Shocking, Disgraceful and Awful, just some of the words i would use to describe the referees performance. To Award a free kick, that should have been a yellow card for a CLEAR dive, and then to turn down 2 clear penalties within the space of 5 seconds and THEN book James McFadden for diving, has got to go down as a bad day in the office for the referee, and for FIFA to continually reject the idea of video replays, to me is astonishing.

I could go on about the referee, but in fairness, Scotland were just as bad. There was no creativity, no urgency, and it says someting about the overall performance when Craig Gordon was our best player... had it not been for him the score could have been 3-0 or maybe even 4-0.

Scotland had one shot in the first half, a James McFadden shot from just inside the box which was blocked. this was largley due to the fact that we had a few key players out, Ferguson and Hutton most notable, but in my opinion it was due to the fact james McFadden was playing as a striker in an unfamiliar 4-4-2 formation.

The success of the Euro qualifiers, showed Scotland play best in an attacking 4-5-1, and by comparison to that Scotland were dire, predictable and quiet.

Credit to Macedonia, as theyre defence was organised and solid, but the question has to be asked, would they have been so solid in a 4-5-1 with Mcfadden and Fletcher running amok as seen against France in the Euro's?

George Burley played the 4-4-2 with McFadden up front, and it showed then that Scotland had little if nothing about them, which should have been a clear indicator that in WCQ that sytem wasnt going to work.

And as for playing Hartley as a defensive midfielder, am i alone in thinking that he would have been better served as an attacking midfielder? we certainly would have had more chances with his little through balls coming in for Kenny Miller.

Scotland came out in the second half and created more chances, but it was the lack of finishing and creativity in the final third of the pitch that really hurt Scotland, the inability to finish the chances they created is not a good sign, with Norway and Holland yet to come which are by no doubt the toughest two teams in the group.

In a game where Scotland at least deserved a point, they came away with nothing, due to a combination of bad refereeing and the lack of finishing. And for me, it is something that needs to be looked at, the refereeing issue by FIFA and the formation by one Mr. George Burley.