Anthony Ralston has only had a handful of minutes in a Celtic shirt this season so it was always going to be difficult for him thrown into the Scotland mix as a starter in an elite international match.
Steve Clarke named Ralston in the eleven to face Poland on Thursday night as Scotland began their UEFA Nations League journey.
The Scots are in the top division of the Nations League for the first time and have difficult encounters against Portugal and Croatia ahead. So there was added importance on picking up a positive result at home to the Poles.
Unfortunately for Ralston and his country, the night didn’t turn out as planned, losing 3-2 after conceding two penalties in the match – one of which was by the Celtic man.
Celtic defender had ‘good’ overall performance for Scotland
Despite his first-half trip in the box being penalised and allowing Poland to head into the break two-up, Ralston wasn’t slated across the board by national media for his display.
The Bhoys star also contributed an assist on the night, superbly cutting back a low pass for Scott McTominay to finish.
He was given a seven rating by The Herald, who said: “Did himself no harm with a good performance. Unfortunately for him, was at fault for Poland’s penalty. He was a yard off the pace as he clumsily came through the back of his opponent. He recovered well with a brilliant cutback for Scotland’s equaliser. For the most part he was sharp, got stuck in, was willing to play forward and not always take the safe route.”
The Edinburgh Evening News dropped that to a six with their verdict, stating: “With the Scots still ravaged by injuries at right-back, the Celtic man was given the nod despite his lack of game time at club level. Timely first-half intervention to cut out Lewandowski’s pass with a team-mate lurking in behind. Conceded the penalty after a clumsy challenge on Zalewski. Made up for that error by playing his part in McTominay’s second-half equaliser.”
The Scotsman were less kind, delivering a five rating and concluding: “Had some nice touches early on, but his foul for the penalty was needless and he struggled to recover from that mistake for the majority of the second period.”
Stat-trackers are kinder to Anthony Ralston
FotMob actually thought Ralston had the best game in a Scotland shirt on Thursday, giving him a 7.9 rating – the highest of anyone in the home side.
He impressively won nine of his 12 duels on the night, all four of his attempted tackles and distributed the ball efficiently – misplacing just three passes across the 90 minutes.
The conceded penalty was no doubt an error but over the piece, Ralston acquitted himself decently – especially when you consider he’s only had 51 minutes at club level this term.
The right-back will likely feature more for the Bhoys domestically over a busy Autumn period and, hopefully, he can show he is more than capable of performing well at Scottish Premiership level.
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