albagubrath

The only thing I really want to see from Billy that he isn't doing now is better shooting. The chance he had late in the second half he snatched a bit and hit it right down the middle of the goal. If he took his time and hit it like one of those passes he pings forward he would have put that in the bottom corner. Hard to complain though, he's metronomic and exactly the kind of player British clubs have historically struggled to develop. Neat, tidy and able to help the team play out of trouble. He moves the play around so well and you could already see him telling his team-mates where the next pass should be to build a move. It was a Serie B team with 10 men for half an hour so we don't want to get too carried away, but it was a very decent start.

Wow, that's fairly obscure!

I would much rather these kids went anywhere but the OF - neither of the OF (nor any Scottish club really) have any track record of development to point at and their fans are quick to turn on young players. Until Scottish football mandates development/young player quotas we will not see any improvement in this IMO. My first choice though is they stay where they are until they are 18/19 and have played 100ish games, that seems to be one of the better development tools.

Tbf I’m surprised rangers aren’t massively in favour of this. They are a million miles behind Celtic and in my view unlikely to catch up soon given the revenue disparity. A limit on non-homegrown players would be a big leveller for them.

Not sure I agree, it’s symptomatic of his time in charge. They may have been friendlies but getting pumped 5-0 and 3-0 by Austria and Wales respectively does not smack of good management. Given the post I responded to was ludicrously suggesting Gemmill replace Steve Clarke I think the full context of his horrendous record is important.

In the past 18 months the U21s, with a squad widely thought to be one of the best in the last 20-30 years, has managed to following results: Lost to: Sweden, Wales (3-0), Spain (twice), Turkey, Austria (5-0!) Drew with: Norway (twice), Hungary Beaten: Hungary, Malta, Belgium, Kazakhstan In summary then, one result that might be seen as beyond expectations (Belgium). I watched that game and we were horseshit, battered all game and extremely lucky to win. Belgium had 26 shots on target, we had two! This u21 group continues to underperform. Again last night the tactics were unconvincing and the selection was awful.

Because their respective TV channels (ITV and S4C I think) think the rights are worth the money required to secure them. The TV channels here (BBC Scotland and STV) do not think the Scotland rights are worth the money required to secure them.

My understanding is premier bought all ‘active’ rights from via play but not future rights, so viaplay still own the upcoming Scotland games but have no way to broadcast them. Premier sports have being trying to negotiate a joint bid for them with BBC Scotland but the BBC are unable at this point to provide sufficient cash. Uefa will be pissed if the game is not broadcast and they do have the ability to recover the rights if the game or games are not shown. I do wonder if they will step in this week if there is no agreement in place ahead of it being a blackout.

Any idea if it was tactical or if he was playing badly? It seems their regular right back was playing on the left so perhaps they tried that out and it didn’t work. I’m not sure how accurate player positions are on LiveScore but his main competition seem to be Gazibegovic and Aiwu. Gazibegovic has played right back, left back and centre back this year and Aiwu right back and centre back.

Forsyth did ok I believe, hit the post in the first half. Got about 6p mins. kelly did not do well I hear, hooked at half time. I didn’t watch either game, that’s only what I’ve read.

Being generous, there are maybe 10 ‘high profile’ youth players moving to England each year. It’s probably less than that. Either we only produce 10 players a year in this country potentially worthy of professional football, or we are exceptionally poor at youth development and the 10 or so who go are simply scratching the surface of the talent available. I am an optimist and think the latter is more likely. Get the systems in place and we should be capable, in this football mad country, of producing many more professional footballers of a decent standard every year. I hate to reference them but England seem to have got their shit together big time. Their academies are stuffed full of exceptional talent and they are now bringing through multiple international to world class players every year. They have facilities and coaches we can only dream of, but they don’t have a higher percentage of football loving kids to train than we do. Comparatively we are nowhere near them, or even smaller countries like Denmark, Croatia, Austria etc. we need to do better and pointing at a few going to England each year as an excuse to absolve our poor performance isn’t going to help.

No, I don't think it is a factor at all.

I cannot think why you would believe this to be true. The record in this country of converting promising youth players to regular first team players in our league is abysmal.

Not sure you can class someone born in England to an English mother and second generation Scottish father as one we've 'lost' - if he played for us he would be one England have lost IMO. He's 15 though, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

It seems like a good fit though doesn't it. The two areas that Gilmour is clearly lacking to be an elite EPL player (athleticism and strength) are significantly less important in Italy. Obviously it will be tough to get into their team but Brighton aren't exactly shit in that department either.

He struggled a bit last season when he played (before his injury) and I do wonder now if that was more because he was carrying an injury that stopped him using his pace/acceleration more than trouble adapting to the level. When he first came into the Liverpool first team he looked electric, much in the way you describe. still needs to work on his decision making/final ball but I think the tools are all there. Interestingly it seems he has been playing on the left as more of an inside forward. Good news for Scotland if he develops into less of an out and out winger (as they are harder to accommodate in a weaker team like Scotland plus we desperately need a goal scorer up top).

Wonder if he’s (Weir) Scottish again. 22 and not a regular at any level, he certainly isn’t going to play for England.

£12m seems laughably low for a 23YO midtable’ish EPL player with 50+ appearances, 30 international caps and 2 years left on his contract. I would have expected £30m+ if Brighton wanted shot of them, which as far as I can tell they don’t.

We saw ourselves the difference between a first and second string for even a top international side. We gave Spain 2nds a doing just over a year before the tournament. I'm not sure many would put a tenner on us achieving that against their first 11 at this point.

Not a disagreement so much as he has refused to sign a new contract. He's out of contract next summer so I expect you are right, he will be sold now.

I don't think we are the worst in Euros history, I actually think we are pretty close to being a top team. One very good centre half and one very good forward/striker (neither has to be world class) and I think we can play in a completely different way and ultimately be more successful.

He’s barely kicked a ball since 2021 (7 games). If he doesn’t hit a decent level he’s fair chucked his talent away. Should have left rangers years ago.

Thanks, disappointing but good to hear from someone who has actually watched him regularly (i.e. not me!).

I agree - my final line was "Unfortunately I don't think any of them will be breaking into the Scotland setup for a number of years."

It's always taps aff.