Austria 2-2 Scotland: Clarke’s men surrender two-goal advantage

Steve Clarke’s Scotland surrendered a two-goal advantage as they drew 2-2 against Austria at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion.

Craig Gordon kept the game level before Jack Hendry made it 1-0 to Scotland in the 28th minute. John McGinn doubled their lead with around half an hour to go.

Michael Gregoritsch and Alessandro Schopf were able to score before the end to earn the hosts a draw in Vienna.

Five players who’ll stay up if their clubs go down…

After a 1-1 draw with Poland at Hampden Park last Thursday, Scotland have six wins and a two draws from their last eight matches and can start looking forward to the World Cup play-off semi-final against Ukraine, pencilled in for June, with Wales awaiting the winners in the final, albeit Clarke will know improvement is required.

There was little appetite for the game in Austria after the hosts’ chances of reaching the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar were ended by Wales in the play-off semi-final last week.

Afterwards Austria manager Franco Foda announced he would be standing down after the game.

As promised, Clarke utilised his squad with captain Andy Robertson, who missed the Poland game due to Covid-19 issues, back in the starting line-up along with centre-back Hendry and midfielders Stuart Armstrong, Ryan Jack and Lewis Ferguson, the latter making his first start.

Austria goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann played under Clarke at Kilmarnock and he had some early work to do.

McGinn had two efforts, first testing Bachmann with a drive in the third minute and then sliding a shot past the far post from 12 yards.

However, Gordon made three terrific saves to keep the Scotland goal intact.

The veteran Hearts number one blocked Sasa Kalajdzic’s close-range header from a corner then used his foot to