Scotland name squad

[Forest of Dean]

Pretty happy with that squad. Lots of young and new players being given a chance.

I'd personally go even younger and go for someone like Liam Lindsay in for Martin.

 

[G-MAN]

McKenna deserves recognition for his form this season, and it is pleasing to see him involved - should be valuable experience for him with an eye to the future.
Christie, on the other hand, has been underwhelming recently, and is perhaps a tad fortunate to be called up. 

Agreed. I find Christie’s inclusion baffling. He’s been poor for weeks now and McLeish was behind me to witness that shite on Saturday.

I’m McLean’s biggest critic but coincidentally since he got the move to Norwich he’s showed regular flashes of what we thought we were signing a few years ago.

Good to see future Don McGeouch getting the recognition he deserves [emoji106]

[Quentin Taranbino]

Based on that squad I would like to see us line up something along the lines of:

...............................Archer........................

Paterson ...Mulgrew... Tierney...Robertson 

.................McTominay.....Cairney................

Fraser.................Armstrong............Ritchie

..............................McBurnie..............................

[BucksburnDandy]

The only bizarre thing there is the centre backs. If Berra is just being rested because we're already well aware of what he can do then fair enough, but if that's the logic then picking Martin and Mulgrew is strange, particularly when Lindsay and Souttar could both be argued to be as deserving of a chance as McKenna.

McArthur and Morrison missing out is unexpected as well, but with Brown retiring and Fletcher's age you can see the logic in leaving the experienced players out to give as many alternatives in that position as possible some decent game time.

I'd also still like to fire Matt Ritchie into the sun along with Barry Bannan, but I entirely accept that this is my own personal vandetta and no manager is likely to bin both of them. There are no ridiculous inclusions there.

 

Can I just echo Dunning1874 here about firing Ritchie and Bannan into the sun. Have absolutely no love for either of them whatsoever. Again an entirely personal vandetta.

 

Outside of Ritchie, Martin and Christie, a fair enough experimental squad. Generally players on good recent form / who have had a good season.

 

On Kenny McLean, he and McKenna have been the only shining lights in the dross recent weeks for Aberdeen. McLean is a lot more deserving of his call up now than in November, where he'd taken his usual 3 months to lose the half stone he puts on every summer resulting in a slow start to the season.

 

On John Souttar it looks like his rag dolling on Friday night has cost him a place.

 

Fair play to Big Eck, let's see who cuts it over the two games looking forward to the summer.

 

[Rabinho]

The only bizarre thing there is the centre backs. If Berra is just being rested because we're already well aware of what he can do then fair enough, but if that's the logic then picking Martin and Mulgrew is strange, particularly when Lindsay and Souttar could both be argued to be as deserving of a chance as McKenna.
McArthur and Morrison missing out is unexpected as well, but with Brown retiring and Fletcher's age you can see the logic in leaving the experienced players out to give as many alternatives in that position as possible some decent game time.
I'd also still like to fire Matt Ritchie into the sun along with Barry Bannan, but I entirely accept that this is my own personal vandetta and no manager is likely to bin both of them. There are no ridiculous inclusions there.

I’m pretty sure James Morrison has been injured most of this season and has only played a handful of games for WBA.

[printer]

Would much rather have Lindsay/Soutter over Martin/Hanley but that aside can’t complain.

Thank f**k you're not in charge then.

[printer]

Would much rather have Lindsay/Soutter over Martin/Hanley but that aside can’t complain.

Thank f**k you're not in charge then.

[woof!]

Martin looks well off the pace at the moment, although he’s not played much. The reason Lyndsay  is not in the squad (according to McFadden), is because he’s yet another left footer, and I guess that’s why Martin is in. Lyndsay has Tierney, McKenna, Berra and Mulgrew to compete with then. Souttar, Hendry and McRorie have got Hanley and Martin to displace, although playing 3 centre halves gives some more options.

[kenny131]

Am I the only 1 who thinks hanley is utter mince how he has glued a career in football I will never know. There has to better out there, check the juniors if we need too anything to keep him away from the team.

[accies1874]

33 minutes ago, kenny131 said:

Am I the only 1 who thinks hanley is utter mince how he has glued a career in football I will never know. There has to better out there, check the juniors if we need too anything to keep him away from the team.

Going by the reception he gets from this forum, social media and fans at games, no.

