Tony Wonder Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 What worries me is Strachan saying he can't see how he can get more effort out of the players. If he thinks that's them at their optimum he's even further gone that I thought. Guys like McCormack, Rhodes (though I accept the Boro move has been a disaster), Cairney, Shinnie & Burke should 100% be involved but he seems to have personal vendettas. Not one of them are world beaters but compare them to the likes of Chris Martin & James Forrest and they are clearly worth more of a shot, yet Strachan is happy to leave people out with ridiculous excuses and is never picked up on it by the media, 'Not experienced enough', 'we know what Shinnie can do'. From last night I have seen people pick flaws with Paterson & Tierney and while neither were amazing they clearly weren't the problem. First half especially, how many times did they get forward only to look up and have no option ahead of them due to us playing so narrowly? At least they were getting up and down. Defensively they were both hung out to dry as well, Snodgrass and Ritchie not racking back left Paterson isolated 2 on 1 on numerous occasions, you have to help your full backs out. The centre halves were deplorable yet again and anyone telling me Berra isn't a better option than Hanley is just wrong. How many times has Berra been carved open or just not bothered jumping in a Scotland shirt like Hanley did tonight? Even if they are the same level ability wise, at least Berra is match sharp but he's another who Strachan plain doesn't have time for. Strachan has to go now. I accept he can only piss with the cock he has, but that doesn't mean he has to deliberately aim outside the bowl. He's a cantankerous, arrogant man and looks to me like he's lost the players. Even if it's just to lift moral he has to go, unfortunately he'll still be in the dugout next month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irvine_buddie Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 15 minutes ago, Tony Wonder said: What worries me is Strachan saying he can't see how he can get more effort out of the players. If he thinks that's them at their optimum he's even further gone that I thought. This is the bit that annoys me the most, Russel Martin said it after the game aswell that the players couldn't be accused of lack of effort. For a start.. that's the bare minimum you expect from guys playing for their country, and secondly.. the first goal came from Snodgrass not bothering to chase all the way back leaving Hamsik with a free header. The second goal came from Matt Richie giving up and leaving Paterson 2 on 1 in the box. Third goal, the defender (Hanley?) isn't even close to challenging for the header from the corner. So yes we can accuse you of lack of effort along with lack of ability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mastermind Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 What worries me is Strachan saying he can't see how he can get more effort out of the players. If he thinks that's them at their optimum he's even further gone that I thought. Guys like McCormack, Rhodes (though I accept the Boro move has been a disaster), Cairney, Shinnie & Burke should 100% be involved but he seems to have personal vendettas. Not one of them are world beaters but compare them to the likes of Chris Martin & James Forrest and they are clearly worth more of a shot, yet Strachan is happy to leave people out with ridiculous excuses and is never picked up on it by the media, 'Not experienced enough', 'we know what Shinnie can do'. From last night I have seen people pick flaws with Paterson & Tierney and while neither were amazing they clearly weren't the problem. First half especially, how many times did they get forward only to look up and have no option ahead of them due to us playing so narrowly? At least they were getting up and down. Defensively they were both hung out to dry as well, Snodgrass and Ritchie not racking back left Paterson isolated 2 on 1 on numerous occasions, you have to help your full backs out. The centre halves were deplorable yet again and anyone telling me Berra isn't a better option than Hanley is just wrong. How many times has Berra been carved open or just not bothered jumping in a Scotland shirt like Hanley did tonight? Even if they are the same level ability wise, at least Berra is match sharp but he's another who Strachan plain doesn't have time for. Strachan has to go now. I accept he can only piss with the cock he has, but that doesn't mean he has to deliberately aim outside the bowl. He's a cantankerous, arrogant man and looks to me like he's lost the players. Even if it's just to lift moral he has to go, unfortunately he'll still be in the dugout next month. Excellent post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheScarf Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Did he actually say against Lithuania that he didn't have a game plan and just wanted to 'see what happens'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banana Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Excellent post Problem is, the players suggested as much a sameness to the one's he wants out. We'd be sitting writing the same overall posts but with different names.We're low on high quality players, never mind anyone vaguely world class, end of. A different manager might get more out of the players available, granted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Wonder Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 