Deflation was etched on the faces at Hampden as Scotland registered their first defeat of the Pocognoli era, as Switzerland’s goals sunk the Scots.
The usual spine-tingling rendition of Flower of Scotland bounced around Hampden, with the Scots, in true fashion, giving it laldy, much to the delight of Pocognoli as he took charge of his first home game in Scotland colours.
The Belgian made three changes to his starting lineup, with Bowie and Patterson coming in for Ure and Hickey. It was a special night for Binks as he was handed his first Scotland cap in place of Welsh.
The first half became a nightmare start for the Scots as they were down a man and a goal inside 11 minutes.
With only eight minutes on the clock, Hendry gifted the Swiss a penalty and picked up a booking as he fouled Ndoye, who was rampaging towards goal.
After a short VAR check, the penalty was overturned and downgraded to a free kick as the initial contact was outside the box. However, Hendry’s night was cut short as his card was upgraded to a red for denial of a goalscoring opportunity.
On the 11-minute mark, Rodríguez stunned Hampden as he curled the resulting free kick into the top corner to hand Switzerland the lead. However, questions will be raised about Angus Gunn, as he showed the right-back that side of the net while subsequently watching the ball the whole way and failing to make a save. 0-1.
Going down to ten men would not have been part of Pocognoli’s plan. However, a contingency looked to be in place, with Bowie being sacrificed for defender Welsh, and in a weird, roundabout way, the change boosted Scotland’s performance.
Even with ten men, Scotland still showed flashes of attacking play and forced the Swiss back on occasions, although the Swiss were running the show, with Scotland becoming overrun in midfield.
Switzerland had various chances to pull further ahead, and the best certainly came for Manzambi in the 27th minute as his quick feet allowed him to turn outside the box before dragging his shot just wide of the post.
Despite a promising end to the first half, Scotland started the second much like the first — losing a goal early doors and conceding a third goal nine minutes before fulltime.
It was Ndoye again causing problems for the Scotland defence as he weighted the ball beautifully across the face of goal, and Elvedi tapped it home to double the Swiss lead. 0-2.
Ndoye continued to wreak havoc for the Scotland defence as his low effort was saved by the feet of Gunn in the 65th minute.
Switzerland added a third and final goal in the 81st minute as Amdouni rounded off another well-worked Swiss attack. The striker connected so well with the cross and struck the ball first time, sending it straight into the top corner. Once again, though, the question remains: could Gunn have done better? 0-3.
Although tonight was a disappointing result, the manager cannot be judged based on these performances. He’s implemented fresh ideas, new faces and attacking football into the fold, and that takes time to bed in. With two games left of this campaign, he will be aiming to end on a high.
To watch the match reaction from Scotland v Switzerland follow the link to the Tik Tok video: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN8rTQpUU/
