Dailly still has faith in Vogts

Scotland captain Christian Dailly insists manager Berti Vogts is still up for the daunting challenge of turning around the national side’s fortunes after yet another confidence-sapping defeat, this time in a friendly against Romania at Hampden.

The Scots are preparing for their upcoming 2006 World Cup qualification campaign which begins in September but under-fire Vogts did little to endear himself to the paltry crowd of just over 20,000 as his side went down 2-1 for their third defeat in a row.

The Scots now face another difficult game when they take on Denmark in Copenhagen in their next friendly but Dailly insists the German will not buckle under the increasing pressure.

He said: “There’s no doubt about it, Berti Vogts is still up for the challenge – he’s not changed.

“He’s got his plan for four years and he’s trying to change it and we have to give him our support.

“We’re always under pressure, there is never a game when we’re not under pressure and every single game that we play from now on people will say ‘you need to win this one’.

“The fact of the matter is we’re playing really difficult friendlies against good sides but every game we play we want to win.

“We actually watched the video of Romania playing Denmark and they looked a real good side so it’s going to be a tough game for us as well.”

After going two goals down there were fears that the Scots could collapse like they have done in their last two thrashings against Holland and Wales but a goal from substitute James McFadden steadied the ship, although there was little indication that an equaliser was on the way.

Dailly claimed the visitors were a more than decent side and the West Ham defender was upbeat about the Scots’ performance, if not the result.

He added: “Romania are a good side with good movement and a lot pace and it was a difficult game, not just physically but mentally.

“But it was disappointing that they scored two goals because our keeper Paul Gallacher never had a save to make the whole game.

“The first goal was a deflection out of nothing and the second one just broke into the guy’s path – but they never created them.

“They never created much apart from at the end when we were away up trying to score, but that’s different.

“James McFadden did well when he came on, he gave us something a little bit different eventually but we’re just disappointed to have lost because we put a lot into it.

“But the heads didn’t go down. We’ve been talking about that all week, saying that we had to keep playing away, keep our shape and keep aggressive, and we did do that.”