8 minutes ago, banana said: Problem is, the players suggested as much a sameness to the one's he wants out. We'd be sitting writing the same overall posts but with different names. We're low on high quality players, never mind anyone vaguely world class, end of. A different manager might get more out of the players available, granted. I think a manager who showed some belief in the players would get more out of them. There are guys who know they'll only be called up as a last resort and likely won't be in the next squad under Strachan, how is that meant to give them the belief they should be there? Similarly when your national manager openly talks down your own league it's not a great incentive for players to bust a gut. It's no wonder we have players running down to England in ill advised moves on a regular basis, though money clearly plays a big part there too. Against Ireland at home the effort was incredible, ever since then we've been on a downward spiral and Strachan looks fed up. If we can get that level of effort previously, to say we can't get more than we got last night is ludicrous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrestersKTID Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 One of the most annoying things about last night was that we were not bad for 15 minutes whilst Slovakia looked bang average to shite. They were there for the taking. We get another horrendous decision go against us and in typical scotland fashion we get punished for it. We built well and got ball to edge of their box on numerous occasions and then we shat ourselves. Snodgrass had his worst game i've seen, ran into players far too often. After the goal went in that was that, no coming back. Slovakians poor but gave us a show in counter attacking football. Annoyed me that Strachan said Burke dropped because this game was for experience. Had Tierney at left back, patterson at rb starting and Mcginn came on. He had space for 2 keepers on the bench aswell. The boy is raw definitely but he offers genuine pace and power, no gonna get experienced unless you play Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
young_bairn Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 After the first 15 minutes it was clear there was lots of space to attack but we were just not set up for it. Changes could/should have been then. Instead we persevere and shoot ourselves in the foot with god awful defending (as a team). It's the simple things that drive me mad, mis-placed passes, failing to take the ball under control etc. If this is the best squad we can muster then I don't think many managers can do more with it. We're doomed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accies1874 Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Strachan's whole 'we need to fast track the bigger teams into the top division' says all you need to know about the man. Utterly clueless. This is the guy that's supposed to be pioneering our national game! It's frankly embarrassing that he'll hit out with this pish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tintax Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Strachan said after the game that he could not ask for anymore from the players. What a load of shite, if thats all he can get from them then he needs to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pencils Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Mcdermotts buses were an absolute shambles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyderspaceman Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 I didn't fancy going to Russia anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyrTroopMajor Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 For him to say that the players couldn't have given any more is a complete joke. I challenge anyone to watch Snodgrass's attempt at tracking back for the first goal and the entire defence's attempt to close down for the second goal and still tell me they were putting in 100%. Both blatantly obvious cases of 'Naw, someone else will dae it'. Someone earlier mentioned the Ireland game at Parkhead and the level of effort put in during that 90 minutes. Last night was the total opposite end of the scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makossa Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Strachan seems to want to build from the back and this team just isn't good enough for that and that has been proven in the last two games. The amount of times the ball was lost trying to build a positive move by a misplaced pass or an opponent blocking it was amazing. This team has to play with spirit and pace and forgot about any building from the back moves. Long ball with passion and spirit will do me because most of these teams are technically better than us now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redstarstranraer Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Thought before the game that Slovakia would sit in and hit us on the counter, which they did effectively. Slovakia had a game plan and players with the technical ability and tactical nous to implement that plan effectively and incisively when it mattered. We have a bunch of cloggers, sadly, who the Slovaks let have the ball confident that we wouldn't have any real idea how to go about creating anything with it. I'm sure they were also confident that when they did get possession and go forward our woeful defence wouldn't