Gordopolis
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Posts posted by Gordopolis
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7 minutes ago, accies1874 said:
Nah he's just a poor penalty taker at the moment. Missed in the Youth League last season and his other one against Hungary earlier in the year wasn't great either. All pretty much the same penalty too.
It was a pretty shite team performance. Too easy to play around our 5-2-3 and there wasn't much cohesion on the ball.
Interesting, thanks. I think being spooked tho is part of being a poor pen taker.
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Think Doak for a bit spooked by the long wait to take the kick.
Always seems to me that when the ref keeps blowing the whistle and warning players for encroachment etc that it's only the penalty taker who suffers. Just let the kick happen and yellow card any player who encroaches (obvs that would take a bit of player education etc).
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5 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:
Fletcher was never much of a scorer for Scotland. His figures, including that 'calendar year goals' record that McTominay matched but didn't beat, are vastly inflated by having scored two hat tricks against Gibraltar in 2015 in 6-1 and 6-0 wins. For context France beat them 14-0 the other night! If we want to have three or four players on double figure goals just arrange some friendlies against Gibraltar and San Marino. He scored 4 goals in 31 other appearances for us.
Very few players have a large number of goals for Scotland to be fair. It's something I was looking at a week or so back in context of Lyndon Dykes. We've only had 22 players make it to double figures in our entire history. And 7 of those got 10. Only 15 players have scored more than 10 goals for Scotland. I'm biased when it comes to Lyndon but as much as I rate him highly, he's not a particularly regular scorer, albeit his scoring rate has improved since he became the focus of attack for a club. All the more remarkable then that he's now joint 23rd in our all time scoring list and two more goals would put him 16th on his own!
Only 7 players have scored more than 15 goals for Scotland, McGinn's 18 has him 6th, one behind Ally McCoist. Beyond McCoist only Lawrie Reilly and Hughie Gallacher on 23 goals and Law & Dalglish on 30 goals lie beyond. The former two playing in an era where goals where much more plentiful (Gallacher got his 23 in just 20 games!). McGinn's 18 in 62 games is more less the same scoring rate as established strikers Miller, McCoist and Dalglish who were all, or at least the latter two, renowned goalscorers. A remarkable record for McGinn from midfield with (I think) just one penalty included, although again for balance, worth noting he has a hat trick against San Marino in his total.
Despite his current virtual "goal a game" scoring rate in this campaign, McTominay actually doesn't average anywhere close to as high for Scotland. I appreciate your suggestion he's more likely to break 10 than Dykes is partly based on his form this year and the fact he's probably more certain to play, or at least start, than Dykes, but Dykes has a better goals per game record than McTominay across his Scotland career. In fact Dykes' record of just under 1 in 3 with Scotland is broadly consistent with his records at QPR and Livingston where he's been central striker also but far better than his record at Queen of the South where he was more of a foil for Stephen Dobbie than the focus of attack. It's also broadly consistent with Messrs McGinn, Miller, McCoist and Dalglish in a Scotland shirt.
Pretty much agree with all that and appreciate the further analysis.
Yeah Fletcher/Naismith was really just coincidental - they never really felt like "our front 2" at any point. And as you say, Fletcher was never really a great goalscoring threat.
Miller and McFadden felt - for a year or two around the 2008 campaign - like a credible and reasonably potent front two who often played together. Boyd was coming thru at the same time and started well for us (before the well documented fall out with George Burley). There's never been another time I have felt that we were well stocked for proven international goalscorers in the forward dept (I was a bit too young to appreciate McCoist & MoJo).
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Not that it's essential, but it'd be quite nice to have more than one player in the squad on double figures for goals. I don't think we've had that this century apart from Miller and McFadden for a spell (possibly Steven Fletcher and Steven Naismith too? Though I think Fletcher was gone by the time Naismith got his 10th).
McGinn is obvs well into dbl figures on 18. Dykes is poised on 9, but hasn't really been a regular scorer for us this campaign (just the 1 vs that largely forgettable 2-1 WIN in Norway). McTominay on 8 could possibly be a better candidate to break the 10 barrier pre-Euros. After that, it's Ryan Christie, Che Adams and Stuart Armstrong all on 5, and unlikely to hit dbl figures any time soon.
As I say it'd just give the squad a bit more of a 'seasoned' feel about it, in the same was as having quite a few players approaching and beyond the 50 cap barrier has done.
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3 hours ago, Alan Twelve said:
Geometry is for losers.
Kudos for referencing the appropriate sub-branch of mathematics.
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1 hour ago, martin ritchie said:
Norway fans were class in walkabout before the game, very poor during it. Was always going to be a bit of a damp squid from our point of view. Good day out tho
Mods
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2 hours ago, edinabear said:
Draw probably a fair result. Some of the defending today was pretty poor. Hopefully Taylor, Clarke and Brown don't play again.
The lad's 60. It's unlikely he'll pull on his boots again.
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Solbakken with his hood up
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1 minute ago, UsedToGoToCentralPark said:
2nd half just kicked off in Spain so they are 5 minutes behind our game.
