With a new lease on life, Anthony Ralston will rejoin Celtic.
Although he doesn’t start for Scotland at home, the Celtic right-back began back-to-back games for Steve Clarke in the UEFA Nations League last week.
Although it wasn’t easy, Scotland won two of their last two games, with Andy Robertson, a lifelong Celtic supporter, scoring the game-winning goal in stoppage time against Poland on Monday night.
Scotland will now play a two-leg match in the spring to determine their top-tier position after receiving a UEFA Nations League relegation lifeline.
After playing the full game in Friday night’s 1-0 victory over Croatia at Hampden, Ralston played 76 minutes in Poland.
With James McFadden defending him, the 26-year-old was under constant defensive pressure, so it wasn’t an easy game for him.
Following Anthony Ralston’s defensive blunder, James McFadden thinks Andy Robertson “should know better.”
Even though John McGinn put the ball in the net fairly early on, the Scotland players were under a lot of pressure and had to dig in.
Scotland’s defence almost gave their opponents a goal on a platter in the first half due to a mishandled pass from Robertson and then subpar play from Scott McTominay and Ralston before Poland equalised in the second half.
The opponent should have scored, but McFadden told BBC Sport that he wasn’t pleased with his captain instead of focussing on Ralston’s performance at the time.
McFadden remarked, “I know McTominay and Ralston can do better.” However, Robertson ought to have known better than to use that square pass. They don’t take charge, but one of them must.
That is the red flag. That really ought to be the leveller.
As Celtic defeated Poland, Ralston’s statistics
Unfortunately for Ralston, the Canada great is currently playing the finest football of his career, and Alistair Johnston is Celtic’s starting right-back.
However, Brendan Rodgers benefits greatly from these international performances, which guarantee that a bench player keeps his engine running.
With a decent 6.83 rating from WhoScored for his performance in Poland, Ralston may feel proud.
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