[1320Lichtie]

From this squad

GK

Patterson
Hanley
Tierney
Robertson

McTominay
Armstrong

Forrest
McGregor
Fraser

McBurnie

Going forward into the competitive games

Marshall

Patterson
Lindsay/Berra
Tierney
Robertson

McTominay
Armstrong

Forrest
McGregor
Fraser

Griffiths

I’m just not convinced about McGinn, wasn’t convinced about McTominay but he put in some performance against Liverpool so that’s sort of changed my opinion.

Armstrong and McGregor need to play every single game for the national team alongside Robertson/Tierney and Griffiths in my opinion. The rest can chop and change depending on form imo.

[Coooombe]

What's the consensus on Jordan Archer? I've heard next to nothing about him and never seen him play. Where does he stand compared to other keepers we have available?

[gtbahfm]

As with Strachan's time I think we have the makings of a reasonable international squad capable of getting 'decent' results and certainly qualifying for the Euros. The tricky bit is that we only really have three players who are nailed on starters that no one would argue with (Tierney, Robertson & Griffiths when fit) and two of them are left backs. McLeish's job (like all those before him) is to try and pick which of the players have the right attributes to beat the teams in front of them. Hopefully during the course of the campaign we'll start to see more players establish themselves in the 'first pick' category and we can go from being decent to quite good.

For the friendlies between now and the nations league, I think it's well worth experimenting a bit and looking at the sort of formation that suits our strengths. I think 4-2-3-1 has been pretty decent in the last four years, but it's not delivered results in a lot of those very close, crucial qualifiers where we needed to grind out a draw or narrow win, so I do think three at the back is worth considering. I'm not sure McLeish would go as far as 3-5-2 (in an actual qualifier at least), but he might well look at 3-4-2-1 such as this:

———————Archer———————
——McKenna—Mulgrew—Tierney——  
Forrest-McTominay-McGinn-Robertson
———Armstrong———Fraser————  
———————McBurnie——————

Forrest would make us more attacking as a right wing back, but I have seen him work pretty hard to track back in Scotland games in the past. Or, we could play Paterson as a more defensive alternative. Either way having two holding midfielders would provide extra cover to allow the wing backs to push forward.

As always, there are plenty of alternatives as Cairney / McGregor could easily swap for McGinn / Armstrong and once we have a full squad you would expect Berra, Griffiths and possibly McArthur to come in.

The above formation, would certainly fit with the way McLeish had us playing during his last spell in charge against the better teams, although it might be better suited to the Belgium game than these two fixtures.

[Quentin Taranbino]

2 hours ago, gtbahfm said:

 

———————Archer———————
——McKenna—Mulgrew—Tierney——  
Forrest-McTominay-McGinn-Robertson
———Armstrong———Fraser————  
———————McBurnie——————

 

I like this.

I would probably have Paterson as the right wing back instead of Forrest and maybe Cairney in place of McGinn  but rest is about right

[gtbahfm]

12 minutes ago, DavidMcG said:

I like this.

I would probably have Paterson as the right wing back instead of Forrest and maybe Cairney in place of McGinn  but rest is about right

Yep, tbf I mentioned those as alternatives and there are also several other slots that could be changed based on recent Scotland performances and club form. It's more the shape of this team that I think McLeish might consider, particularly for tough away matches / games against the biggest teams.

[Dunning1874]

I'm really interested to see how McLeish goes about this with the players available. From his comments regarding only using Tierney at right-back in an emergency we can take a fair guess at the defensive shape we're going to see, assuming he isn't daft enough to drop one of Robertson & Tierney.

He'll surely want to experiment with a back three at some point, but we're really short in centre forwards when Griffiths is out. When we have so many midfield options and so few attacking options, are we really likely to play a 3-5-2 which could when competitive games come around mean leaving a quality midfielder out in favour of Cummings or McBurnie? I'm dismissing the idea of Matt Phillips ever playing at centre forward in a proper game for obvious reasons.

Obviously it's always possible that he could just play a back four with Tierney as one of the centre backs and Paterson at right back or move Robertson into midfield with Tierney at full back, but focusing on the personnel in a back three: if we were to assume his preferred approach would be Robertson at left-wing back and Tierney as a left-sided centre back in line with all the predicted line ups here, then you've got two natural centre backs beside Tierney and a choice of Paterson or Forrest at right wing-back.

If he was to decide that focusing on the defensive contribution is the most important thing for the right wing back and go with Paterson over Forrest, then in a 3-5-2 you've got no room out wide for Forrest, the best player in the country this season who has been excellent in his last few games for Scotland, or for Ryan Fraser, a player who deserves far more chances than he's had.

