Next Saturday, 11th of October 2014, Scotland will take on Georgia at Hampden Park in Glasgow for the second round of the Euro 2016 Qualifiers, on a match that will mark the return of former Dundee’s midfielder and the current Caucasus team’s manager, Temuri Ketsbaia, to a country where he played for one season after his stint at the English Premier League.

After their defeat at the hands of Germany on their opening Euro 2016 qualifier, the Scots are once again at home to entertain Georgia, a fairly inconsistent team but with enough quality players to cause Scotland a major upset.

Despite their defeat on the opening day, Gordon Strachan’s boys have nothing to be ashamed of, especially after what they did during the second-half of the match. After a poor display during the first 45 minutes of the match, the Scots returned from the break with renewed energy and ambition and got the equalizer thanks to a goal by Ikechi Anya after receiving a wonderful pass from Steven Fletcher.

Scotland’s defensive mistakes cost them a defeat on their match against Germany, although it is also fair to say that their goalkeeper, David Marshall, postponed the World Champions’ intents for as long as he possibly could. Gordon Strachan needs to correct his team’s defensive slip-ups for the match against the Georgians, otherwise they might fail to grant the three points once again.

As for Georgia, the Caucasus’ team didn’t start the Euro 2016 Qualifiers in the way their manager and their supporters were certainly expecting, as they ended up by being the defeated by Ireland in Tbilisi last September.

Georgia’s manager, Temuri Ketsbaia, who spent some of his footballer’s career at the United Kingdom, was fairly upset with the match's outcome and he had plenty of reasons to back him up, especially if we consider the individual quality of some of his players, such as Jano Ananidze and Tornike Okriashvili only to name a few.

If Georgia wants to take something positive out of the Qualification group, they need to, at least, grant a point from their visit to Scotland, otherwise they might seriously compromise their aspirations, in a group with such difficult opponents as Germany, Poland and Ireland.

The last time both sides met at Scottish territory was back in 2007 during the European Championship Qualifiers, on a match that the home team won by 2-1. The Scots are firm favourites for the next Saturday’s match, although, they need to fix their rickety defence line if they don’t want to have an unpleasant surprise.

Scotland

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

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Georgia

Stats: W-2 L-3 D-0

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Possible Line-ups

Scotland (4-4-1-1) - Marshall - Hutton - Martin - Hanley - Whittaker - Fletcher - Morrison - Bannan - Anya - Maloney - Naismith

Georgia (4-2-3-1) - Loria - Lobzhanidze - Davit Kvirkvelia - Khubutia - Solomon Kvirkvelia - Kashia - Kankava - Daushvili - Ananidze - Okriashvili - Gelashvili

Prediction

Scotland 2 Georgia 1