Austin MacPhee

[RawB93]

[2426255]

This guy has been earning his money. Our set plays were inventive tonight.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

10 hours ago, 2426255 said:

This guy has been earning his money. Our set plays were inventive tonight.

It was only in the last year that we had the opportunity to put out a full team with Scotland goals, and last night we achieved it.

In the last 15 months or so, these defenders have scored:

Hendry x 2

McTominay x 1

Hanley x 1

McKenna x 1

Patterson x 1

Tierney x 1

Ralston x 1

Souttar x 1

Not all have come from set pieces, but a fair number have.  Either way, it's extra goals that aren't taken away from midfield/strikers so brilliant to have.

[2426255]

Good and interesting stuff coming from Austin. 

Quote

The main job Steve wants is that set pieces for Scotland are really well organised and are successful. This will be my 19th game against Cyprus, we have scored 12 goals in 18 games through set pieces which include throw-ins. We have conceded four or five. In the previous 18 games we had conceded four or five, but we had scored one. Set pieces are accountable for broadly 30 per cent of goals. You have a record and right now at Scotland it’s actually too good because our xG is around 10 and we’ve scored 12.

Steve and me are quite an odd couple because Steve has probably worked with more people as a manager who are more conventional assistant coaches. By pure chance, in the same week that I left Midtjylland to join Villa, I left Northern Ireland to join Scotland. Steve knew two things probably. Scotland weren’t very good at set pieces and I was a set piece coach. I did that at Midtjylland as well. We’d just beaten Celtic in the Champions League in one of Ange Postecoglou’s first games. I left after that match to go to Villa. Steve knew I had a specialisation for this in my career. I’d shared with him before just generally speaking about Scotland the work that I did which he was interested in.

This was a new area of football like many that he’d become aware of. Forty years ago there wasn’t a goalie coach, 30 years ago there wasn’t sports science, 20 years ago there wasn’t analysis, 10 years ago there wasn’t xG and three years ago there wasn’t a set piece coach. It’s a natural evolution of the game and he knew that Scotland were struggling in this area. So they thought that if they were going to add somebody to the staff, let’s add somebody with a specific skill set.    

It was useful to him that I had just moved to the Premier League at the same time and was obviously working at the highest level which was a secondary stamp of approval on me. When Northern Ireland qualified for the Euros in 2016, we scored 16 goals and 11 were set pieces. I was in charge of the set pieces. It was open minded of Steve and sometimes he doesn’t get credit for that. I go back to the odd couple - if people in football were going to say Steve Clarke is going to pick someone as another assistant I don’t think anyone puts their hand up and says Austin MacPhee. They’d have expected someone more traditional, but he’s more modern than people give him credit for. You need to explain it to him but set pieces are easy to do that. He knew Scotland weren’t very good at it.

There’s a moment of responsibility and its clear at Villa because every time there’s a set piece I walk to the edge of the pitch and when the set piece is finished the manager walks back past me. I don’t do that at Hampden because it’s too far .. I only come down if I think there’s something terminal, but in the Premier League I’m always there because the manager wants me on their case for that moment. 

It would be a dream. I went with Northern Ireland and it was amazing, but I’m not Northern Irish. I’m Scottish. I’ve found an area that I can be elite at, working with the right people. If Steve gives me the time to work on the pitch we will improve at set-pieces, because we have, markedly.

Austin MacPhee

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/incredible-scotland-goal-stat-coincides-30859663

Quote

If and when we qualify I’ll be happy but I won’t be celebrating for a week because I believe there’s a bigger capacity with this team. I think we should qualify. I’d be happy but this won’t be like other qualifications when you’re just delighted to be at the party. We have to not be delighted to be at the party, and think 'what can we achieve as a team there’.

Play well and play with personality and keep the key Scottish characteristics, the ones that dug us a result out in Norway when we probably didn’t even deserve a point. We weren’t great but we got the result, but that can’t be a ‘go to’ to get out the group or we’ll not get out the group. We have to go and play like we played against Denmark or Serbia, go and play like a Premier League side, because that’s pretty much what we are. I would say that with this group of players and staff, I’d be bitterly disappointed if we didn’t get out of the group because I know that’s a history-making thing we could achieve. I see the quality of the players and the progress they’re making. Steve doesn’t speak like me, if we batter Cyprus 5-0 he still wouldn’t say until it was achieved.

Of course you could get a bad draw in the finals, but it would have a significance in qualifying for the World Cup, which is another thing I’ve a burning ambition to do - as a coach full stop, but all the more with Scotland. If and when we go to the Euros - and I know everybody will play it down but for me we have an 83 per cent chance for qualifying which is pretty good - then I’m thinking ‘ok we should qualify but hopefully we do it quickly’. So we can practice at being ready for the Euros rather than qualifying with the last kick of the ball against Norway at Hampden.

If we can batter Cyprus and results go our way can we then make some changes that have some risk and can we all sit down and ask ‘how do we get out the group for the first time in 150 years of Scottish football?’ For me qualifying early would be a huge factor in that because you can maybe practice in those matches. The manager will want to win and want consistency and momentum, but I don’t think it can be lost on him that would be a favourable position, to throw more challenge.
 

Austin MacPhee

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/big-question-awaiting-scotland-euro-30859521  

[deadasdillinger]

50 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Good and interesting stuff coming from Austin. 