be able to cope and they'd get chances they could convert. Not that any of that is exactly rocket science, seeing as Lithuania did much the same at Hampden. Sadly for us Slovakia are actually better than Lithuania. I had hoped against hope (and my better judgement) that Strachan would have learnt something from that Lithuania game, but he seems more interested in making changes just to demonstrate he's the boss and to get it up the media than to improve the side. Moreover we now don't actually seem to have a very clear idea of what we are supposed to be doing in terms of style of play other than retaining as much of the ball as possible. Which is fine, but we're not the Spanish side of 2010 and we can't pass through teams. Slovakia and to and extent Lithuania were perfectly content for us to pass it across the midfield because we don't seem to have a clear idea of how to turn that possession into actual attacking threat. Not to mention that when we do attempt to create something the quality of our final ball is utterly woeful, as is the movement up front. The issue is not so much that we don't have very good players (although we clearly don't), but that Strachan's selections at the moment seem more motivated by a desire to shoehorn certain individuals into the side than by consideration of the specific tactical needs of a given fixture. He picks those he likes and those he thinks are in form and attempts to shove them into something approaching a workable system. Half the time it isn't clear what exactly we're trying to do. Slovakia didn't do anything special but they at least had an idea of the way they were set up to play and went about their business accordingly. We stick Fletcher up front without any apparent consideration of how to give him service or how, if he manages to hold the ball up for a second, to get any support from midfield around him. Fletcher is alright, not great, but he's not going to do much for us in that scenario. Said before the game Slovakia were a bang average side with a couple of better players who would be automatic Scotland picks. Still think they are pretty average, but sadly it's increasingly evident Scotland are a below average international side. The only position I feel remotely confident about for the future is left back. Our other defenders can't defend, which is pretty fundamental. Most of our midfielders are one-dimensional journeymen and aside from Burke and maybe McGinn there isn't much prospect of improvement there. Maybe Griffiths will develop into an ok international forward if he ever actually plays more than ten minutes in games where we're already f##ked. Essentially we've a pretty uninspiring pool of talent coached by a guy who seems more interested in winning press conferences than games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunning1874 Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 The only positives to take from that are Strachan being closer to the sack and the end of fans clamouring for Barry Bannan to start for another couple of years, until people bizarrely start believing he's a footballer again. That was as bad as anything under Levein. Absolutely abysmal stuff and it's only a matter of time now until he goes. I realise Regan's remit goes far beyond responsibility for the national team manager, but having stood by Levein after a failed campaign which allowed him to ruin the next one too, he's learned nothing and done the exact same thing with Strachan. When he finally sacks him he should seriously consider going too on that basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wren Road Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Barry Bannan has always been a midget average midfielder. Fletcher is fucked. McCarthur is by a mile our best. Hope Morrison goes on loan in January to get game time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DA Baracus Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 Who is McCarthur? Also why did Strachan suddenly decide that Bannan can play a 'holding' role, and what is his seeming obsession with said role? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myview Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 11 hours ago, PrestersKTID said: One of the most annoying things about last night was that we were not bad for 15 minutes whilst Slovakia looked bang average to shite. They were there for the taking. We get another horrendous decision go against us and in typical scotland fashion we get punished for it. We built well and got ball to edge of their box on numerous occasions and then we shat ourselves. Snodgrass had his worst game i've seen, ran into players far too often. After the goal went in that was that, no coming back. Slovakians poor but gave us a show in counter attacking football. Annoyed me that Strachan said Burke dropped because this game was for experience. Had Tierney at left back, patterson at rb starting and Mcginn came on. He had space for 2 keepers on the bench aswell. The boy is raw definitely but he offers genuine pace and power, no gonna get experienced unless you play And also had two left backs on the bench. There must be a story behind the omission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeartsOfficialMoaner Posted October 12, 2016 Share Posted October 12, 2016 The Slovak's were composed on the ball when they got near our goal and we were not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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