Scotland icon Graeme Souness insists Croatia will be HARDER to beat than England

Graeme Souness aimed another dig at England by claiming Croatia have better ball players and midfielders than Gareth Southgate's side do and will present a tougher challenge.

Scotland need to beat Croatia this evening to stand a chance of qualifying for the Euro 2020 last-16 following their 0-0 draw with England on Friday night.

Souness lavished praise on Scotland's performance at Wembley and insisted they dominated England for much of the game and were unfortunate not to take all three points.

He was also hugely critical of England, insisting after the goalless stalemate that 'football ain't coming home,' Southgate's side were 'disjointed' and Kalvin Phillips and Declan Rice 'don't work together'.

The former Scotland international believes Steve Clarke's men can take enormous confidence from their display against England but insisted that playing against Croatia will be tougher.

‘It’s going to be harder to keep the ball, or to get the ball back off this lot because they have better ball players than England do,' Souness said ahead of the Group D match at Hampden Park.

'We outmuscled them, we outplayed them the English midfielders the other night, we need to do that again.

'I think Croatia will keep the ball better than England did on Friday night. They have got better midfielders and they’ll flood the middle of the park and they’ll have provisions in place for our left-hand side.

'That midfield trio of [Luka] Modric, [Mateo] Kovacic and [Marcelo] Brozovic, they are all technicians and this is a really good Croatia team in possession.'

But the ITV pundit was in confident mood before kick-off and predicted that striker Lyndon Dykes will pose a huge threat to Croatia after showing his physical qualities on Friday night against England.

He added: 'Scotland have to play with their heads the whole time tonight. You don’t have to win the game in the first 20 minutes.

'Looking at Lyndon Dykes against [Dejan] Lovren at the back, we saw Dykes against [Tyrone] Mings the other night, who in the Premier League this season had been dominant in the air.

'Dykes bossed him and we’ve seen Lovren when he was at Liverpool, he doesn’t enjoy that kind of challenge so I can see him having a lot of joy against Lovren tonight.’