Former Premiership midfielders Scott Allan and Andy Halliday expect a change of shape from Scotland in Friday’s second World Cup Group C fixture against Morocco.
The Scots opened with a 1-0 win against Haiti, courtesy of John McGinn’s deflected goal, while Morocco drew 1-1 with Brazil.
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Scotland started in a 4-4-2 against Haiti and former Celtic and Hibernian player Allan told the BBC’s Scottish Football Podcast: “We won’t see the 4-4-2 against Morocco.
“You’d expect one of the strikers to drop out. [Substitute Ryan] Christie came in just for his energy out of possession. I think [Lawrence] Shankland will drop out.
“When I watched the Morocco-Brazil game I thought it looked, especially first half, full of energy, legs, pace. If we’re just losing possession as we were against Haiti then it could be a really, really tough night.
“Can we just defend really well because we ain’t going to have most of the ball? If you aren’t going to have the ball against Haiti, you aren’t going to have the ball against Morocco.”
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Ex-Hearts, Motherwell and Rangers player Halliday agrees, saying: “I fully expect a change of shape. Will it be a 4-5-1 or do we go to that five at the back that Steve Clarke’s deployed so often?
“We’ve got five centre-halves at the World Cup, we’ve got three right-backs at the World Cup, we’ve got Kieran Tierney, who I think over the past, such is his quality, we would always try and fit him into a team.
“I don’t think we can give Morocco the amount of space we gave Haiti and expect to get a positive result at the end of it.
“It’s whether we play that extra midfielder to try and get us a little bit more control of the ball when we win it back. Or do we play that extra centre-half to give us that wee bit more cover at the back and allow us to defend our box, which I must say I do think we’ve done extremely well against Haiti.”
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