In these formative days of his tenure as Scotland’s new head coach, Sebastien Pocognoli already finds himself on the receiving end of some sniping remarks.Whether it’s supporters or pundits in the media, there are already theories doing the rounds about how this whole thing is doomed to fail after just two games.It is a ridiculously small sample size. All the more so given that one of those matches saw Pocognoli’s team play with ten men for the best part of 80 minutes on a rotten night.Jack Hendry’s brain-fade and subsequent red card against Switzerland at Hampden turned the whole thing into a damage-limitation exercise.A team who were playing in the World Cup quarter-finals against Argentina only a couple of months ago, Switzerland could have thumped Scotland 3-0 even with 11 men.We’ll never know. But the nature of the game rendered any definitive conclusions on the Pocognoli era meaningless. Switzerland barely had to break sweat. Pocognoli speaks to captain Andy Robertson during Tuesday’s loss to SwitzerlandThe simple reality is that nobody can say with any certainty yet whether or not Pocognoli will actually turn out to be any good.Two games into his reign and we are still none the wiser. All we’ve seen is a 45-minute performance against a poor Slovenia team that produced no goals.Of all the options Hendry had available to him as he chased after Dan Ndoye, he chose the worst of them all.Ricardo Rodriguez curled the free-kick past an unconvincing Angus Gunn – and that was that.Scotland spent the rest of the night chasing shadows, trying not to be embarrassed further by a classy and dangerous Swiss team.In his post-match media conference, Pocognoli admitted he would have preferred a penalty and keeping 11 men on the pitch.Had that happened, at least we would have been able to get a better gauge on whether his ambition to have the team press high up the pitch actually worked.What we saw was not his Scotland. It was ten men trying to stop the bleeding. There was no realistic prospect of getting back into the game.Pocognoli can’t legislate for a moment of madness from Hendry. Drawing conclusions and making snap judgments from a game like this is like judging a chef after the oven explodes.None of this is to say that Pocognoli shouldn’t be concerned by certain aspects of what he has seen over these two matches.John McGinn had a poor World Cup in the summer. That form has continued into these Nations League matches. John McGinn has been struggling for form in a Scotland jerseyAt the moment, he looks a long way short of the player who has earned hero status among the Tartan Army over the past decade.In goal, Gunn did not have a good night. He should have done better to keep out the Rodriguez free-kick.When the excellent Zeki Amdouni then thumped one in to make it 3-0, the Scotland keeper again looked questionable.The team has looked disjointed at times and unsure in themselves in terms of how to execute the high press that Pocognoli wants from them.That was evident in the way that Switzerland were able to cut straight through the middle of Scotland in the incident which saw Ndoye gallop away from Hendry.Finding a reliable and settled formula in central defence remains a huge issue. So, too, the lack of a goalscorer at the top end of the pitch.None of these are new problems. They existed long before Pocognoli walked through the building. The success of his tenure will hinge on whether he can find solutions.None of this means Pocognoli is doomed. The second-half against Slovenia last weekend was decent and offered hope.But the fact Scotland then played with one hand tied behind their back against the Swiss made it impossible to carry on that momentum from Ljubljana. Angus Gunn is under scrutiny after a poor performance against SwitzerlandAll of which brings us to Saturday night in Skopje. North Macedonia are bottom of the group, winless, leaking goals all over the place, and have just lost to Slovenia.On paper, this is the fixture Scotland should win – and win comfortably. This is the one they must win whilst giving us a proper taste of what Pocognoli is selling.Not because three points will prove irrefutably that he is the answer long-term. But because it would avert any sense of crisis.Macedonia are no Switzerland. They are not even Slovenia. They have scored two goals in their past ten games.Scotland should have far too much for them if they keep 11 men on the park and remember how to put the ball in the net.That last part is becoming a habit. That’s now four games without a goal, a run stretching back to the World Cup.For the Scotland national team, it is now the longest goal drought since 1971. New coach, new system, same old lacklustre finishing.You can change the head coach. Changing the habit of not scoring goals on a regular basis is much, much harder.Pocognoli talks about a new chapter and a new era. Every Scotland manager does. Steve Clarke said similar things.It is also worth remembering that Clarke also suffered a tough start. In fact, it was more than that. It was a horror start.Much is often made about the late winner from Oli Burke in Clarke’s first match in charge against Cyprus in 2019.Less so about the next four games which followed. Scotland played two double-headers against Belgium and Russia – and lost them all by an aggregate scoreline of 13-1.They were being routinely annihilated and questions began to surface early in Clarke’s tenure about whether he was the right man for Scotland. In the end, he did OK.The most frustrating element in all of this is that we still don’t know what Pocognoli’s Scotland will look like.Two matches – one of which was with a man down – is not an appropriate sample size. It is a snapshot taken in a bad light.Anyone claiming they already know whether Pocognoli will succeed or fail is guessing. Right now, there’s no conceivable way anyone can know for sure how this pans out.Click here to visit the Scotland home page for the latest news and sport