Scotland Men's Football Team

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Granit Xhaka could be wearing the Switzerland captain's armband again when Scotland conclude their Nations League qualifying campaign at Berit Sitterstadion, St Gallen, on 16 November.

The 34-year-old Sunderland midfielder withdrew from his country's camp for their Nations League matches against Scotland, North Macedonia and Slovenia in the international break just concluded amid claims he obtained a forged Covid-19 vaccination certificate.

He has now received a suspended fine of £136,000 for the incident in 2022, when it was a requirement in Switzerland for some travel abroad.

Switzerland's record appearance holder with 152 caps is expected to return to action when Sunderland host Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.

Atlanta United striker Breel Embolo also withdrew from the Swiss squad amid similar allegations.

Switzerland won all four of their matches to lead Nations League Group B1 by five points from Slovenia, with Scotland three points further back in third.

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Real Madrid are keeping tabs on Scott McTominay's contract talks at Napoli, with the Spanish club interested in signing the 29-year-old Scotland midfielder at the end of the season. (Tuttomercato, external)

Manchester United are unlikely to now bring Scott McTominay back to Old Trafford from Napoli as they are targeting younger signings. (Football Insider, external)

Uncapped Scottish winger Danny Armstrong is poised to trigger a new contract with Dinamo Bucharestafter helping the Romanian club to the top of the table as they chase their first title in 20 years, sporting director Cosmin Mihalescu has revealed. (The Herald, external)

Former Scotland striker Allan Brazil has revealed he was tentatively approached by Roma after impressing against the Italian club while playing for Ipswich Town. (TalkSport, external)

James Wilson returned from Scotland Under-21 duty with a minor knock, but the striker is expected to be available for Hearts against St Mirren this weekend. (Edinburgh Evening News, external)

Read Friday's Scottish Gossip in full.

Martin Dowden & Andy Campbell
BBC Scotland

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Lawrence Shankland hopes to be involved in Scotland's March fixtures after missing the autumn games recovering from surgery.

The Rangers striker went under the knife following a hamstring tear and is hopeful of a return to club action around January time.

Scotland won one, drew one and lost two of their opening four Nations League matches in the first of this season's international breaks, with more games against North Macedonia and Switzerland scheduled for next month.

Sebastien Pocognoli's side will have either friendly matches or Euro 2028 qualifiers in late March.

"I'll get myself fit as quick as possible and hopefully it'll be March camp that I could possibly be a part of," Shankland said. I'll hope to get myself involved there.

"You want to be out there on the pitch every chance you can get to play for the national team. It's disappointing to miss out on the camp and just not have the opportunity to be involved.

Shankland has not yet spoken with Belgian Pocognoli and says the "mixed bag" of results over the past fortnight is understandable.

"You could see there were a lot of ideas that the boys were trying to implement in the games," Shankland said. "It's a lot more difficult to implement it in games than it is in training. These things take a bit of time.

"There's always going to be teething problems at the start of a new manager's reign and it's early days for him. The boys will improve. It would've been good for them to get four games under the manager, a lot of new faces in the squad and things will improve as they go on.

"There's changes of system, formations and obviously a lot of personnel as well."

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Sebastien Pocognoli has been left with plenty to chew over after his first batch of games in charge of Scotland.

The 2-1 home loss to Slovenia on Tuesday left the Belgian with a record of two defeats, one win and one draw from four Nations League matches.

Losing at home to the Slovenes was a "sobering experience" in which Scotland were too "easy" to play against, says The Herald football writer Stephen McGowan.

"I think people were looking for a new start with aggressive, front-foot football and I don't think there's been much evidence of that so far," McGowan added.

"It does take time to build a team and the Nations League gives Pocognoli a chance to do that without it being his last chance to win. I do think people would have liked to have seen a bit more evidence of progress so far.

Speaking on the BBC'S Scottish football podcast, McGowan added that the players "didn't look especially comfortable with the [3-4-2-1] formation" Pocognoli deployed.

"It felt at times as if the players didn't especially know what they should be doing and what was being asked of them," he said.

"They didn't look massively comfortable. I think Pocognoli probably has to go back to the drawing board and reconsider what he's doing because on the basis of what we've seen in a couple of games, it's not looking particularly good at the moment."

We asked for your views after Sebastien Pocognoli's Scotland suffered a second successive home defeat, going down 2-1 to Slovenia in the Nations League.

Here's what some of you said:

Peter: Dreadful performance from Scotland. Outplayed all over the pitch. No positives apart from the fact it wasn't four or five. A win in North Macedonia was hailed by some when the reality is we just beat a team that are worse than us.

James: The more things change the more they stay the same. Woeful from Scotland which is a shame as I expected them to build on the previous match. Their inconsistency seems to be their consistency. For all the effort from Oli McBurnie, strikers are measured in the currency of goals and there is an obvious lack of those at the moment with no real standout solution.

Mark: Really poor, and I don't like our attitude either. We seemed to be more interested in trying to manufacture free-kicks than actually trying to create anything. John McGinn was at it as always, but then Josh McPake and Finlay Curtis came on and were even more blatant. They should be ashamed.

