by Ben Blake reporting from Glasgow
IRELAND WILL HAVE a job on their hands in attempting to contain Scotland’s front four tomorrow night, says captain Scott Brown.
The attacking quartet of Ikechi Anya, Shaun Maloney, Steven Naismith and Steven Fletcher are likely to start at Celtic Park having caused all sorts of problems in the win over Georgia and the 2-2 draw at away to Poland.
They are sure to have bags of pace on the wings and Watford’s Anya, who scored in the narrow defeat to Germany, has been singled out for praise since making his debut last year while the in-form Naismith will be tasked with pulling the strings in behind lone striker Fletcher.
Celtic midfielder Brown spoke glowingly of his international team-mates today, explaining that it is their interchangeability that makes them such a threat.
“I think it’s all about their movement and in the last game it was brilliant from all four of them,” Brown said.
“You didn’t know who was playing where at one point. Shaun was out on the right, he was out on the left, he was coming across with Anya as well and Naisy was dropping in deep helping us out defending and then up there supporting Fletcher.
“It shows you how fit we are and how much we’re willing to make unselfish runs for somebody else to create a little bit of space.
“We’ve got a lot of match-winners. If you look over the last three or four games and the chances we’ve created, it’s the front four that have been doing most of the work with the two wing-backs pushing high up the park and putting in great deliveries.”
Brown and Fletcher are former club mates from their time at Hibernian but the latter has been carving out a career in English football for the past four years and these days is on the books at Sunderland.
The 27-year-old has four goals to his name for the Black Cats this season with two coming in the recent victory over Crystal Palace and he will again be the man the Tartan Army look to.
“He’s progressed a lot and done unbelievably,” Brown said of Fletcher. When you see him in training here, he brings that something different.
“He holds the ball up and is always looking forward trying to create a chance for himself or even others when he lets them get around and then getting into the box.
“It shows you what a top quality player he is. We all knew when he went down the road what he could do. I played with him at Hibs and I knew how good he is. It is hard for a Scottish lad to go to England and do what he’s done but he has done it unbelievably.”
