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Israel Vs Scotland 28th March


Gordopolis

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As I have been saying since 1978, there is no point in Scotland picking player who play for teams constantly on the front foot like Selkirk, sevco, Liverpool etc. unless we’re going to play that way and dominate games.
We’re never going to be that side so instead of selecting “superstars” select the players that can play the “chosen system”. Build a nations TEAM rather than a selection of really talented players who probably couldn’t decide what sort of pizza to order for a party.

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Just now, Raidernation said:

As I have been saying since 1978, there is no point in Scotland picking player who play for teams constantly on the front foot like Selkirk, sevco, Liverpool etc. unless we’re going to play that way and dominate games.
We’re never going to be that side so instead of selecting “superstars” select the players that can play the “chosen system”. Build a nations TEAM rather than a selection of really talented players who probably couldn’t decide what sort of pizza to order for a party.

Pick worse players.

Bloody hell, their all out tonight 😳 

 

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1 hour ago, Raidernation said:

As I have been saying since 1978, there is no point in Scotland picking player who play for teams constantly on the front foot like Selkirk, sevco, Liverpool etc. unless we’re going to play that way and dominate games.
We’re never going to be that side so instead of selecting “superstars” select the players that can play the “chosen system”. Build a nations TEAM rather than a selection of really talented players who probably couldn’t decide what sort of pizza to order for a party.

We aren’t picking any of them because they are superstars, we are picking them because they are the best players we have in their positions, but also for for the system we play.  

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We aren’t picking any of them because they are superstars, we are picking them because they are the best players we have in their positions, but also for for the system we play.  

But quite clearly they are NOT the best players for the system because they’re being played out of position. Maybe best in their position but not all of them play anything like the same system and they’re not that good to compensate for that simple tactical failing.

FFS I’ve just suffered several years of McInnes picking supposedly good players who turn out to be shite because they can’t play in his system, or, like Tierney (there are many examples of this) get fucking shoehorned into unnatural positions (hi Ken gif) just to get them in the team.

Christ, it’s not fucking rocket science!
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43 minutes ago, Raidernation said:


But quite clearly they are NOT the best players for the system because they’re being played out of position. Maybe best in their position but not all of them play anything like the same system and they’re not that good to compensate for that simple tactical failing.

FFS I’ve just suffered several years of McInnes picking supposedly good players who turn out to be shite because they can’t play in his system, or, like Tierney (there are many examples of this) get fucking shoehorned into unnatural positions (hi Ken gif) just to get them in the team.

Christ, it’s not fucking rocket science!

Who is really being played out of position? Tierney has played in that role for Arsenal most of the start of the season till about Christmas when Arteta changed it. It’s not an unnatural position for him.

The only one being shoe-horned in for a bit was McTominay in defence, now he’s gone back to midfield, most of the players are broadly where they play for their club sides.

 

Edited by Jambomo
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Can Stevie Clarke please take his negative, defensive tactics and shove them up his arse? He set the team up to avoid defeat and only had a go in both games when they went behind. They have ended up with 2 points so even picking up a win and a defeat would have been better. Last night's game was just awful where they dropped back into a defensive structure whenever Israel got the ball. In that first half they sat 30-35 yards out and just let Israel pass the ball around and through them, with absolutely no pressing. It's not as if we haven't played Israel recently and didn't recognise the threat came from Dasa, Zahavi and Solomon so to set up in a structure that allowed them so much time and space was bordering on criminal. For f&%" sake Clarke, have a go at winning games.

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A team with ambitions of qualifying for World Cups don't approach that game in the manner and mindset that we did from the start of it. The players as well have to take huge responsibility for their body language, poor workrate and overall lethargy in that dreadful first half. 

We can debate the merit of formations all day but they matter not a lot when the basics of application and workrate are lacking. 

Somehow the experts are trying to tell us that Israel are a better team than they actually are. The game was there for the taking when we equalised and we produced nothing of note for the rest of it. 

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7 hours ago, BFTD said:

The Danes eased past them by comparison, and the result was never in much doubt.

