Scotland boss Sebastien Pocognoli pleased to see work on training pitch pay off

Sebastian Pocognoli was satisfied with a first home win as Scotland manager and seeing his side reproduce training-ground work in their 2-1 victory over North Macedonia.

A second-half double from John McGinn earned Scotland three Nations League points but previous home defeats against Switzerland and Slovenia have left them facing a third-placed finish.

The Scots will need to win in Switzerland on Monday and hope that the Macedonians take something off Slovenia.

However, Pocognoli felt the victory was a step in the right direction.

“I’m happy to get the first win at home,” he said. “It’s important and we knew before the game that it will help to build a winning culture.

“In terms of what we produced on the pitch, I know exactly what we worked on this week. I’m quite satisfied about what I saw in some moments of the game, the work on the ball and off the ball.

“It was not always perfect, but I know that what we worked on in the last two days happened many times on the pitch. And for me that’s very important.

“On top of that, we created a lot of chances that we should score.

“Off the ball, I think we were quite aggressive. We recovered a number of balls that we managed well in some moments of transition. We created a big chance for Billy (Gilmour) from this also. So that’s a new approach of the game.

“Not everything was perfect, but there was a lot to take to move forward.”

Scotland created sporadic chances in the first half with the game played mostly in the visitors’ half, but never dominated the way the Hampden crowd would have liked.

They were ultimately grateful for a clumsy goalkeeping challenge on Ben Gannon-Doak to allow McGinn to net the winner from the spot and draw level with Hughie Gallacher on 24 goals for Scotland, behind only Kenny Dalglish and Denis Law on 30.

The Belgian admitted his team have to improve in “many aspects” but added: “As long as we create chances through good football, most of the time I’m happy.”

Pocognoli also admitted Scotland were not intense enough at the start of the game because they didn’t manage the ball well enough but then started to create chances.

He added: “After the first goal, I think we need to learn to not drop the intensity. Because after the first goal, for five minutes, I really feel like we dropped the intensity and the focus. And we conceded a goal from a set-piece.

“And I had the same feeling after the second goal. So it’s something that we need to fix.”