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/incredible-scotland-goal-stat-coincides-30859663

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/big-question-awaiting-scotland-euro-30859521  

Love this

[Stephen Malkmus]

Now there's a man who really wants to batter Cyprus.

[craigkillie]

Never trust someone who sings their own praises so much, but at the same time if he's making us better then good.

[Donathan]

When I saw this thread at the top I feared he was leaving.

 

If Clarke was to go I’d genuinely have MacPhee as one of the candidates to replace him. 

[craigkillie]

On what basis? Good at talking about himself a lot and holds a clipboard well?

[pub car king]

Good backroom staff don't always make good managers, ask Hearts fans. 

That said he does seem to be someone who wants to bring new ideas to the table. 

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

That's quite a read.  That's someone who is coherent, articulate, and confident.  It just about pushes into the territory of arrogance, which I usually swerve from, but it's an unusual characteristic in a Scot.

I want to see players and coaches talking like this, and expecting demanding that level of performance.  Thanks for sharing.

[Bing.McCrosby]

2 hours ago, Donathan said:

When I saw this thread at the top I feared he was leaving.

 

If Clarke was to go I’d genuinely have MacPhee as one of the candidates to replace him. 

 

2 hours ago, craigkillie said:

On what basis? Good at talking about himself a lot and holds a clipboard well?

See we agree occasionally, thats a bizzare post 

[velo army]

3 hours ago, craigkillie said:

Never trust someone who sings their own praises so much, but at the same time if he's making us better then good.

This is a particularly Scottish and curmudgeonly take. He isn't singing his own praises, he's pointing to results. 

Why would that make him untrustworthy? He's not just saying he's amazing, he says he has high expectations for the squad and says that the work done on set pieces has made a huge difference.

Did he pump your missus or are you just jealous of his lustrous hair?

[craigkillie]

Just now, velo army said:

This is a particularly Scottish and curmudgeonly take. He isn't singing his own praises, he's pointing to results. 

Why would that make him untrustworthy? He's not just saying he's amazing, he says he has high expectations for the squad and says that the work done on set pieces has made a huge difference.

I find self-promotion of that nature quite unseemly, particularly when you are part of a coaching team and have a fantastic group of players too. People who exclusively tell their own story like that will consistently oversell their own contribution - even in that article he is essentially identifying himself as being Steve Clarke's assistant as though he is the only guy rather than one of three coaches who work with him. The only goal of every single interview Austin MacPhee does is to extol the virtues of Austin MacPhee.

[velo army]

He didn't write it though. He may have been only asked questions about his role as it's so specialist. 

[Bing.McCrosby]

7 minutes ago, velo army said:

He didn't write it though. He may have been only asked questions about his role as it's so specialist. 

Its a strange day, 2nd time im agreeing with craig

He does come across as a bit of a blowhard tbh.

[Jives Miguel]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

I find self-promotion of that nature quite unseemly, particularly when you are part of a coaching team and have a fantastic group of players too. People who exclusively tell their own story like that will consistently oversell their own contribution - even in that article he is essentially identifying himself as being Steve Clarke's assistant as though he is the only guy rather than one of three coaches who work with him. The only goal of every single interview Austin MacPhee does is to extol the virtues of Austin MacPhee.

 

Is he?

 

"“I go back to the odd couple - if people in football were going to say Steve Clarke is going to pick someone as another assistant I don’t think anyone puts their hand up and says Austin MacPhee. They’d have expected someone more traditional."

[velo army]

1 hour ago, Bing.McCrosby said:

Its a strange day, 2nd time im agreeing with craig

He does come across as a bit of a blowhard tbh.

I honestly don't think he does, and remember that it will be a longer interview that is edited by someone not named Austin McPhee, so you're reading what the editor thinks is germane. It's an article about how Austin McPhee's involvement with the national team has transformed our set pieces. I don't know how he's supposed to respond to that, and we also don't know what questions he was asked or what prompts. 

I think he comes across as self-aware. I know you're not saying this, but Craig using McPhee describing himself as Clarke's assistant (he said he was one of them and it would be daft to argue that he isn't) as evidence of him being up his own arse is a bit silly.

McPhee may be an arrogant arsehole, I have no idea, but the idea that we shouldn't trust people who talk themselves up is little Scotlander thinking. 

 

[Bing.McCrosby]

1 minute ago, velo army said:

I honestly don't think he does, and remember that it will be a longer interview that is edited by someone not named Austin McPhee, so you're reading what the editor thinks is germane. It's an article about how Austin McPhee's involvement with the national team has transformed our set pieces. I don't know how he's supposed to respond to that, and we also don't know what questions he was asked or what prompts. 

I think he comes across as self-aware. I know you're not saying this, but Craig using McPhee describing himself as Clarke's assistant (he said he was one of them and it would be daft to argue that he isn't) as evidence of him being up his own arse is a bit silly.

McPhee may be an arrogant arsehole, I have no idea, but the idea that we shouldn't trust people who talk themselves up is little Scotlander thinking. 

 

Little scotlander thinking, are you picking up the discarded @Satoshi batton

I get what your saying, were just reading different things into it. I think some of that stuff would be great for him to point out in a job interview rather than a media interview.

Is it possible you have been taken in by the hair and love of a confident man?

[MarkoRaj]

I quite like that, refreshing compared to the usual 'we're taking nothing for granted, you can't qualify on 12 points' stuff. 

Not that Steve Clarke shouldn't be keeping players grounded and focused, just good to have someone with a different mindset that's constantly talking about progression