Obviously you can read far too much into formations as opposed to the actual tactics and I don't want to be guilty of that; it's possible that even with wing-backs he'll find a way to fit players into the midfield who are more accustomed to playing out wide than through the middle, but is it possible we'll see something closer to a 5-4-1 or maybe even 3-6-1 in order to accommodate as many of our best players as possible? As well as Forrest & Fraser you're also looking to always have at least one of Armstrong and McGregor in the centre, while you've got a multitude of options to join them; you'd expect to see all of McTominay, McGinn & McGeouch get a chance over these two games going by McLeish's comments, Cairney, McLean & McDonald could play there too while Fletcher and McArthur are likely to return to the squad for competitive games. As much as I'd hate it, he may also want to find room for Ritchie, Bannan or Phillips, then there's Christie and Murphy on the fringes with Snodgrass and Morrison possibly coming back in as well. With our depth of options there could we see a striker being sacrificed, at least until Cummings or McBurnie do more to prove themselves or Burke ever plays his way into contention as a forward?

[Peppino Impastato]

14 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

I'm really interested to see how McLeish goes about this with the players available. From his comments regarding only using Tierney at right-back in an emergency we can take a fair guess at the defensive shape we're going to see, assuming he isn't daft enough to drop one of Robertson & Tierney.

He'll surely want to experiment with a back three at some point, but we're really short in centre forwards when Griffiths is out. When we have so many midfield options and so few attacking options, are we really likely to play a 3-5-2 which could when competitive games come around mean leaving a quality midfielder out in favour of Cummings or McBurnie? I'm dismissing the idea of Matt Phillips ever playing at centre forward in a proper game for obvious reasons.

Obviously it's always possible that he could just play a back four with Tierney as one of the centre backs and Paterson at right back or move Robertson into midfield with Tierney at full back, but focusing on the personnel in a back three: if we were to assume his preferred approach would be Robertson at left-wing back and Tierney as a left-sided centre back in line with all the predicted line ups here, then you've got two natural centre backs beside Tierney and a choice of Paterson or Forrest at right wing-back.

If he was to decide that focusing on the defensive contribution is the most important thing for the right wing back and go with Paterson over Forrest, then in a 3-5-2 you've got no room out wide for Forrest, the best player in the country this season who has been excellent in his last few games for Scotland, or for Ryan Fraser, a player who deserves far more chances than he's had.

Obviously you can read far too much into formations as opposed to the actual tactics and I don't want to be guilty of that; it's possible that even with wing-backs he'll find a way to fit players into the midfield who are more accustomed to playing out wide than through the middle, but is it possible we'll see something closer to a 5-4-1 or maybe even 3-6-1 in order to accommodate as many of our best players as possible? As well as Forrest & Fraser you're also looking to always have at least one of Armstrong and McGregor in the centre, while you've got a multitude of options to join them; you'd expect to see all of McTominay, McGinn & McGeouch get a chance over these two games going by McLeish's comments, Cairney, McLean & McDonald could play there too while Fletcher and McArthur are likely to return to the squad for competitive games. As much as I'd hate it, he may also want to find room for Ritchie, Bannan or Phillips, then there's Christie and Murphy on the fringes with Snodgrass and Morrison possibly coming back in as well. With our depth of options there could we see a striker being sacrificed, at least until Cummings or McBurnie do more to prove themselves or Burke ever plays his way into contention as a forward?

He'll of a lot of thought put into that post considering we have a manager with an IQ of about 25.

[Darren]

On 12/03/2018 at 11:54, Londonwell said:

Is it just me that thinks John Souttar still looks quite pish?

His defensive capabilities are regularly shown up by SPFL diddies. He’d get torn a new one in the International scene imo.

While I don't think he's ready for international football, particularly with Berra not in the squad, Souttar has been an important part of a defence that has lost less than a goal per game this season in the league. 

On 12/03/2018 at 13:57, killieshire said:

We are going to struggle at right back or right wing back depending on the formation.

Paterson will be fine, otherwise Martin or Forrest at wing back.

[Bishop Briggs]

12 minutes ago, Darren said:

While I don't think he's ready for international football, particularly with Berra not in the squad, Souttar has been an important part of a defence that has lost less than a goal per game this season in the league. 

Paterson will be fine, otherwise Martin or Forrest at wing back.

Yes but Fraser also played at wing-back for Bournemouth recently. 

[Darren]

4 minutes ago, Bishop Briggs said:

Yes but Fraser also played at wing-back for Bournemouth recently. 

Good, that's another option. Doesn't seem like we'll be struggling to fill the spot.