prep for the Euros.

“The last few friendlies (against England, France and the Netherlands) have been against top teams in Europe. We are trying to learn as much as we can to get to their level. That will help us going into the summer. We are trying to drive our standards up.

“But going into the Euros – and such a big stage like Germany in the opening game – you want to have as many wins behind you as you can. We’re obviously desperate to have a bit of a reaction on Tuesday night.”

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Christie continued: “I would say momentum is important. We want to be in as good a place as we can be. For the most part the other night I felt we more than matched them. If anything, we were the better team for 60 minutes.

“There were plenty of positives. But the game can’t end 4-0, that’s the main thing. If you go and do that in the Euros, you’ll struggle to get back in a group. These are the lessons to take into the summer.”

So what was Clarke’s message to his squad after the Friday night reverse? Christie revealed there had been a considered reaction to the sobering Netherlands loss. That, though, may not be the case if they fail to overcome Northern Ireland.

“We were all pretty frustrated with the result, him included,” he said. “The main message was this can’t happen with how well we played.

“For the most part he’s the same as when we are playing well. He’s very good at humbling us and keeping our feet on the ground. After night’s like the other one, you can’t get too down after the qualifying campaign we had.

“But we have a big tournament coming up and he’s made it clear he wants us to get back to winning ways on Tuesday. Everyone is desperate for the game now. Everyone is desperate to bounce back, first and foremost.”

Christie has been in excellent form for Bournemouth in the Premier League this season after being moved into a deep-lying berth by his manager Andoni Iraola.

But he believes that is true of many of his Scotland team mates. He is quietly confident they can enjoy a successful Euro 2024 despite the disappointing run they are on. 

“It’s been strange (playing deep),” he said. “It came around because of an injury crisis, but I don’t think there’s any turning back. It might be the classic getting deeper as you get older. But I’m loving it.

“The manager at club level has been amazing with me and I’ve managed to play a lot of games this season and gain a bit of consistency. It was a different position the other night but when it comes to Scotland, but I’m happy to play anywhere.

“I don’t think it’s just me who’s playing well. A few boys in the squad are flying right now. Hopefully that continues between now and the summer. If you can keep up the club form you will go to Germany feeling good.

“The frustrating thing for me the other night was not scoring from one of those headers. I’m sure a few of the boys feel the same with the chances we had. I’m not sure how we didn’t score. You need to make them count against these teams. It’s something we need to put right on Tuesday and in the games to come.”

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Clarke made no fewer than six changes in the second half of the Netherlands game - he took off Kieran Tierney, Shankland, Gilmour, Nathan Patterson, Christie and McGinn and put on John Souttar, Che Adams, Ferguson, Anthony Ralston, Stuart Armstrong and Kenny McLean respectively – and his team conceded three goals in the space of 14 minutes.

Would they have suffered the same catastrophic collapse if Tierney, Gilmour, Christie and McGinn had remained on the park until the final whistle? It is unlikely.

The return of Real Sociedad defender Tierney, who missed the Spain, France, Georgia and Norway games due to injury, certainly helped to improve the defence no end. The scoreline was only 1-0 when the left-sided centre half was replaced by Souttar.

“KT is a top player,” said Christie. “When he wasn’t playing at Arsenal so much he still came in and played well. Look at the Spain game (the 2-0 win at Hampden last March). He was amazing.

“He’s now getting back to full fitness in Spain and he’s just a player you can always rely on on give you an unbelievable performance. It’s nice to have him back.”