Mexico v Scotland Sun 3rd June 2018

[Nightmare]

1 hour ago, Lurkst said:

Have a count...

Just about one copper for every Scotland fan there. Obviously the Mexicans haven't heard of the famous Tartan Army...

[tree house tam]

12 minutes ago, LinkinFighter said:

1 hour ago, DAVIDB69 said:

I said on here weeks ago McBurnie should not be part of any plans as he is awful, he could not trap a back of cement . Was told that as he had scored a few goals for Barnsley, this made him international quality

Who do you reckon should be playing ahead of him?

Dare I say it, Chris Fucking Martin. 

[Richey Edwards]

Fair play to McLeish for trying to give younger untried players a game, but McBurnie looks like a fan who won a competition to play in a Scotland match. Awful player.

[cowboy]

to go against the grain, I quite enjoyed the two games,

what did we learn?

McKenna is a great prospect and has some more valuable experience

phillips and mulgrew need ditched

mclean, Christie, shinnie and mcgeoch are shite

bain probably did enough to overtake the other two as back up goalie

mcburnie, Russell and O'Donnell did enough to become  squad players

willie miller is the biggest c**t football (already knew that tbf)

mnt Everest is not as high as I previously thought

 

[DrewDon]

I didn't think McBurnie did too badly, all things considered. Worked hard, tried to offer an out-ball even though he was often isolated, and unlucky not to equalise with our best chance. He is definitely raw, but he certainly wasn't the worst Scotland player. 

Christie, unfortunately, took that accolade, carrying his Aberdeen form into last night. I'm not a huge fan of Bain, but I thought he and McLaughlin did well. Shinnie struggled in the first half, but improved in the second - he was better offensively than defensively. McLean was totally anonymous, and McGeouch, although he improved slightly in the second half, looked fatigued and didn't get much right. Hendry was poor at the goal, but recovered after that and did well enough - comfortable with the ball at his feet, which is useful. McKenna had a good first half, unsurprisingly tiring in the latter stages but one of the few players from last night who should be a mainstay going forward. Russell was our best player offensively. O'Donnell had a very difficult task given how exposed he was, and he didn't do too badly. 

Overall, only two or three can probably expect to be regular starters going forward, but perhaps some more fringe players staked claims for squad places. It was good experience for the squad, especially the younger ones, if nothing else. 

[BucksburnDandy]

Dare I say it, Chris Fucking Martin. 

Outside Leigh Griffiths he is our best striking option just now. Painful as it is to say it.

[1320Lichtie]

I think Marc McNulty could come good. Hopefully gets a move to the championship.

[Kejan]

Mulgew's clearance off the line!

 

[Rabinho]

Outside Leigh Griffiths he is our best striking option just now. Painful as it is to say it.

If as expected Rhodes gets a season long loan and some goals behind him he’ll be back.

[Guest DAVIDB69]

I think Marc McNulty could come good. Hopefully gets a move to the championship.

 

Too big a jump from Coventry to international football

[Rodhull]

36 minutes ago, Rabinho said:

If as expected Rhodes gets a season long loan and some goals behind him he’ll be back.

Hopefully but seems unlikely. Even if he was in good form he may get the “He’s just a goalscorer” reason for not getting called up. Being able to play on your own up front still seems like the way its going to go.

[1320Lichtie]

 
Too big a jump from Coventry to international football

Which is why I said I hope he gets a move. From watching him he seems like a reasonably quick, strong, clever player who can take a goal and pull off a bit of magic like Griffiths.

Said it before too but international football is on the whole a pretty average level. Outwith the top sides there’s a whole load of average to shite teams there, including ourselves.

[Gordopolis]

Watched the replay this morning and hadn't read any of this thread so I wouldn't know the score. Tbh I though we did just fine considering:

• We were playing a side ranked 15th in the world, and who are on their way to a world cup
• We were playing away from home in difficult conditions (altitude might have been mentioned, possibly once or twice)
• Our 'mainstays' were, er... at home scratching their balls
• Our team and squad were, as a result of the above point, severely lacking international nous
• The press spouted nothing but constant, droning negativity

Then I caught up on this forum... 

