Should Strachan Go?

[Monkey Tennis]

Tbf, Holland have been uncharacteristically super shit. It's not like we've outdone a vintage oranje side.

Well exactly. This is the point.

Casting around looking for someone who's done worse, is again hardly a ringing endorsement of what we've achieved.

[Monkey Tennis]

of course improvements have been massive, this campaign had one bad result in it, a scotland qualifying campaign with 1 bad result is a fucking fantastic achievement given levein had 2 in his first two games did he not

had the irish not taken 4 unexpected points from germany we'd be sitting here talking about potential play off opponents, hell even they 4 unexpected points could have been countered with a win in georgia, thats how good our results were elsewhere compared to previous campaigns

think about it this way, had we beaten georgia, and ireland not taken 4 unexpected points, we'd be sitting here gutted at the late poland equaliser in any of the games costing us automatic qualification,

out of all the 4th placed teams we finished with the most points, and it can be argued this was the clearly hardest group

We did well against Ireland, but not especially against Poland.

We did nothing against a Germany that did not prove otherwise infallible.

We did indeed have one dismal result, failing to get even a point where our rivals each took three.

This does not stand up particularly well against previous campaigns.

I could easily turn round your '1 bad result' claim and point out that we only really had 1 good result - the home one against Ireland. The rest were, at best, decent or acceptable.

We saw nothing much to honestly suggest that this guy can get the best from us.

[ShawfieldAggro]

Finish with more points than Holland in a harder group. Managers shite, sack him.

Scottish logic.

There's a guy in my street who's been thrown out for shagging his sister in law. But he's trying to reason with his wife that because his friends uncle runs a brothel, its okay and she should be glad that's all he shagged. She's not having it, and neither am i having Scotland's display compared to Holland's in exactly the same manner.

[Gordopolis]

There's a guy in my street who's been thrown out for shagging his sister in law. But he's trying to reason with his wife that because his friends uncle runs a brothel, its okay and she should be glad that's all he shagged. She's not having it, and neither am i having Scotland's display compared to Holland's in exactly the same manner.

I suspect a similar debate is currently going on in the McInnes household

[54_and_counting]

We saw nothing much to honestly suggest that this guy can get the best from us.

i respectfully disagree, 4 games left of a qualifying campaign and we had a cracking chance of finishing 2nd, finishing 3rd was odds on favs as well, one bad result on our part and one bad result for us in a game we werent even contesting in scuppered our qualifying chances

and while that georgia result will in the end be the result that cost us, we were also minutes away in each poland game from getting 3 points in each game against them

while previous managers had us dropping points to shite like strachan, they didnt have many results like the poland 2 or the irish 2 that gave us hope

the last manager i can think of that had us actually thinking about qualification in the 2nd half of their campaign was big eck

[Honest_Man#1]

I missed a lot of this but just need to say that anybody saying Strachan was anything other than a total disaster at Boro has lost the plot. He spent one of the biggest amounts of money in the league on huge transfer fees and wages on dreadful players and had Boro sitting in the relegation zone when he was sacked. He's arguably one of the worst performing managers in the history of the club.

[Quitongo's Left Peg]

Rewarding failure then eh.

Such a sad state of affairs we have got ourselves into. Seems like finishing 4th in a 6th team group is now seen as good enough. Not even nearly qualifying is ok.

It's not as if he could even play the 'needs time' card either. Strachan had ample time to prepare for this campaign and he still failed miserably.

Yet he gets a new deal. Sigh. Kiss goodbye to our already feint hopes of Russia 2018. If we finish 4th in that group - which we probably will - will he get another new deal?

Aye but you voted no so...

[Raidernation]

Under Strachan we know that the players are happy to play for him and respect him, unlike previous managers. We know that we will be competitive in every game, unlike previous managers.

Because, however shite they play, they know they're going to get picked unless they're dead!

Oh, and by the way, SCOTT BROWN IS SHITE

[Monkey Tennis]

while previous managers had us dropping points to shite like strachan, they didnt have many results like the poland 2 or the irish 2 that gave us hope

the last manager i can think of that had us actually thinking about qualification in the 2nd half of their campaign was big eck

Simply not true.

Under Burley and even Levien for God's sake, we took it to the last game and there weren't potentially three slots available.

I'm not defending those managers - they were hopeless.

I'm simply challenging the received notion that we've now got someone so vastly better.

