Lewandowski snatches late leveller to end Scottish hopes

Assistant manager Mark McGhee says the Scotland don’t fear striker Robert Lewandowski as they prepare to take on Poland in their crucial Euro 2016 qualifier on Thursday.

The Poland striker has demanded a strong referee in the European Championship qualifier at Hampden after complaining he could not run properly during last year’s 2-2 draw against Scotland in Warsaw following a tackle by Gordon Greer.

Scotland’s slender hopes of finishing in third place and earning a Group D play-off place were still alive as they entered the fourth minute of stoppage time after sensational strikes from Matt Ritichie and Steven Fletcher had cancelled out Lewandowski’s third minute opener for Poland.

However, McGhee insists Scotland have not singled him out for special treatment in the crunch clash at Hampden.

But we’ve shown against Germany and Poland that we can compete with anyone on our night, when we’re playing well.

“Again, that is really unfair because there are guys in there hurting and for me to talk about myself is wrong”, he said. And then we got in and found out the other result (from Dublin). “Arkadiusz Milik and Maciej Rybus unfortunately will not be available to play tomorrow”, confirmed Nawalka who will likely bring Artur Sobiech into the side.

He pointed out that Poland had committed 110 fouls and received 15 yellow cards in their eight qualifying matches to date – compared to the 80 and 13 respectively for Scotland.

“I think you are off your head if you think you are going to get anybody better”, Dalglish said in Glasgow, where he was helping officially open Dalmarnock Legacy hub. We’ll still be very hard to beat. “A hard game awaits us but we are ready for it”.

Gordon Strachan is set to come out of contract but the Scotland manager is yet to make a decision on his future. Early in the second half Scotland took the lead through Steven Naismith, though with less than 15 minutes left on the clock, Arkdiusz Milik equalised.

It just so happened then that Lewandowski scored with the very last touch of the game – so would he have had that chance had there been no pitch invader?

In the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich, he scored five in the one game against Wolfsburg as he became the fastest foreign player to score 100 Bundesliga goals late last month.

“We did our homework but never thought Scotland would play such a fantastic game”.