We’re about to talk to Ryan Christie. Obviously, he’s a player that’s been having a brilliant season for his club, where he’s playing in a deeper role. When clubs change players’ positions a bit, does that give you food for thought as a manager?
“It’s always nice to see them play in different positions. Obviously, Ryan started his career as a winger, if you like. He would disagree with that, but he always played off the wide. For me, by and large, with the national team, he’s always played off the wide.
“We have in certain games played him as one of the number eight to get forward. He’s playing that role at Bournemouth. He plays the number eight. Everybody says he plays a bit deeper, but if you actually watch him playing for Bournemouth, he’s very involved in the higher press up the pitch.
“He gets after the game, he does everything that Ryan’s good at. Obviously, if I decide to start with Ryan, he brings a little bit of freshness as well.”
We spoke about your squad and how you’ve got new players coming in as well. George Hirst made his Scotland debut. What did you make of his debut and what specifically do you like about him?
“I think he just brought in a different dimension. In the second half, especially, we were going particularly long. Their two centre-backs seemed to be winning most of the headers. I thought, if I put George on, he actually did win a couple of headers. He did take the ball into the corner for us a couple of times.
“He just brings a slightly different dimension to how Che [Adams] plays as a centre-forward, or how Tommy Conway plays as a centre-forward. Maybe a little bit similar to how Lyndon Dykes does it for us. It just gives us more depth in that position.”
Greece have also got their young talent, Konstantinos Karetsas. He had a real influence on the game, didn’t he? Whether he starts or whether he comes on, how do you go about trying to stop him being so influential?
“I think when he came to the pitch the other night, the crowd got excited because a young 17-year-old has chosen not to play for Belgium but to go back and play for Greece, which is great for them. His first action in the game was really good. That got the crowd excited.
“From there, he sort of built into the game. He controlled them quite well as the game went on. Kieran goes on and sits in front of him. We sort of nullified that threat a little bit. Hopefully, we can do that as well in the game at Hampden.”
You spoke about the fans over there. The fans here at Hampden will have a big part to play, will they?
“A crowd’s a crowd. When you’re playing at home, you expect the home crowd to be with you. At Hampden, normally, in my time here, the crowd have always been there. They don’t turn up wanting to see you struggle. They turn up wanting to see you win. Hopefully, we can give them something to shout about.”
Scotland, obviously, have achieved elite status in the Nations League. Is it more difficult to remain in that place, do you think?
“Well, Uefa have made it more difficult because normally third position kept you up.
“What it does do now is it gets you a play-off game, which is why we’re here. To be honest, I’d rather be playing competitive games in March than having four friendlies before we go into the World Cup qualifier.
“So I think it’s worked out quite well for us.”
Is there a feeling, given the developments that Scotland have made, that you actually belong in that top group?
“Well, if we stay up then we’re proving that we belong there. What I would say is, as you develop and you play against top opposition, and I think over the games last autumn, we improved as a team.
“Our world ranking dropped. I’m not sure how that one works, but I felt as though we were improving as a team and then you go down the world rankings. So there’s a little bit of an anomaly there, but I’d much rather play against the better teams because that will make your players better.”