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Just now, Quentin Taranbino said:
Tearing up the Gentleman's agreement would mean that we could cap anyone English, Welsh or Northern Irish though?
We all have British passports and British is the official nationality so we could literally cap any "British" player.
Unless I have completely misunderstood, you want to open that huge can of worms in order to cap a couple of lower league jobbers with Jamaican grannies
If I understand Stuart Cosgrove's point (which I probably don't), it sounded like the gentleman's agreement didn't quite cover the likes of the Windrush generation and their descendants; thus, why shouldn't we be selecting them?
I assume it's residency (X years in England) that makes it okay for England to have selected from this pool thus far?
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Just now, BFTD said:
Yeah, it's a shame we didn't give Spain more to do in their final group game, but the result doesn't look so bad with context.
Oh, and could people please stop referring to this game as a "dead rubber"? Absolutely mental stuff from folk who probably considered the games against Spain a "free hit"
Seconded. It's just dim patter (even dimmer than me naming 12 players in my starting xi in the original post in this thread)
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22 hours ago, Desp said:
You'd fancy us strongly if we're going with a 5-5-1 and starting with 12 men...
From what you've got above, I think (minus Ferguson) that's the starting XI.
Yeah, majorly fucked that up
Edited now.
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Thought I'd start a match thread for this.
Looking fwd to this tie in the sense that there is no existential terror involved, and - mainly because of injury - we need to try out a few different players. At the same time it's important not to veer too far from our core as we really do need to get back to winning ways for morale's sake.
So I'm thinking:
Liam Kelly
Patterson Porteous McKenna Taylor
Gilmour McGregor
McTominay McGinn Ferguson
Brown
Really tempting to start with Dykes as I'd like him to get back on the scoresheet for us, but Brown looked dangerous in flashes when he came on vs France, and he really needs a start to show what he can offer. From what I've seen of him he looks more towards the Adams end of the Adams-Dykes spectrum (technical & pacy vs physical out ball).
Predicting a 2-1 win for us (Brown, Hendry)
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3 hours ago, Mark Connolly said:
Qualified with a nervy 1-1 draw with Norway in the last game.
Norway equalised with a minute to go with an absolute screamer, but we held on and finished one point ahead of France.
That McCoist goal is my earliest memory of seeing Scotland playing - and the one that got me hooked.
The Norway goal is spectacular, but surely Leighton's badly at fault there (unless there's a deflection or something you can't see in the footage)?
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3 hours ago, Spikethedee said:
Until we draw Spain from Pot 2, of course...
Spain, our new Israel
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3 hours ago, 2426255 said:
I'm not seeing a huge reason to prefer being in pot-2 to pot-3 for Euro-2024, maybe that'll change this month - but as things stand with a round of games to go this is how the pots would be arranged for the final tournament and Pot-3 looks like a decent place to be.
Yikes! By that graphic, I'd say pot 3 is better for us.
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7 hours ago, 2426255 said:
Can't wait for someone to question if being named in the u-21 squad means Doig or Johnston won't be involved in the senior team.
Glad you brought this up. Surely both deserved a shot in the big team?!?!?!?!?
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26 minutes ago, Quentin Taranbino said:
Valentin Barco, the Boca Juniors left back.
Where was David Hopkin in October 2003?
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23 hours ago, craigkillie said:
This is exactly why I couldn't understand any person wanting Norway to beat Spain last month - it would be terrifying to be heading into vital games missing so many players, especially so many in the same position. Obviously these games are still important to an extent, but the main thing is to qualify first and worry about seeding and everything else later.Fortunately we can still have Taylor and Patterson in the full-back/wing-back positions so it's not terminal, but the drop off on both sides is substantial.
Seeding-wise, the only result people would have wanted - surely - was a draw, which would have both qualified us AND kept us in with a really strong chance of winning the group?
I think a few people were as you say wanting Norway to beat Spain - but more so we could then seal qualification under our own steam (which I agree is blasé/bonkers).
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12 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:
Haaland subbed off at half time apparently injured.
Shame really as beating Norway at Hampden without the big fud wouldn't be quite as enjoyable.
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France look scared. And so they should.
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16 hours ago, Sarcastic Bairn said:
I only seem to remember him for falling over consistently.
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19 hours ago, Self-raising Lazarus said:
Craig Mackail-Smith started for scotland against Brazil........
Naw he didnae (came on as an 87th min sub)
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4 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:
Absolutely. I'm old enough to know this. I wish people would stop telling me blindingly obvious stuff. I'm delighted that we've qualified and it's been a very successful campaign for us to do so this early.
Competent isn't heroic though.
That's all.
I'd say competent is Spain, Germany etc qualifying with 2 games to spare. For Scotland it's pretty special.
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Who’s on the plane?
in Tartan Army Ramblings
Posted
Yeah he was a real livewire during a largely desolate period (mainly the first year or two after he came in, before Strachan took us on that run that nearly qualified us when Anya kind of faded). Lovely lad as well.