SpoonTon
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Posts posted by SpoonTon
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29 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:
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I think we need Armstrong in for this one, and I think McGregor should sit this one out along with McGinn, but otherwise that's the team I'd go with (if not quite that shape, but that's splitting hairs for the way they'd play). I also wouldn't be against another of the centre backs playing in the middle of the back three (in place of Turnbull further up the pitch) because this is the type of match where the back three has worked before.
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3 hours ago, Lex said:
What chances did we have? The two McGinn shots from outside the box and…?To be fair, those were great chances, and he had more time with both to take them further in. Two free shots from the edge of the box should have seen at least one goal at that level. We had a couple of dangerous balls into the box as well. We really should have scored at least once, but our finishing was atrocious (as it was against Armenia).
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I've been a big critic of the back three in certain situations for a long time, but I don't think this is one of those situations. It's tended to work well when we can dominate the game. It wasn't the approach I wanted for the Ukraine or Ireland games, but I'm fine with it in the games against Armenia.
If Clarke wants to try a back four of Patterson-Souter-McKenna-Robertson, then that's fine by me, but I don't think this is the situation that it's necessary in. We completely dominated Armenia midweek, and we can be confident of doing the same again (despite the same old problems appearing in the Ireland and Ukraine matches).
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I don't understand anyone watching that and picking out Robertson as a particular problem.
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2 hours ago, starryfish said:
Just four matches ago we had one of the best Scotland performances in the last forty years v Denmark, where has it all gone wrong?
In a dead rubber against a weakened Denmark side. It meant as much as when we beat Croatia twice - which was a little, but not a lot.
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1 minute ago, Iain said:
Bit embarrassing if the support has decided to act like that.
Scotland fans have booed huddles for at long as I can remember. Happened against Armenia as well. I laugh ever time - it's such a weird mentality.
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1 minute ago, Gordon EF said:
We'll then get releagted to League D. Trust the plan.
They've removed the route from D. Sorry.
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I have no problem with an Irish commentator celebrating a goal in Irish TV coverage. But it's really irritating when someone is celebrating in my moments of despair.
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3 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:
The master plan to get relegated form League B so we have a better shot at winning the League C play-off is on track I see.
It would even be the wrong cycle to do that
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Our defensive record in matches against teams of a similar level to us is embarrassing.
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Could've been different if McGinn had taken one of his very good chances, but defensively, as a team, it's been woeful.
There's a problem when you look through the team and they've all been poor - and Clarke can't just keep using the same excuse that the players have been rubbish. The usual weaknesses are there, just like last week it's so easy to create chances against us.
I was surprised by the lineup. I thought Hendry would have been the defender most likely to lose his place in the team, and it's looking like a mistake to keep him in. Ralston had been good going forward but absent at the back, and the second goal was a nightmare between those two.
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49 minutes ago, Trump said:
Gary Oliver, talk to me.
Runs around in circles with the ball a lot. Scores loads of goals against Dunfermline. Good technically (good touch and decent passer of the ball) but not very quick or direct. Best as a second striker or behind a front two. Was excellent in the play-off games last season - looked a class above Airdrie and Montrose in those games. Doesn't quite do enough at Championship level. I tend to think he'd do well in League One, but it's hard to tell.
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37 minutes ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:
Why so?
Four of them are boys, two of them strictly squad options, and we’ll add probably another eight.
I trust Imrie to get a mix of value and quality more than MacPherson, Hopkin, Johansson, or Duffy before him.
I don't rate Baird. I wasn't particularly impressed with Lithgow last season. I don't think Hynes, McGrattan, or Easdale have shown enough to still be at the club at their stage (the former two might be decent enough as squad fillers in an emergency, but I'm not convinced they're worth the space in the squad. Jacobs had a bad year - he might be fine if kept to the one role he's good at. Blues and Muirhead were fine in their own way in the second half of the season, they might be good competition. The three younger players might head off on loan or provide some cover, preferably the former.
