Ryan Christie’s Scotland career was closer to another fine achievement on Sunday against San Marino.
The Celtic attacker was chosen by Steve Clarke to gun down the world’s worst football team last weekend. He did just that with a fine display that saw him bag two assists as he bounced back from his red card vs Livingston two weeks ago.
His display also followed on from a decent enough cameo in Russia for the Scots, despite a 4-0 rout. In the end, his side bounced back with a 6-0 romp against San Marino, with the scoring kicking off when Christie’s curler was touched home by John McGinn.
The Celtic man, however, isn’t overly convinced that it was the Villa man’s goal. Speaking in the Scottish Sun (17/10, page 52) today, Christie believes he should’ve been awarded his first Scotland goal.
“I was convinced it was my goal, but I’ve been told otherwise. I wasn’t going to argue and try to take the hat-trick away from John though. Hopefully my first goal is just around the corner.
“Hopefully Sunday’s result does give us something to build on now. Going into the game, we wanted to win and to do it convincingly. The clean sheet, six goals, and three points means we are happy.
“That’s all we could really have done against San Marino and hopefully we can build on it now. We were able to build from the first goal and played well, in pretty ridiculous conditions.”
San Marino was ironically the game Christie needed
You can argue whether it was Christie’s goal or not. The touch from McGinn is highly-debatable, but it still helped Christie get a couple of assists.
And after the week that the attacker has had, it really doesn’t matter if he scored or not. The main thing was that he got a positive performance under his belt and got that smile back on his face again.
For those who watched the game on Sunday, Christie was full of enjoyment. After deleting his Twitter account due to online abuse, he was back all smiles again against San Marino. It’s exactly the day he needed, even if he should’ve had a goal.
Now, he has to watch on as Tom Rogic likely takes his place against Ross County and Aberdeen respectively. Christie’s red card against Livingston two weeks ago sees him pick up a two-game suspension that kicks into effect.
He will, however, be available to face Lazio next Thursday night at Celtic Park. That’s a contest that Christie could do with performing in too. A chance to get the small band of fans who are still angry with him back onside.
He knows how big a blunder he made two weeks ago. It was absolutely vital that his international spell didn’t deflate him further. Clearly, he’s satisfied with what he produced.
For now, he’ll sit out and hopefully watch his side romp to victory over Ross County on Saturday. But on Thursday night, you can bet Christie will be itching to make himself the star of the show.
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