[54_and_counting]

Simply not true. Under Burley and even Levien for God's sake, we took it to the last game and there weren't potentially three slots available. I'm not defending those managers - they were hopeless. I'm simply challenging the received notion that we've now got someone so vastly better.

under burley and levein we got lucky in that other teams around us were fucking honking, and we still ended up with less points from the same amount of games

had the germans beat ireland as was expected strachan would have had us at the last game with the playoffs still achievable, not his fault ireland upset the odds big time

[Monkey Tennis]

had the germans beat ireland as was expected strachan would have had us at the last game with the playoffs still achievable, not his fault ireland upset the odds big time

Both our direct rivals took significant points from Germany, while we couldn't take any.

Apparently, this is to be treated as an Act of God.

[RadgerTheBadger]

Yes. We were drawn as the 4th best team in the group and we finished as the 4th best team in the group. No improvement has been made and that is fact

[54_and_counting]

Both our direct rivals took significant points from Germany, while we couldn't take any.

Apparently, this is to be treated as an Act of God.

and? is that something strachan should get the blame of given he took over a squad that were struggling to beat the mighty liechenstein and lithuania

[Ira Gaines]

No, but even taking those zero points into account, we threw points away against Poland and were rancid against Ireland and Georgia. Even accounting for Ireland and Poland being ranked above us, that was pretty shocking stuff, and it's games like that which cost us. Not the ones against Germany. If Scotland had done THEIR jobs, they'd have gone through, or at the very least taken a playoff spot. But they couldn't.

[Monkey Tennis]

and? is that something strachan should get the blame of given he took over a squad that were struggling to beat the mighty liechenstein and lithuania

And turned them into one that could lose to Georgia.

Now you could perhaps point to the type of progress that was achieved by the likes of Smith and McLeish if despite the Georgian horror, we achieved big results against strong teams. Under Strachan however we didn't.

[Paco]

Would Strachan have received an easier time if we'd held on to beat Poland at home? Would've been utterly irrelevant but it seems throwing away points against Poland is being used as a stick to beat him with - we were the only team in the group to take anything from Warsaw, and the crowd at home was silent for the last fifteen minutes due to Ireland beating Germany, which Russell Martin said the players knew because of how quiet the stadium was.

As I say, holding on would've been utterly irrelevant, but would it have given him more goodwill?

[Ludo*1]

The Daily Record (I know) is suggesting that Strachan is going to become Scotland's version of John Toshack. In that he'll become our punching bag for the next few years whilst he performs the thankless task of developing us for the future. He'll finally start getting into a position where when it's finally time to bear the fruit's of his labour, we'll need another man to carry us to that point as Strachan will have developed so much baggage with us by then.

It was an interesting article - for the Daily Record.

[Monkey Tennis]

Would Strachan have received an easier time if we'd held on to beat Poland at home? Would've been utterly irrelevant but it seems throwing away points against Poland is being used as a stick to beat him with - we were the only team in the group to take anything from Warsaw, and the crowd at home was silent for the last fifteen minutes due to Ireland beating Germany, which Russell Martin said the players knew because of how quiet the stadium was.

As I say, holding on would've been utterly irrelevant, but would it have given him more goodwill?

I get the point you're making, but it's not exactly as if he's lacked goodwill as it is. The press treatment of him has been timid in the extreme and the fans have behaved, in the main, sycophantically.

Voices calling for some sort of critical analysis of his tenure and of the current options, have existed, but been relatively rare.

Had we held on, you're probably right - the response would quite possibly have been even more nauseating.

[Monkey Tennis]

The Daily Record (I know) is suggesting that Strachan is going to become Scotland's version of John Toshack. In that he'll become our punching bag for the next few years whilst he performs the thankless task of developing us for the future. He'll finally start getting into a position where when it's finally time to bear the fruit's of his labour, we'll need another man to carry us to that point as Strachan will have developed so much baggage with us by then.

It was an interesting article - for the Daily Record.

That can only happen if he rings some changes and we make genuine progress in the next campaign - not the kiddy-on type we've been told we've seen.

[54_and_counting]

And turned them into one that could lose to Georgia. Now you could perhaps point to the type of progress that was achieved by the likes of Smith and McLeish if despite the Georgian horror, we achieved big results against strong teams. Under Strachan however we didn't.

didnt eck lose to georgia that effectively cost us a place at the finals?

and i would seriously argue that this current team is the weakest the scotland squad has been in decades

as i said before, we could argue day and night, but a scotland team hasnt finished with 15 points in a qualifying campaign since eck had us, and in that time we have had such magnificent oppoents as iceland, wales, liechenstein, lithuania etc

this was the hardest group scotland have had in years, and we finished with the most points in years, to me thats progress on our part, even if we didnt get a playoff slot