Thomas: Though it pains me to say it, we got exactly what we deserved. Face facts, we are nowhere near good enough and we deserve all that is coming. Unless we can magic up a midfield, some exciting younger players and a workable system we will continue to languish. Throw the youngsters in and give them experience as our cause is now lost.

Graeme: A bunch of headless chickens could have done better that this team. Pocognoli will be gone by Christmas with performances like this.

Paul: I fear Pocognoli could well be out of job soon if Scotland continues to struggle against weaker teams like Slovenia, it's simply going to get worse. Not one Scottish player could hold their heads up high during that match.

David: Simply awful! No goal threat and a defence that was lost, we were outplayed by a mediocre team. The problems with Scottish football run much deeper than an inept manager and a poor squad. The current SFA leaders are blindly leading us into oblivion.

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Josh McPake is sure he should have earned a penalty on a Scotland debut that has whetted his appetite for more, despite a disappointing defeat to Slovenia.

The Hearts winger came off the bench at Hampden on 72 minutes, soon after the visitors had moved 2-1 in front.

The 25-year-old turned in a lively cameo on the left and fans were not the only ones bellowing for a spot-kick when he tumbled under a challenge from Zan Karnicnik.

"I was screaming," said McPake. "I don't know if it was outside the box, but contact was definitely there, so I was confused about what was happening.

"I thought it should have been a penalty, but it's not for me to decide that."

Referee Jose Maria Santos was in close attendance and immediately waved the appeals aside as Scotland fell to their second successive home defeat under new head coach Sebastien Pocognoli.

"Obviously, on a personal note, to make my debut was brilliant, but it wasn't the result we wanted," McPake added.

"I thought I did well. I just wanted to bring a wee bit of positivity, forward-thinking, maybe getting at the full-back. That's what I'm all about.

"Being part of the set-up is brilliant, something I've always wanted to do and dreamed about.

"Amazing talent with players here like Andy Robertson and John McGinn, obviously brilliant players.

"So to be amongst that is really good, to see how they train, see how they work, day in, day out. It's been a learning curve for me."

Scotland conclude their Nations League campaign in November at home to North Macedonia and away to Switzerland and McPake is eager to add to his first cap.

"There's no guarantees for anything, but in my terms, it's keeping my head down, keep working hard and hopefully do the things that got me to this moment and keep doing that," he said.

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• Sebastien Pocognoli is the fourth Scotland manager to lose his opening two home games and the first since Berti Vogts in August 2002.

• Scotland have now lost three of their past four home matches in all competitions (W1), as many defeats as in their previous nine games at Hampden (W4 D2).

• Billy Gilmour (25y 117d) is now the youngest player in Scotland's history to reach 50 caps, beating the previous record of Paul McStay (25y 325d).

• Ryan Christie has been involved in five goals across his past eight starts for Scotland (4 goals, 1 assist); only Che Adams (8) has more goal involvements for the national team since the start of 2025 than Christie's five.

• Scotland have conceded from outside the penalty area in two of their past three games in all competitions (2), as many as in their 18 previous internationals since the start of 2025.

• Slovenia have won after conceding the opening goal in the Nations League for the first time since 24 September 2022 against Norway (3 games without a win).

Disjointed Scotland unravelled in the second half as Slovenia came from behind to inflict back-to-back Nations League home defeats on head coach Sebastien Pocognoli.

Read the match report.

Have your say on the game.

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Scotland boss Sebastien Pocognoli tells BBC Scotland: "We didn't deserve to get the win, that's the reality. We didn't deliver a great game. On the ball and off the ball we were below the level we expect.

"We were not proactive enough, on and off the ball. Probably the structure off the ball needs to be more proactive, front-footed to push the line higher.

"On the ball we were not clever enough. We were far from strong enough in the duels.

"It's a process about being brave, trying to defend forward and we were not compact in our defensive shape.

"The reality is each game teaches us some information. We will try to go through the process we want and learn from this one and do better in the next one."

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• Scotland have never lost against Slovenia in six previous meetings (W2 D4), keeping four clean sheets.

• Slovenia have never scored an away goal against Scotland, drawing 0-0 in September 2004 and losing 1-0 in March 2017, both times in World Cup qualifiers.

• Scotland were beaten 3-0 by Switzerland in their last home game - they haven't lost back-to-back competitive home games since June 2019 when they were defeated by Russia and Belgium.

• Slovenia have just two wins in their past 13 matches in all competitions (D6 L5), with defeats in four of their past seven away games (W1 D2).

• Scotland have won seven of their past eight matches against nations outside the top 50 of the Fifa rankings at the time of the game (D1), while they are unbeaten in their past 17 competitive games against those nations (W14 D3).

• Scotland have received a red card in each of their past two matches, as many as their previous 122 games combined. They've conceded 45 fouls in this season's Nations League, more than any other side in Group B1.

• John McGinn has scored 22 goals for Scotland, the joint fourth most alongside Lawrie Reilly; only Denis Law (30), Kenny Dalglish (30) and Hughie Gallacher (23) have more.