Shaun Maloney was stating the obvious when he said Scotland's confidence was at an all-time low ahead of the World Cup Qualifier against Serbia on Tuesday. Friday's 2-1 loss to Wales, after going in at half-time leading, at Hampden was a bitter pill to swallow. Scotland, still bottom of Group A, led through a Grant Hanley goal on the stroke of half-time. However, two goals within 93 seconds from Chris Coleman's side after Robert Snodgrass was show a red card saw Wales win the game. Scotland have just two points from their five qualifiers and new manager Gordon Strachan faces a major task to lift his players ahead of his first away game in charge against Serbia.
That sinking feeling for Robert Snodgrass (c) Ross Eaglesham | SportPix.org.ukSpeaking on Friday Maloney said: "It's a very low dressing room. The last 20 minutes, when we were down to 10 men, it was very difficult to even get near the ball. The more results go against us confidence will be dented. We have just lost 2-1 at home in a must-win game so it's a pretty low dressing room and it's going to be pretty difficult to pick everyone up for Tuesday. The next couple of days it will be difficult to get any sort of positives. After a couple of days we might find the odd one. Grant Hanley played particularly well for us in one of his first matches. For the first 15 minutes Wales were dominant and after that we kind of got to grips with it. That might be a slim positive for us."Scotland's two remaining home games are against the unbeaten top two, Croatia and Belgium, and Maloney is aware they need to improve. He said: "It's obviously been a terrible start. It's a bit cliched but we just have to think about the Serbia. We obviously have to improve and just try to get a decent performance. There has obviously been a lot of disappointment with the start to the qualifying campaign and it will be hard to get out of that. Obviously you do feel the pride of the nation and we want to finish as high as we can. But we just literally need to take it to the next game and we need to improve."
Source: ScottishFitba
Source: FOOTYMAD