Denmark are absolutely miles ahead of us though?

Their squad is unreal and absolutely littered with major players. They possibly miss a couple of decent full backs, but their strongest "spine" has experienced solid CBs, two of the best DMs in Europe, Eriksen and a Barcelona striker.

We have a Motherwell, Nottingham Forest CB pairing and a left back, Ryan Jack/McGinn/McTominay, and then a Southampton striker.

It's not comparable, and I'm finding it really weird how highly people have suddenly decided to rate our squad.

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We've definitely goes backwards since November. It's weird that our pressing has disappeared almost completely in these matches as there was a clear shift in the Serbia and Slovakia games. Playing like this is fine when you succeed (Czech (H) and Israel (play-off)) but has been a miserable experience this week.

That said, the "Clarke only won two penalty shoot-outs" camp are either morons or try-hard contrarians.

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The problem is we don’t have good enough players to take the game to the opposition. If Israel had sat back like we did last night and offered us possession, we would still have struggled, because our first touch and movement off the ball is fucking rank

The only way we’ll get results is by high pressing and breaking when we win back possession in the middle of the park. Last night’s team seemed on paper like a good selection to do that, but we did the opposite

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23 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Denmark are absolutely miles ahead of us though?

Their squad is unreal and absolutely littered with major players. They possibly miss a couple of decent full backs, but their strongest "spine" has experienced solid CBs, two of the best DMs in Europe, Eriksen and a Barcelona striker.

We have a Motherwell, Nottingham Forest CB pairing and a left back, Ryan Jack/McGinn/McTominay, and then a Southampton striker.

It's not comparable, and I'm finding it really weird how highly people have suddenly decided to rate our squad.

The point was that these are the sides - and their results - that we're competing against. If we're just thinking about Israel, then a draw's not a bad result, and we're on course to hopefully get win at Hampden and secure third place above them. But if we've any ambition to qualify for this tournament, it's two points lost on Denmark already, and we're hoping that Austria make a c**t of it over there again.

It'll be unfair to complain if the Danes play well and take six points from us but, considering how many times dropping points against lower seeds has bitten us in the arse, it's not unfair to say that we need to win these matches. We're never going to get an easier group than this from our seeding position, and securing third place again does nothing for us.

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2 hours ago, Jambomo said:

Who is really being played out of position? Tierney has played in that role for Arsenal most of the start of the season till about Christmas when Arteta changed it. It’s not an unnatural position for him.

The only one being shoe-horned in for a bit was McTominay in defence, now he’s gone back to midfield, most of the players are broadly where they play for their club sides.

 

 

Robertson is out of position. Whenever he gets the ball as a wing back he's stationary, usually on the half way line, and has a right mid and right back in front of him to beat. So he is reduced to swinging in crosses from 30 yards out. As a left back he receives it arriving forward with momentum, the right back is occupied by our left mid and that frees him up to get forward. It's a small but crucial difference.

We saw this really clearly in the first 25 minutes of the 2nd half when he got forward more in that time than he did in any of the previous games, not only get forward but recieved the ball on the run deep into the final 3rd. His end product was poor but that's a different issue, we were at least getting him into those areas. Robertson and Tierney are arguably 2 of our best attacking threats and the 352 negates both of them.

I don't know the solution so it's not really a criticism of Clarke, but we are not getting the best of Robertson due to his position. I've always said I'd go back 4 with Tierney at right back. He is clearly a much better right back than O'Donnell. I guess the issue then is we would only have 2 centre backs, all of which are pretty hopeless so there may be unseen issues with that too. It"s perhaps worth trying it against the Faroes though to get a sense of whether it could work.

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Stick with the 3-5-2 against the better sides, 4-2-3-1 against anyone ranked lower than us, as it allows us to get more of our better players into the side. Tierney at right back. Fraser and Armstrong can play out wide and that still allows us to play McGinn or Christie behind the striker. 
 

The Faroes aren’t a bad team anymore, games generally seem quite tight against them so I would be playing as close to our strongest team as possible.

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