Scotland v Israel

[oneteaminglasgow]

11 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

I pointed this out above. They have some very gifted players, especially in attack. Eran Zahavi alone has scored 31 goals in 68 international matches, has scored a pretty remarkable 240 goals in his club career, and is currently playing for PSV and battering in goals at around a rate of 1 every 2 games. 

He's light years ahead of anyone we have available to us. 

Not taking anything away from him, but the vast majority of his career has been spent in Israel or China, so possibly (definitely) not the highest standard. And I’m pretty certain that we have strikers who could get a game for PSV.

He’s a good player, and obviously a good goal scorer but light years ahead? I don’t think so. 

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

1 minute ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Not taking anything away from him, but the vast majority of his career has been spent in Israel or China, so possibly (definitely) not the highest standard. And I’m pretty certain that we have strikers who could get a game for PSV.

He’s a good player, and obviously a good goal scorer but light years ahead? I don’t think so. 

With respect, I'd love to know which Scotland striker a team like PSV would be interested in. Dykes ? Nisbet ? Che Adams (maybe) ?

I acknowledge that a lot of his club career has not been spent at the very highest level, but he's still scored 31 international goals in 68 games, all of them for a fairly average Israel team. Our whole squad from Tuesday have only scored 28 goals between them, and of course our highest ever goal scorers have only scored 30 international goals. 

We would kill to have someone Scottish with Zahavi's international scoring record.  

[2426255]

25 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

I pointed this out above. They have some very gifted players, especially in attack. Eran Zahavi alone has scored 31 goals in 68 international matches, has scored a pretty remarkable 240 goals in his club career, and is currently playing for PSV and battering in goals at around a rate of 1 every 2 games. 

He's light years ahead of anyone we have available to us. 

They're let down by a poor defence. The moral of the story ? Stop them from scoring and we'll win. Seemples.....

 

I think it's fair to say that the teams are on a similar level. We've seen it recently in important games that both teams wanted to win. 

Edited September 9, 2021 by 2426255

[invergowrie arab]

PSV FFS. It's not 1987.

They are a fucking gang. I doubt Rangers or Celtic would worry much about playing them and they play in a worse league than the English championship 

[oneteaminglasgow]

3 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

With respect, I'd love to know which Scotland striker a team like PSV would be interested in. Dykes ? Nisbet ? Che Adams (maybe) ?

I acknowledge that a lot of his club career has not been spent at the very highest level, but he's still scored 31 international goals in 68 games, all of them for a fairly average Israel team. Our whole squad from Tuesday have only scored 28 goals between them, and of course our highest ever goal scorers have only scored 30 international goals. 

We would kill to have someone Scottish with Zahavi's international scoring record.  

Adams is who I was meaning, but I’d also argue that Dykes would get a game.

Israel seem to be a side who are set up to score lots, but in doing so they also concede lots while we’re the exact opposite which may go some way to explaining it. This is shown by them scoring 14 while conceding 11, we’ve scored 9 while only conceding 5. Same story in the nations league, they scored and conceded 7, we scored 5 and conceded 4.

Like I say, I don’t think he’s a bad player and obviously his goal scoring record internationally is excellent, but he’s absolutely not ‘light years’ ahead of any of our options.

[2426255]

36 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Adams is who I was meaning, but I’d also argue that Dykes would get a game.

Israel seem to be a side who are set up to score lots, but in doing so they also concede lots while we’re the exact opposite which may go some way to explaining it. This is shown by them scoring 14 while conceding 11, we’ve scored 9 while only conceding 5. Same story in the nations league, they scored and conceded 7, we scored 5 and conceded 4.

Like I say, I don’t think he’s a bad player and obviously his goal scoring record internationally is excellent, but he’s absolutely not ‘light years’ ahead of any of our options.

So our poor attack should cancel out their poor defence and our strong defence should cancel out their strong attack? So a tight victory either way or a draw then? Certainly in keeping with previous results.

Edited September 9, 2021 by 2426255

[lubo_blaha]

Zahavi has 25 goals in 28 games for Israel. He’s scored 3 in 4 at club level over the last 8 years. There won’t be many strikers in Europe with a better record than that.

[JamesM82]

19 hours ago, craigkillie said:

I actually think if we beat Israel we could probably get away with drawing one of the two away games against the bottom teams - don't think Israel will win their last three.

The first round of the playoffs is seeded (6 best runner-ups get to play at home), so it is important to win those games and to get something against Denmark.

[Antiochas III]

16 minutes ago, lubo_blaha said:

Zahavi has 25 goals in 28 games for Israel. He’s scored 3 in 4 at club level over the last 8 years. There won’t be many strikers in Europe with a better record than that.

The year we played North Macedonia, Goran Pandev scored 8 goals in 10 internationals and went onto win the Champions League that season... 

[craigkillie]

5 minutes ago, JamesM82 said:

The first round of the playoffs is seeded (6 best runner-ups get to play at home), so it is important to win those games and to get something against Denmark.

Absolutely we should be trying to do that, but first priority is getting 2nd at all.

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

We've got the stronger squad overall but in Zahavi and Solomon Israel will have the two most dangerous players on the pitch. 

