Soaring Scotland have Norway boss talking nonsense as he goes all XG to claim bonkers moral victory

Stale Solbakken cited xG to take a bizarre dig at Scotland - hinting Steve Clarke's team are lucky to be where they are after five games.

Scotland have won five from five and stand on the brink of booking their flight to Germany. That run includes a smash-and-grab win over the Norwegians in Oslo where Lyndon Dykes and Kenny McLean sprung a surprise late comeback and overturned Erling Haaland's penalty to seal a massive victory.

A 100 per cent record from five games means Clarke's team will qualify for Euro 2024 if they take anything from Spain on Thursday night OR Solbakken's team fail to beat either Cyprus or the Spaniards in the upcoming break. But the Norway boss feels the Scots have got lucky and cited xG to prove his point.

Scotland currently sit eight points ahead of Norway after five games, are 12 goals better off than them in goal difference and have already won in Oslo in the summer. However, Solbakken reckons the expected goals stats prove Scotland have been fortunate.

He whined: "Currently, Scotland and Norway have expected goals against of 4 and 4.2. It's more or less the same. But Scotland have conceded one goal, we have conceded eight goals. It should not be possible statistically. And if you look at expected goals for, Norway has 8.5 - but has scored seven goals. It's a little under, but not too crazy.

"Yet Scotland should have scored 7.3 goals on the xG ratings but have scored 12. The reason I mention this is not that the numbers are that important, but in a qualifier, it has big consequences because there are eight games. The defeat to Scotland in Oslo was just horrible for us."