Wales coach John Hartson feels that Scotland may perform better away from home ahead of the two countries meeting in Cardiff tomorrow night. Scotland opened their World Cup qualifying Group A campaign with two home draws, 0-0 with Serbia and 1-1 with Macedonia. Wales made a poorer start to their efforts to get to Brazil in 2014 when they suffer a 2-0 home loss to Belgium and humiliating 6-1 embarrassment in Serbia. Hartson certainly hopes things will be better for the home side on Friday, although the former Dragons striker, who played for five seasons with Celtic, believes Chris Coleman's team need to be mindful that their opponents could well thrive on the fact they will be playing away from the intense environment of their own ground.
Hartson said: "We've seen both of their games. We have watched the videos and I think Scotland may well feel they can perform better away from home. I've played at Hampden Park during my time at Celtic and it can be quite hostile there. I just think that playing in front of a home crowd can sometimes add to the pressure. Some players cope with it, some struggle. Scotland have drawn two games that were slightly disappointing from the point of view of their fans, who would have expected them to win certainly one of them. Maybe coming to Cardiff will take a little bit of pressure off them because they are away from home, rather than playing in that cauldron at Hampden."
Coleman succeeded the late Gary Speed as manager and have lost all five of their games since and they have scored once, Gareth Bale's effort in the last game. The Dragons are in urgent need of finding some goalscoring form, although Hartson feels it is "not a major worry" at the moment. He said: "It is a concern that you don't get goals from your frontmen, but it's not only your strikers you need to look at. It is the whole team we look at, and when the team is on the front foot and playing well, the goals will come. If we weren't really creating chances I'd be more worried. Hopefully on Friday we can create plenty of chances, get the crowd behind us and we can score some goals."
Source: From team 780