Scumjob

Marshall busy early doors. Needs more protection than this.

To be fair I think he's being asked to do a job in this midfield that amounts to run around a lot chasing the ball and grafting away whilst watching the ball sail over his head towards Dykes. Doesn't suit him.

Easy goal for them. Nobody read the run out wide and all the time in the world to pick out out the big lad who had a run on Hanley and out jumped him.

Gilmour has to come in there for one if them with the other playing off Dykes. We've no real pivot/fulcrum at the moment.

Hanley looking imperious so far. Not sure if that helps my nerves or not.

Acchh nae bad but needed to find the corner Robbo there.

He thought he'd be alright given they only found a fleck of it in his saliva.

Just our luck that we have a prospect up front who even if he comes good still sounds like piss.

The journalist may be in line for a slap from McBurnie as well now.

If he showed this sort of unrestrained aggression and levels of 'loose cannon' on the pitch he'd be a lot more liked on here. Absolute nutter.

The Saints backline is quite interesting. I seen some statistical analysis of the league as a whole that showed that as individuals all 3 had significant strengths but also clear weaknesses. As a unit though these balanced out so credit to the manager as he's clearly built a reasonably strong system with the materials he has. Are any of the three good enough for Scotland? Well I'm sure Clark would love to have a stable of centre backs to pick without weaknesses and he has himself built a system to make best use of what he has. I think the Saints players individually could do a job in our system but we probably have better versions of the same players already in the squads picked with stronger strengths and less weak weaknesses. They're all young enough to keep developing though, the reality is that unless they get a move to the Championship and do well there they will probably always be a good unit but not quite individually good enough.

As a pessimistic Scotsman the latter sounds ideal for us, if nothing else the headlines will write themselves .

We seem to have an ever growing clutch of decent centre backs. Lads who are solid in the Scottish Premiership or can do a job in the English Championship (or similar) but aren't going to interest clubs in the English top flight or inspire us to really feel solid at the back. Hanley, McKenna, Gallagher, McIntyre, Lindsay, Considine and currently Hendry all sit somewhere around that level for me. And I can see the likes of a fit Souttar, Porteous and Bates joining them. Maybe even Welsh. To really push on I think we need to see a couple lads crack the English Premier league. You only have to look at the difference in our midfield since we've seen McGinn, McTominay, Armstrong and Fraser get established at that level to see the benefits of playing week in and week out for our players. At the moment I think Clark has found a way to paper over the cracks by identifying that Tierney and McTominay who aren't primarily centre backs can do a job there for us and are used to playing at a higher level of intensity and quality. Gallagher and more recently Hanley can then provide a more limited job as the 'muscle'. I haven't mentioned Cooper yet but he seems to be doing a credible job at the right level though unfortunate injuries have prevented us from seeing if he can translate that to the Scotland team. Hanley may also get his third crack at the Premier league next season. I don't feel confident that these boys are what we really need to push on long term, though they may be good enough to do the job for the short term. Hendry has been linked with Wolves amongst others, and young Jamie Hamilton has been linked with Brighton. We've also Liam Morrison at Bayern though it's far too early to judge how that will pan out. Perhaps these guys might finally provide the security we need at the back.

Real shame for Jack. He contributed to getting us there so devastating he can't come to the main event. Feel for him. As to his place in the side it seems we have a bit of a shortage of more defensive leaning midfielders, as above can only see McTominay being asked to fill the void which may impact the back 3 selection too. Fleck or McLean could be asked to take on the role but I'm not sure either is suited to it.

Is this a wind up post? You say he's no more injured than average then your last paragraph says he's missed most of the last 3 years to injury... Come on now.

We all dream of a Souttar brother partnership in defence for Scotland. A real shame one is locked to Australia and the other to the treatment table.

Rhodes would surely be a better bet than McBurnie. Likelihood hood is that Adams and Dykes are our primary strikers now. We'll take a couple more to the Euros but outside of injury they'll probably at most just get chucked on when we're chasing a game. Rhodes is as good a bet as anyone else we have in that scenario, if he gets a half chance then he at least knows where the net is.

Moldova away is exactly the sort of bed we shit.

Ah cheers I knew he was injured for a good spell hadn't realised he'd been dropped though.Yeah agreed on the last point.

Pretty sure he's played more often than not when fit. I don't necessarily think he's better than who we have right now. But he might be when Marshall and Gordon bow out.

I think we've been very spoiled and lucky to have Gordon, Marshall and McGregor over the past 10-15 years and it's perhaps masked the chasm between the 3 and the rest of our keepers. I think Angus Gunn is worth pursuing. Adams has now committed and Gunn isn't going to play for England. Beyond that I think we'd be as well getting Kelly and McRorie into post Euro squads (and maybe take one of them as third choice) and hoping the competition/carrot dangled helps them push on and develop. Thankfully whoever we go for will have big Grant protecting them.

I thought Gordon retired fully from football when he was crocked at Sunderland? May be misremembering mind.

Frightening that we're having to debate which late 30s keeper is the least worst option. An English Championship bench warmer, a formerly retired Scottish Championship player or a currently internationally retired player who went off in a huff. They're all not ideal but I'd hope any will be up for one last big moment at the Euros. We have been pretty spoilt over the last 10-15 years with the three of them to be fair. The real question is who is coming through for the next campaign? Now would have probably been the time to go cap in hand to Angus Gunn similar to the Che Adams switch.

Yes. Interestingly as much as I rate Tierney (and I do) this humping of the Faroes seeming to be the catalyst for the Tierney hype machine to go into overdrive is quite something. It is good to see him getting some credit though.

McGinn with 10 goals now. Looking like our main goal threat. Good to see Adams up and running too and Fraser with another. Hopefully Adams can keep up a 1 in 3 ratio or better, between him and McGinn we'd have a decent goal threat then especially with quite a few others able to chip in.