Bournemouth had 2 players feature for Scotland in their World Cup opener vs Haiti this morning. Ben Gannon-Doak impressed for the Scots before making way for Ryan Christie in the 75th minute, where they managed to see out a gritty 1-0 win against a surprisingly combative and fluid Haiti team.
Cherries winger Ben Gannon-Doak was the star of the show for Scotland last night as the 20 year old put on a great display off the right wing.
Doak was at the forefront of the opening, and what turned out to be the match winning goal after he had a quick turn off pace to enter the box and play the ball across the face of goal. The Haiti defence made a mess of it, with the ball falling to Aston Villa's John McGinn who's deflected strike put the Tartan Army into a 1-0 lead.
The rest of the game lacked cutting edge and quality, and I may or may not have fallen asleep for 20 minutes of it, but whenever Gannon-Doak received the ball on the right flank, he tried to create something and looked really lively, as he always does.
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters/David ButlerAs for Ryan Christie, he would have had an even better day as he put pen to paper to tie himself down at the South Coast until 2029 yesterday.
However, as mentioned above, when Christie came on he was a direct swap for Doak and Doak was very much hugging the touchline and being used as a direct threat at goal for Scotland. We all know that over the last few years, Christie has been infinitely more effective when used centrally as an 8, rather than on the wing.
This lead to Christie not getting too much of the ball and not really creating much, which wasn't necessarily what Steve Clarke bought him on to do. Despite being 31, he had bundles of energy and was a nuisance for the Haiti left side combination and did enough to secure an all important 3 points for Scotland.
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters/Winslow TownsonIt doesn't help that when Christie was first called up to the Scottish National Team back in 2017, he was used primarily as a right sided winger, as that is where he played for Celtic and Aberdeen.
Now that Iraola transformed him into a midfield monster, of course Scotland's strongest position for talent is by far their centre midfielders!
It is crucial that Ben Gannon-Doak builds up some good form and momentum in this tournament though, as for a winger with such promise who was injured for large parts of last season, this is the best opportunity possible for him to show Marco Rose what he is capable of doing, in the worlds most competitive tournament.
REUTERS/Pilar OlivaresScotland have 2 very tough games coming up against Morocco & Brazil, so it will be great to see how both of our Scots get on against two of the best teams in the tournament.