To be clear, I have no issue with the spaces there we have to bring new players in - I have an issue with too many players on that list not being good enough to play. 14 players there, and maybe 4 or 5 who could be starters. Still leaves space for a few players to come in, but I'd rather more empty spaces and therefore more scope to improve the squad.
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- Alan Lithgow
- Darren Hynes
- Alexander King
- Kyle Jacobs
- Lewis McGrattan
- Lewis McGregor
- Michael Garrity
- Reece Lyon
- Alexander Easdale
- Jack Baird
- Carlo Pignatiello
- Darragh O’Connor
- Cameron Blues
- Robbie Muirhead
That list does not make for great reading.
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2 hours ago, Loominous said:
Honestly mate what I took from your post is that we need to change from a back three to back four. People really hate the back three and more hate it still when Scott McTominay is in there - I'm not a tactics guru but I don't have a problem with it.
- If we play a back three and lose people always say 'should've played a back four'.
- If we play a back four and lose then it's 'should've stuck with a back three'
- if we play two up top then 'we should have played an extra midfielder'
- if we play and extra midfielder 'we should have played two strikers'
It's just results based.
No, I think there are times when a back three will work. I don't hate a back 3 and have admired some of the things that Clarke has tried to achieve with it (even if it hasn't always worked out). And it has worked in different variations in attacking and defensive performances (3-5-2 against Faroes/England/Austria or 3-4-2-1 against Denmark/Moldova/Serbia). But there has been a particular issue with how this has worked against teams at home who are at a similar level to us. Whether this issue can be solved or improved by tinkering with personnel, instructions, or positions within this structure or if it's something which requires a move to a system with a back four is for Clarke to figure out.
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We've genuinely had a problem with performances at Hampden over the last year or so. There have been defensive voices in the Scotland camp pointing to games like Austria or England away as examples of when the 3-5-2 has worked, but those games were dominated by a very deep press where the front two are doing a defensive job (often in midfield areas) and the aim is to get a draw or sneak a goal. One penalty in those two games and two clean sheets sums up the success of that aim. Away in the Faroes was pretty awful but we ground out a winner, away in Moldova was much better (we all know about mistakes made away to a good Denmark side).
What we can say has been Clarke's real success is that he has found a way to help us grind out results - the play-off away in Serbia, the 3-2 at home to Israel, the performance at Wembley, and the win in Austria being great examples of this. But in terms of actual great performances, the win in a dead rubber at home to Denmark, the home match against the Faroes, and the match away in Moldova have been the only great 'on the front foot' type performances.
There remains a very clear Hampden problem. Over the least year and a bit, this is what we've had:
2-2 Austria - we were a bit fortunate to get away with a draw after a brilliant late McGinn goal, but great spirit in grinding that out.
4-0 Faroes - perhaps the best home performance, comfortable win with Tierney especially standing out.
0-2 Czech - disappointing performance, we had chances but didn't look solid.
1-3 Croatia - outclassed a bit but, again, not solid at all.
1-0 Moldova - unconvincing but ground it out.
3-2 Israel - wonderful feeling with the late winner, great spirit shown. Sums up how close the sides were and Israel will feel hard done by to lose.
2-0 Denmark - best performance alongside the Faroes game, tempered a bit by Denmark being weakened.
1-3 Ukraine - worst performance in quite some time.
All in all, there are positive signs - that we can put in really good performances and that we have been good at grinding out results. I don't think there is a convincing case for Clarke to go, but I do honestly think he has to change something, or work on a plan B, to start bringing us up a level and to be more solid at Hampden. In the five most important games there against sides we should be competing against, it's 1 win, 1 draw, 3 defeats, 7 goals scored and 12 against. That last one is really worrying. We have not been solid enough at Hampden - our defensive record away from home has been far superior. What can we really hope to achieve if we can't start to significantly reduce that number?