Still fancy us to win but it'll be a tight game. 

[The Moonster]

Outside of Zahavi and Solomon they're simply an average team. I agree with the earlier shout of moving to a back 4 for this game - in one of the previous games we changed at half time (or at some point through the game) and looked far better against Israel's system. I expect Clarke will start with the 3-5-2 and change if he feels he needs to though. 

[2426255]

3 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Outside of Zahavi and Solomon they're simply an average team. I agree with the earlier shout of moving to a back 4 for this game - in one of the previous games we changed at half time (or at some point through the game) and looked far better against Israel's system. I expect Clarke will start with the 3-5-2 and change if he feels he needs to though. 

The problem is therefore that they have Eran Zahavi and Manor Solomon making them a better than average team, last I checked they're still eligible lol.  Are we more than a better than average team? 

Edited September 9, 2021 by 2426255

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

3 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

Outside of Zahavi and Solomon they're simply an average team. I agree with the earlier shout of moving to a back 4 for this game - in one of the previous games we changed at half time (or at some point through the game) and looked far better against Israel's system. I expect Clarke will start with the 3-5-2 and change if he feels he needs to though. 

Zahavi isn't a 6 yard box poacher. He scores his goals by finding space around the edge of the box, and he's very good at it. 

We've struggled against Israel in the past, and we struggled against the Czechs and Croatia in the summer, because we're not very good at picking up these types of players.

Our central defenders often drop too deep, and rely on central midfielders such as McGregor and McGinn to pick up players like Zahavi. It's tricky.

As you said above though, we found a system that nullified him in one of the games we played against them (I can't remember which one). It might help if we've got McTominay back to sit in front of the defence. 

As is obvious though, Israel can't defend. We should be beating them, even it's a narrow 2-1 or whatever. 

 

[accies1874]

Outside of Zahavi and Solomon they're simply an average team. I agree with the earlier shout of moving to a back 4 for this game - in one of the previous games we changed at half time (or at some point through the game) and looked far better against Israel's system. I expect Clarke will start with the 3-5-2 and change if he feels he needs to though. 

Yip it was half-time in the last game we moved to a 4-2-3-1. Made it much easier to engage them further up the park.

If this was the first game of the September matches (with everyone available) then I'd be all for it, but the last couple of games with the 3-4-1-2 have produced great performances which is making me think we should just stick with it.

It's a tough decision.

[2426255]

14 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

As is obvious though, Israel can't defend. We should be beating them, even it's a narrow 2-1 or whatever. 

When did we last score twice against that defence that can't defend? You can't just ignore the facts and say "we should beat them" or "it's ours to lose" or "we have better players". The game is a coin flip based on past results with a draw the most likely outcome.

Edited September 9, 2021 by 2426255

[Dunning1874]

1 hour ago, accies1874 said:

I've been thinking for a while that if we're going to change to a back four for any game then this is the one to do it, but that's highly unlikely given the last two performances with the first-choice system.

Yeah, Israel have the beating of us when we play a back three.

Our six meetings with them in the last three years have gone as follows:

Israel 2-1 Scotland (McLeish) - a defeat with a back three, albeit we were drawing 1-1 before going down to 10 men

Scotland 3-2 Israel (McLeish) - our only win against them in six games, the only time we've started with a back four in those six games. You can also hope we'd be more defensively solid without the comedy duo from that night of Paterson and Bates in defence.

Scotland 1-1 Israel - the first time we played a back three under Clarke, we were lucky to get a draw here with the penalty we scored being our only real chance

Scotland 0-0 Israel - another grim performance where the only chance we created in 120 minutes was McTominay missing a sitter from a corner. We didn't manage a single shot on target.

Israel 1-0 Scotland - we did actually create a lot of chances in this one, but couldn't find a goal (in no small part due to McBurnie being on the park) and McTominay got absolutely done for their goal, looking every bit like someone who isn't a centre back

Israel 1-1 Scotland - 1-0 down at half-time but it could easily have been three, they were all over us. We then took Hendry off for Christie going to a back four, and came back into it. We lost the 45 minutes with a back three and won the 45 minutes with a back four.

The performance v Austria has restored some faith in the back three generally, but against Israel it has to be a back four.

[AJF]

46 minutes ago, Antiochas III said:

The year we played North Macedonia, Goran Pandev scored 8 goals in 10 internationals and went onto win the Champions League that season... 

I'm not sure what the point is here? Pandev was 100% a superior striker to anyone we had back then. The same is being said of Zahavi. That doesn't mean they are a better team than us, it's just being used to highlight the threat they carry.

[2426255]

5 minutes ago, AJF said:

I'm not sure what the point is here? Pandev was 100% a superior striker to anyone we had back then. The same is being said of Zahavi. That doesn't mean they are a better team than us, it's just being used to highlight the threat they carry.

How can we be a better team than them if we only beat them 1 time in 6 attempts across two different managers? 

Edited September 9, 2021 by 2426255

[AJF]

1 minute ago, 2426255 said:

How can we be a better team than them if we only beat them 1 time in 6 attempts? 

I never said we are the better team. It's a 50/50 match in my opinion.