Scotland v Poland

[Big Fifer]

Did McTominay not play CM vs the Faroes and was absolutely dreadful the entire match?

Anyway, good to get back to Hampden last night. Relatively feel good vibe about the place, plenty Polish fans in. Thought we played quite well but as someone mentioned above felt quite similar to the Austria 2-2 where we looked a bit rusty in some situations. Gilmour started really poorly but improved as the game went on. Based on what I see in a Scotland shirt of late it's a bit mental that Jonjoe Kenny/the reanimated corpse of Coleman still start every week ahead of him. McGinn, Adams, McGregor all good. Taylor is probably just too limited for this level of football but I wouldn't say he was that bad last night. We do move the ball really well now it has to be said, as much as the 3 at the back relies a lot on Kieran Tierney being fit I'd be surprised if Clarke moves away from it in a competitive game, he might take a look at something else next week right enough. Gutting to lose the goal at the end but it's a friendly and overall pretty happy with what I saw. 

Pie queue was dreadful at HT. 

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

8 hours ago, Jacky1990 said:

That last sentence is such a bizarre comment considering that in his 25 or so mins on the pitch O'Donnell barely gave the ball away.

I get people dont like SOD because he has been average at club level for a couple years and hes an easy target. But he's been fine to very good every time he has played with Scotland during that time. Thats all that matters.

You're reading a bit much into a throwaway joke.  O'Donnell has been mostly good for Scotland and I've stuck up for him plenty.

It's no really unfair to say he's not the most comfortable in possession though, he's clearly less technically gifted than most of the others

[GAD]

It was a decent enough performance, I think maybe a draw was probably a fair enough result, but the manner of how it happened is very annoying. In some ways the fact it was such a blatantly wrong call is a bit of a relief though, because you know that's not being given in a "real" game.

What was the most pleasing aspect was actually the team we were able to put out on the pitch. Swap Robertson for Taylor, and that was a full strength starting XI last night. Before Clarke, as soon as the Ukraine game was cancelled most of our EPL and Old Firm players would have dropped out, and a few others at clubs having good seasons. It shows the players not only want to be there, but they know there is competition and are desperate to keep their spot. Also seems like for a lot of them Scotland is now the good team they are enthusiastic to play for to get away from the shit at their clubs.

I don't know if we will qualify for the WC, Ukraine then Wales in Cardiff still looks like a big ask to me, but I think this team has a good few years in it to achieve something really good.

[eez-eh]

1 hour ago, Donathan said:

The last time a healthy McTominay didn’t play RCB in a competitive game was, IIRC, the Czech Republic game in the euros. In that case we were missing Ryan Jack, and Gilmour hadn’t broken into the first team yet, so McTominay played in midfield and Hendry played RCB.

 

In that game, Hendry was at least partially at fault for the killer second goal (albeit Marshall was also to blame)

 

A back-3 requires the RCB and LCB to take turns pushing up the park, you can’t leave all three back or you get overrun in midfield. This is what both McTominay and Tierney do so masterfully. If you want to drop McTominay you might as well change to a 4-2-3-1 with Robertson/Tierney taking turns to push on to the LW

 

 

Gordon

Patterson-Hendry-Hanley-Tierney

Gilmour-McGregor

McGinn-Adams-Robertson

Dykes 

The bold part isn’t true at all though. The last double header we played the 3 at the back without McTominay.

Not having McTominay at RCB just increases the onus on Tierney driving forward, which he’s more than capable of doing.

[2426255]

Quote

There are some things I'm looking for with the starting line up in terms of the competitive games in June. 

Steve Clarke

A few clues as to what Steve Clarke was looking for in terms of the team performance last night which caught my attention. It also provides more support that the starting line up is how we will look in general to play against Ukraine and hopefully Wales.

Quote

The continuity, the shape was good, possession was good and we created some good chances. We had good control of the game, even in the later stages we had good control of the game. 

The good thing is that we’ve been pretty consistent over the last year in terms of how we play, how we want to play, the shape of the team, the way we want to move the ball and I saw a lot of those things tonight and I got some good work into the players out the game.

There was a lot of good possession, We got ourselves into a lot of good positions. The way we controlled a lot of possession was really good for us so a good exercise. Yeah, there’s one or two things that I still want to look at, I still want to work on.

Steve Clarke

Various Sources

Edited March 25, 2022 by 2426255

[General dissaray]

After the dusts settled and looking at it in the cold light off day wanted to feel better about the result,wanted to say its okay its just a friendly it was partly for a charity and try to console myself with that,but I'm still gutted we should have won that game

We did play really really well if John McGinn asks the question we could got a penelty and won 2 1

But we had various other chances as well were we could have put the game beyond the Poles 

It's great to see our overall game play take shape and it's also good to see strength and depth in squad was actually impressed with wee Taylor not only his defending but how he kept the ball someone who we know won't always play but showed he can play at this level isn't to much for him against a really good team

And Hickey making his debut to was good like how when he can comes into middle to deny spaces to play through very intelligent wee player

Patterson was unbelievable maybe look up try pick someone out next time allthough we saw it with Rangers especially in Europe and with Scotland he can create chances for himself what a player my man of the match

