Scots make their bogey side suffer

SCOTLAND 6
Fletcher 7; McFadden 10; Boyd 24, 38; Miller 30; O'Connor 85

FAROE ISLANDS 0

SCOTLAND did what needed to be done. Despite all the focus on past failings against these opponents, they made the Faroes look mortifyingly inept at Celtic Park yesterday, scoring six goals for the first time since burying Yugoslavia in 1984 and recording their biggest victory since walloping the Finns by the same handsome score eight years earlier. Rest easy Scotland, the apocalyptic days of draws with the Faroes are behind you. Push on to Lithuania on Wednesday with a clear conscience.

Walter Smith's team were offered a multitude of chances by a team that made you cringe and question their right to exist at this level. Six-nil at home to Georgia last month and now 6-0 away. They go to France next month; another six would be a result. Have no doubt, this mob are the worst there has been in a very long time. A double-digit defeat is waiting around the corner for them.

Scotland should have won by more. Smith was a bit miffed that they didn't and he had good cause. "We played at a good pace and had good movement in the first half," he said. "But the edge came off our game." The manager does not share the euphoria of Celtic Park. He's pleased but little more than that.

All three of his strikers scored. Kris Boyd got another two (one a penalty), James McFadden also struck as did Kenny Miller, God bless him. The goal-starved Celtic striker managed to fluff a second Scottish penalty past the Faroes goalkeeper, Jakup Mikkelsen. The impressive Darren Fletcher - removed in the second half with a strain to his back and hip not considered serious enough to keep him out of the Lithuania game - and Garry O'Connor got the others.

The Faroes were worse than Smith could have imagined, even in his happiest, clappiest, most optimistic moments in the past week. By the seventh minute, when Fletcher opened the scoring, it was abundantly obvious that they had none of the organisation of their predecessors. By the tenth, when McFadden made it two, it was apparent that a rout was on the cards. Not long after that the Faroes managed to get a couple of corners. The first scuttered along the deadball line before going out for a goal-kick. The second carried to the near post at knee-height. There was a free-kick after that that made you turn away in embarrassment so woeful was the strike. A mild breeze would have given Scotland a better game yesterday.

By half-time, when Mikkelsen's net was being filled at a rate of a goal every nine minutes, it had become farcical and facile. To some but not to all. Celtic Park loved it. At the break, the Tartan Army singing was thunderous and just to reinforce things, they greeted the return of the Faroes for the second half with lusty boos. Not content to stand over the helpless body of an international football team, they wanted to kick it to high heaven as well. Even the choppy waters of the North Atlantic must have been appealing to the Faroes at that point. Celtic Park was not a very welcoming place.

Miller's scampering run down the left in the seventh minute was the spark for the opening goal, his cross causing apoplexy in the Faroes defence. Fletcher happened to be in amongst it at the time, his unconvincing stab at the ball proving enough to get it an inch over the line.

Any prospect of a difficult day at the office for the Scotland management was gone. Any prospect of a less than humiliating afternoon for his opposite number, Jogvan Martin Olsen, disappeared too. That was confirmed three minutes later when Miller's running helped create an opening for McFadden which he put past Mikkelsen from the edge of the box.

Scotland's haste to pile goal upon goal meant they got jumpy for a while after McFadden's strike, their passing becoming ragged, their delivery rushed and clumsy. Yesterday, though, these things were relative. Their dip, so to speak, barely lasted quarter of an hour, then they got the gift of Boyd's penalty.

Six minutes earlier McFadden (who later caused ructions with an elbow into the face of Jakup a Borg) had dumped himself to the floor in the Faroes box looking, shamefacedly, for a penalty. It wasn't given but the visitors took notice of his cheek. When he went down again in the vicinity of Oli Johannesen he got the decision.

The Faroes reacted like they'd been cheated (a stark contrast to their stoic acceptance of the second penalty shout that went against them soon after) and raced to the Russian referee, Igor Egorov. Taking his protest one step too far, a Borg was booked. Boyd, meanwhile, struck a weak penalty to Mikkelsen's right but got lucky, the goalkeeper's touch not proving enough.

Three became four just before the half-hour, Atli Danielsen handling under pressure from Fletcher. Perhaps the Manchester United player spotted the hopeful look on Miller's face as Egorov pointed to the spot, the slightly haunted expression that is the preserve of a goalscorer who simply cannot score. The Celtic player has gone 13 games without troubling the statisticians this season. Fletcher handed Miller the ball. If Boyd's effort moments earlier was less than emphatic, Miller's was even worse but again luck was with the Scots, his shot squirming under the goalkeeper's body. Some relief, at last, for Miller.

Enough bad breaks and general misery had befallen the Faroes in the first half but there was another injection of poison to come. Number five, just like three and four before it, had a degree of good fortune for the Scots, Fletcher playing Boyd through up the middle. The Rangers man had his first effort saved by Mikkelsen but the rebound fell kindly for the striker. Poor Mikkelsen. Rejected by Partick Thistle - and now this.

At least respite was on the way. His team were jeered back on to the field after the break but Scotland had lost that hungry look. They needed four more goals to break the post-war scoring record (8-0 against Cyprus in 1969) but in a humdrum half they settled for just one, O'Connor, on as a replacement for Miller on the hour mark, turning in a McFadden cross from the left. O'Connor could not have been more low-key in his celebrations. There's a message in that for the all-singing, all-dancing Tartan Army. This was easy. The hard work hasn't even started yet.

Taken from the Scotsman