The comments made during the match thread mostly seem to be in a similar tone to the media: 'The SFA dropped the manager and team in the shit by organising these games'

Perhaps the SFA could have been cuter about the opponents and venues, but ffs at least they bothered their arses trying to do something for once instead of contentedly passing up the chance to play during this window.

The real problem for me was the general attitude of the stay-away players. Had even a third of our regulars turned up for these games then there's a decent chance we'd have got a result in one of the games (if McGregor was playing vs Peru, for instance, then we don't lose those two goals - tho I suppose we had to test Archer), or at least been close to a result. It's all too easy to blame the SFA, but for me it's the questionable stay-aways who dropped us in it. Glad to hear McLeish making thinly-veiled threats re any who called off too easily.

 

[EdiBairn]

9 hours ago, BucksburnDandy said:

Watched the highlights on the BBC website and we definitely seem to have got lucky.

In terms of what we take from the tour, McKenna looks a good centre half option moving forward, as does Hendry. Johnny Russell also looks like he could do a job for us. But ultimately we learned that the majority of our best players were still at home.

Moving forward to the qualifiers, we still have not resolved formation yet. If we go with a four, it's very clear that Tierney is comfortably our best right back option. If we go 4-2-3-1, probably be looking at Gordon; Tierney, Hendry, McKenna, Robertson; Armstrong, McTominay; Forrest, McGregor, Fraser; Griffiths.

If we got 3-5-2, then probably be looking at: Gordon; Hendry, McKenna, Tierney; Fraser/Forrest, Robertson; McTominay, Armstrong, McGregor; Forrest/Phillips, Griffiths.

On Christie, he has been crap since December. McLean is a decent player but not up to international level.

The worrying thing about Scotland under McLeish is we have lost our style of attacking play that we had under WGS. Hopefully that returns with the return of a full squad but that's a big leap of hopeful faith. Worrying on that particular front given we have only got one more game before the Nations League starts. And that is likely to be another defeat due to us dicking about for too long and being left with bloody Belgium.

We cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players who have repeatedly shown they're not good enough to play at the highest level. We absolutely cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players(Hendry, Griffiths, Armstrong) who can't even get a game.

We need to accept the reality that these players completely dominate the Premiership but are just not good enough to get us to major tournaments. Instead, we should be focusing on players who are playing at the highest level but are currently being passed over for mediocre Celtic players i.e. McTominay, Fraser, Cairney, McDonald, Burke, Snodgrass and even McArthur.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

But, but, but Celtgers an’ aw rat by ra way.

[No_Problemo]

We cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players who have repeatedly shown they're not good enough to play at the highest level. We absolutely cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players(Hendry, Griffiths, Armstrong) who can't even get a game.
We need to accept the reality that these players completely dominate the Premiership but are just not good enough to get us to major tournaments. Instead, we should be focusing on players who are playing at the highest level but are currently being passed over for mediocre Celtic players i.e. McTominay, Fraser, Cairney, McDonald, Burke, Snodgrass and even McArthur.

McTominay and Fraser will be involved.

Armstrong and McGregor are miles in front of Cairney and McDonald. This was shown in our last set of friendlies.!

The answer isn’t to exclude players from anywhere, but we were at our most successful in the previous campaign with a core of Celtic players. I’m sure adding McGregor would have helped.

I’m not entirely sure who you want Burke, Snodgrass and McArthur in the side instead of. I really hope you’re not seriously suggesting that Griffiths shouldn’t be starting.

Gordon, Tierney, Armstrong, McGregor and Griffiths are all in our strongest side. Potentially Forrest too.

[1320Lichtie]

We cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players who have repeatedly shown they're not good enough to play at the highest level. We absolutely cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players(Hendry, Griffiths, Armstrong) who can't even get a game.
We need to accept the reality that these players completely dominate the Premiership but are just not good enough to get us to major tournaments. Instead, we should be focusing on players who are playing at the highest level but are currently being passed over for mediocre Celtic players i.e. McTominay, Fraser, Cairney, McDonald, Burke, Snodgrass and even McArthur.

