Is progress being made with Scotland

After last night’s 1-0 win over Lithuania Scotland boss Craig Levein continued to stress that the country was still progressing, is this true?

Craig Levein has stuck to the theme that we are making progress as an International side, and he is only one year into a longer term plan to get us back into a position where we qualify for major tournaments.

I guess you can say we have made some progress as this weekend’s fixtures demonstrate. At least we were now prepared to play one man up front against the Czechs, given the last time we played them we didn’t play a striker at all.

In our last match with the Lithuanians we struggled to a 0-0 draw, this time up we struggled to a 1-0 win against a very poor side.

In that respect we are making progress, but sadly we are no closer to qualifying for a tournament, with only two wins in the group. Both wins were at home to the two teams we are expected to beat.

Last night did show a glimpse of the future with the emergence of Barry Bannan, David Goodwillie and Don Cowie. Bannan in particular has been given big licks by the press, but he is far away from the finished product. Some of his balls into the box were awful but he at least provided a bit of a spark.

Goodwillie showed we have the successor to Kenny Miller, being prepared to run about chasing long balls, mis-placed clearances and therefore feeding on scraps for 90 minutes!

The manager was quick to jump on anyone who didn’t see the progress when he said after the game, "Some people seem intent to try to derail anything positive that comes out the camp. I can tell you that myself, the backroom staff and players believe what we are trying to do and I ask you to try and back us.

"I think it is important that the media get behind the team, especially when we have a lot of young lads in the team. We are trying to play a different style of football, we are trying to pass the ball and be entertaining and I am asking for your help."