Edited March 25, 2022 by General dissaray

[dundeefc1783]

It's funny how people see it because first half particulalry I thought Taylor was fucking awful

[General dissaray]

19 minutes ago, dundeefc1783 said:

It's funny how people see it because first half particulalry I thought Taylor was fucking awful

Taylor had a ten mins at start of first half were he was finding his feet in the game but grew into it granted will give you that but when he did he was really good was always showing for it never hided and when he was on the ball kept the possession and ball retention nothing flashy just good game management and it was effective 

Edited March 25, 2022 by General dissaray

[dundeefc1783]

Taylor had a ten mins at start of first half were he was finding his feet in the game but grew into it granted will give you that but when he did he was really good was always showing for it never hided and when he was on the ball kept the possession and ball retention nothing flashy just good game management and it was effective 

See i thought he was poor and that was highlighted when he has the opportunity to drive down the right hand side but for some reason didn't. He then stopped got caught in two minds and gave it away.

[General dissaray]

1 hour ago, dundeefc1783 said:

4 hours ago, General dissaray said:

Taylor had a ten mins at start of first half were he was finding his feet in the game but grew into it granted will give you that but when he did he was really good was always showing for it never hided and when he was on the ball kept the possession and ball retention nothing flashy just good game management and it was effective 

See i thought he was poor and that was highlighted when he has the opportunity to drive down the right hand side but for some reason didn't. He then stopped got caught in two minds and gave it away.

What was he doing on the right hand side he is a left back and a left back that hasn't got blistering pace what he did do he did well but then again he plays for one of the auld firm so get the digs in early

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

I thought Taylor was comfortably our worst player tbh

[dundeefc1783]

What was he doing on the right hand side he is a left back and a left back that hasn't got blistering pace what he did do he did well but then again he plays for one of the auld firm so get the digs in early

Apologies left. I just thought he was very poorer and out worst player on the night. Nothing to do with him playing for old firm.

[greenockraver]

Would like to see big hendry start on tuesday. Not heard a lot about him since the denmark game.

[General dissaray]

3 hours ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

I thought Taylor was comfortably our worst player tbh

Hanley and Christie has worce games in my opinion Christie can't keep a shot down always seems to sky it these days 

[Gordopolis]

Feeling a bit flat after the other night.

Firstly, it's kind of pish that there seems to be an attitude of adding an asterisk to the 1-1 draw with a bitter sounding "aye but really we should have won" - we really need to learn to see out a game like that.

More annoying though is the Wales result. Well done to them and all that, but the manner of their win that doesn't bode well for us (should we reach the final) - there was virtually nothing Austria could have done to stop either of Bale's goals. He just turned it on and that was that. If they had scrambled a victory without the aid of a superman type player I'd be much more comfortable about (potentially) facing them. As it stands I fear a repeat of the 2012 game down there.

[AJF]

On 25/03/2022 at 09:25, GAD said:

Before Clarke, as soon as the Ukraine game was cancelled most of our EPL and Old Firm players would have dropped out

Is this actually true? We’ve not had many players kicking around the national team recently but I can’t really recall many pulling out in the past. The likes of Fraser I’d agree.

[No_Problemo]

55 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

Feeling a bit flat after the other night.

Firstly, it's kind of pish that there seems to be an attitude of adding an asterisk to the 1-1 draw with a bitter sounding "aye but really we should have won" - we really need to learn to see out a game like that.

More annoying though is the Wales result. Well done to them and all that, but the manner of their win that doesn't bode well for us (should we reach the final) - there was virtually nothing Austria could have done to stop either of Bale's goals. He just turned it on and that was that. If they had scrambled a victory without the aid of a superman type player I'd be much more comfortable about (potentially) facing them. As it stands I fear a repeat of the 2012 game down there.




 

It is hardly bitter, it’s just a fact - no one really cares as it’s a friendly. We have also shown we are capable of seeing games out - it is not as if it’s a sign of a continuing problem. 

[Ewan8472]

15 hours ago, greenockraver said:

Would like to see big hendry start on tuesday. Not heard a lot about him since the denmark game.

I would prefer him over McTominay. He is a ball playing central defender , and c.d  is his natural position

[No_Problemo]

3 minutes ago, Ewan8472 said:

I would prefer him over McTominay. He is a ball playing central defender , and c.d  is his natural position

His use of the ball from deep isn’t on the same planet as McTominay’s though...

[General dissaray]

2 hours ago, Gordopolis said:

Feeling a bit flat after the other night.

Firstly, it's kind of pish that there seems to be an attitude of adding an asterisk to the 1-1 draw with a bitter sounding "aye but really we should have won" - we really need to learn to see out a game like that.

More annoying though is the Wales result. Well done to them and all that, but the manner of their win that doesn't bode well for us (should we reach the final) - there was virtually nothing Austria could have done to stop either of Bale's goals. He just turned it on and that was that. If they had scrambled a victory without the aid of a superman type player I'd be much more comfortable about (potentially) facing them. As it stands I fear a repeat of the 2012 game down there.




 

But we should have won and had more goals to we were night and day the better side