I can understand the defence that the players simply didn't turn up last week. Individually it was poor. But, while I think that is a significant part of the story, it also feeds into similar weaknesses over a longer period of time. Opposition teams aren't afraid of Dykes and Adams as a front two, so unless they are being deployed for defensive reasons in a team with a really quite deep press, I don't think it helps us at all (and whether we meant to or not, we didn't play that way last week). And as soon as our wing backs get occupied, we end up with an exposed by three because the midfield gets outnumbered. The back three is a big issue here, because they're just not sure enough when to step up and press and when to sit back. And this has been a pattern in important matches at Hampden. The positive things that Clarke has done are clear to see, I just wish that he'd find a way to put that together with being more solid at Hampden because it hasn't been good enough.
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2 hours ago, BFTD said:
Aye, I guess that's fair. I suppose he either really didn't know much about what we had available when he took over, or panicked and hoped he'd manage to unearth some stars like Darlington loanee Kevin Kyle
James McFadden didn't make his competitive debut for Scotland until after he moved to Everton, and you still get people who defend Vogts for being brave enough to give young players a chance. The bottom line with Vogts is that he just got far too many judgements wrong.
As said above, the likes of McNamara, Naysmith, Weir, Lambert, Ferguson, Dailly, and Cameron were all established players at the time, with McFadden, Miller, Fletcher, and Gordon all breaking through around that time. It wasn't a particularly terrible time to be Scotland manager (relative to what was to come, anyway). I mean, Vogts once experimented with Christian Dailly on the left wing - he wanted to try different things, but his experiments didn't work and weren't really needed. He failed to initially pick out the best of the young players coming through, that's why we got Kyle and not McFadden (and a whole host of other young players who weren't good enough).
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1 hour ago, craigkillie said:
We only lost 1 game in the entire group, and took 16 points out of 18 against the bottom 3 seeds, despite Israel being amongst the strongest of the 4th seeds. Even if we'd had someone like Poland or Ukraine instead of Austria, we'd likely only have had to take 1 or 3 points off them to finish 2nd anyway.
It was a qualifying performance well beyond what we have achieved in two decades. The only reason we weren't in with a shout of actually winning the group was because Denmark wiped the floor with everyone else.Clarke deserves praise for getting the job done in a way that other Scotland managers haven't. And I'm hoping that he finds a way to be more flexible rather than hoping he leaves. But there's no getting around the fact that this was a weak group (I celebrated getting that group like we'd won a match), and I'm not buying the Israel are a good team stuff. I'm also not convinced that beating Denmark in a match that they treated like a friendly is any better than when we beat Croatia twice and got all excited about that.
But there are enough positive signs and good results that mean I'm happy with what Clarke had achieved for the most part - even if I'm frustrated with just how wrong he's got things at times. I want to be optimistic, I really do, but I'm finding it tough.
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8 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:
I don't think it was an easier group then having Norway and Macedonia for 2010. I also reckon, despite it being a more difficult group overall, Austria and Israel are better teams than the Ireland side Strachan contrived to finish behind.
What's tripped us up consistently for making the playoffs over the last 20 years is dropping points v pot 5 and 6 sides. Clarke has put a stop to that nonsense, while he took 4 points from each of our rivals for second in his first full campaign. We haven't gone through a group with only one defeat since 1998 qualifying. Now we need to build on that, but it bodes well for the next group.
Contrived to finish 3 points behind a team that took 4 points off world champions Germany?
Clarke had done an infinitely better job than Burley, and that group was certainly one of the weaker groups (along with this one).
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42 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:
Obviously individual games and managerial decisions can alter this, but broadly what should performing to par for Scotland be seen as, and therefore when is a manager failing?
In an era of a 24 team Euros, failing to qualify will obviously always be unacceptable. The manner in which a manager fails to qualify is relevant here, but failing to even make the playoffs for the Euros should clearly be an instant sacking, and failing to get through the playoffs should often be as well. It was an absolute scandal that Strachan was actually given a new contract after finishing fourth when he should have been told in no uncertain terms to f**k off for that humiliation.
