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Gordon Strachan refutes suggestions of overly-physical Scotland approach

Sport360 staff

08:32 08/10/2015

Gordon Strachan refutes suggestions from Poland that the visitors will be facing an overly-physical Scotland side at Hampden Park on Thursday night.

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Much has been made of the tackle on Robert Lewandowski by defender Gordon Greer when the teams drew 2-2 in Warsaw a year ago, not least by the Bayern Munich striker who has this week tried to put pressure on Hungarian referee Viktor Kassai.

Polish boss Adam Nawalka was also quoted as describing the tackle on his striker as “brutal”.

However Strachan said: “I don’t know the officials, or who is refereeing, I don’t care. All I know is that over the tournament they have had about 30 per cent more fouls against them than we have and more yellow cards than we have.”

In eight qualifiers Scotland have committed 80 fouls and picked up 12 yellow cards while the Poles have committed 110 fouls and received 15 yellow cards.

When those statistics were subsequently put to Nawalka he smiled before saying: “We are anticipating a very difficult game.”

Meanwhile, Portugal are in pole position to advance as winners of Group I and can do so by beating second-place Denmark in Braga.

Portugal have Atletico Madrid midfielder Tiago available again after suspension while Monaco duo Joao Moutinho and Fabio Coentrao return from injury

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