The best Scotland have played over the last 2 years was when the spine of the team was Celtic based.

What you have just said there is probably what let us down in Slovenia, Bannan, McArthur and Phillips playing instead of McGregor/McGinn and Armstrong.

You don’t judge a players ability on what club they play for, for years and years and years we’ve gone with English based guys over players in our own league and it’s got us nowhere, it’s the opposite way about. You’ll have exactly the same people moaning that guys only get capped when they go to one of the OF that’s essentially the same as what you’re saying here. Don’t cap players unless they are in England.

The best players we have at the moment are Robertson, Tierney, McGregor, Armstrong, Griffiths, McTominay and Fraser, don’t know how you could actually argue with that. Alongside them McKenna (should he not play because he plays in Scotland? Should Cooper be in instead because he’s at a bigger club????) and Gordon, Marshall or McGregor giving you

Keeper any of the 3

RB
McKenna
Tierney
Robertson

McTominay
Armstrong

Fraser
McGregor
LM

Griffiths

Out of interest who would you have in instead of Griffiths if he isn’t good enough?

At RB we are pretty fucked, I think SoD done ok over the two games but wouldn’t be confident with him long term.

Centre half maybe Tierney isn’t ideal but for me it’s preferable to the other options we have just now. Would like to see Lindsay given a go.

And out wide I would like to see Johnny Russell given a chance there but there are plenty of options, Cairney can come in with McGregor wide, Forrest, Burke, Ritchie etc etc.

Hopefully never see Snodgrass again or McArthur or McDonald, they’re too slow, aren’t going to get any better and don’t suit the way we play.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

13 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

You don’t judge a players ability on what club they play for,

 

Erm...

 

[craigkillie]

1 hour ago, EdiBairn said:

We cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players who have repeatedly shown they're not good enough to play at the highest level. We absolutely cannot have a starting 11 based on Celtic players(Hendry, Griffiths, Armstrong) who can't even get a game.

We need to accept the reality that these players completely dominate the Premiership but are just not good enough to get us to major tournaments. Instead, we should be focusing on players who are playing at the highest level but are currently being passed over for mediocre Celtic players i.e. McTominay, Fraser, Cairney, McDonald, Burke, Snodgrass and even McArthur.

Another revolutionary idea would be to pick the players based on how good they actually are rather than which club they play for or which league they play in.  Cairney and McDonald are at a team flying high in the English Championship and yet both were woeful against Costa Rica.  Charlie Mulgrew is playing in English Legaue 1 and yet has generally still performed pretty well for us.  Stuart Armstrong has consistently performed better for Scotland than any of those midfielders you listed.

[EdiBairn]

1 hour ago, No_Problemo said:

 

McTominay and Fraser will be involved.

Armstrong and McGregor are miles in front of Cairney and McDonald. This was shown in our last set of friendlies.!

The answer isn’t to exclude players from anywhere, but we were at our most successful in the previous campaign with a core of Celtic players. I’m sure adding McGregor would have helped.

I’m not entirely sure who you want Burke, Snodgrass and McArthur in the side instead of. I really hope you’re not seriously suggesting that Griffiths shouldn’t be starting.

Gordon, Tierney, Armstrong, McGregor and Griffiths are all in our strongest side. Potentially Forrest too.

 

If Forrest, McGregor and Armstrong were that good, they'd be off to the premier league in a heartbeat. They're not, which means they're playing for a Celtic side that's been absolutely trounced whenever it's come up against decent opposition in Europe.

If Armstrong and McGregor were "miles in front" of Cairney and McDonald, Fulham would be signing them, which they're not. No PL side has shown any interest at all.

If we're going to be able to compete with the teams we need to to qualify for tournaments, we need to use the players who have experience in playing at that level every week.

I don't really care who we have to drop to play these players. There are several PL teams chasing Snodgrass- I don't see anyone fighting over James Forrest.

I'd have:

Gordon

Tierney Hanley Berra Robertson

McTominay Cairney McDonald 

Ritchie Snodgrass Fraser

 

You then have options like Burke, McArthur, Rhodes and Griffiths to come off the bench.