Qualifying for a World Cup is clearly a much tougher challenge which can never be taken as a given. Failing to make the playoffs at all would have to lead to serious questions being asked, and if we were to have repeated problems in easily winnable playoffs that'd be an issue - you take the circumstances of the failure into account every time - but I think it would be reactionary nonsense to say any failure to qualify for a World Cup needs a manager to be sacked.
By finishing second in a group to make these playoffs, Clarke has already achieved something no Scotland manager had for 18 years, and even that was a stupidly easy group in comparison. If we make second again in the upcoming Euros campaign, and don't forget that we just absolutely cantered to it by 7 points, that's automatic qualification there.
The actual group does make a massive difference, though. This was the weakest group we've been lucky enough to been drawn in since that time you mention when we somehow got Lithuania, Faroes, and Iceland as our only competition for a playoff spot. This was our chance largely because the draw gave us that chance. Drawing England and Slovakia or Germany and Poland or Italy and France or Russia, Croatia, and Belgium or Belgium and Russia or Spain and Czech Republic is more difficult than a very good Denmark side and an Austria side who were in disarray.
Which is not to say that I think Clarke did a bad job of the qualifying campaign - the campaign came good and we got the job done. But we're kidding ourselves if we think that we weren't lucky to draw Austria instead of the likes of Ukraine, Switzerland or Poland. If we want to do the same again and finish in second, then we'll need to either get lucky again or seriously improve.
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1 hour ago, craigkillie said:
There's no creativity in the attack if we have McGinn and McTominay as the support for a striker. We need someone like Christie with a wee bit more guile.
I agree, and you could do that if we went to the back four. But the other important point here is that we aren't good enough to pick the same team or structure no matter the opposition.
Which isn't to say I'm blaming everything on that, there were some terrible individual performances the other night.
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3 hours ago, Satoshi said:
You think Finland and Bosnia have been better than us what period of time? Finland's best ever player couldn't hack it at Celtic.
We are also doing fairly well relative to much bigger nations too like Hungary, Poland and Belarus. Just qualifying for more tournaments doesn't necessarily make them better if they're having other horror campaigns and results.
I certainly didn't say that all those teams are better than us. We just haven't stood out as being a good team. For the most part we've been consistent at being not quite good enough to qualify for tournaments. For me that means we're around the right baseline but haven't managed to step it up a level at any point. I would take an argument for consistent decent for a nation our side, but we haven't had a good team for a long time.
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Hanley in Cooper were so, so poor last night. Hanley delivered a masterclass in how not to defend one-ones. They were also woefully exposed. Hanley has the problem of either being pretty solid or pretty catastrophic (he doesn't seem to know how to moderate his below par performances). I wouldn't rule either out in future - they are on a similar level to those who would replace them, but their weakness were blinding last night.
What I struggle to understand is why go with the back three in cases when it actually just exposes them to more attacks (because there is less cover in midfield areas)? I feel like it just doubles down on the weak part of them team. Surely Clarke has to understand when the back 4 is more appropriate?
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10 minutes ago, Satoshi said:
It reminds me of when England lost to Iceland or Croatia they would fret they were not at footballs top table. In reality they hadn't been there for about 40 years, although staking a credible claim now.
As for Scotland, we are a decent-good nation for our size but qualifying regularly for the world cups won't be in our grasp given the current European structure.
If we are qualifying for less than half of the 24 team Euros though that would be really disappointing.
So realistically we will be a regular Euros team and occasional World Cup team. About right.
Are we? Looking at the countries our size and smaller, like Denmark, Croatia, Slovakia, Finland, Bosnia, Slovenia, Ireland, Norway, we've been one of the poorer teams over many years.
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Armenia v Scotland
in Tartan Army Ramblings
Posted
I'm not actually sure if that's the reason why Clarke does it. In any case, it certainly hasn't.