RYAN CHRISTIE will force himself to sit through the video nasty of Scotland’s defeat to Belgium to learn from the Kevin De Bruyne Hampden masterclass.
Christie was a bright spot on an otherwise gloomy night for the Scots, but even he admitted that he couldn’t touch the peerless Manchester City playmaker.
But he hopes he can learn from the experience and improve as a player as a result.
“He’s not bad to be honest,” Christie said. “He’s a frightening player. You could see it out there.
“It’s nice for me to play against him as he players in a similar position to me. It’s important to watch the positions he picks up and the damage he can do on the ball, even when he has two or three men around him.
“That’s something you have to aspire to be as good as these guys.
"I'll go back and look at the video of the game and look at what de Bruyne did.
"It'll be painful, but I will also focus more on my own performance.
"In the first 15 minutes, I was getting it in good areas but not really causing a threat.
"It's on us to create more chances in the final third.”
Christie was critical of his own performance in the 4-0 defeat, feeling he should have done more to hurt the Belgian superstars when picking up the ball in the final third.
That was an overly harsh assessment from the Celtic man, but his constant desire for improvement was a heartening thought at least on another low point for the long-suffering Tartan Army.
"It's nice to get voted man of the match but it's not really lifted my spirits,” he said. "I wasn't really happy with my performance at all.
"When you get the ball in good areas against these teams, you need to make it count.
"I didn't have enough shots or create enough chances – but that's on me and the other attacking boys.
"That was Belgium, so hopefully against the lesser teams we can punish them more.”
Christie certainly hopes that a step down in level over the next few fixtures can help rekindle some enthusiasm around the national side ahead of the March Euro 2020 playoff matches.
"We need to give the fans the message that we want to keep building and look forward to the play-offs,” he said.
"It's not going to be easy for them to keep supporting us through the campaign.
"But we are sure they will stick with us – because they've been so good for us in the past.
"When those games come around in the next few months, we will be desperate to get that winning mentality.
"We have enough good players in this squad to go and hurt teams.”
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