Scotland v Armenia

[Gordopolis]

Auntie, not maw. She was very lovely to look at tbh, but he was a treat. Been a tough few days, so getting to hang out with a youngster who reminded me of myself at that age was class. Full of questions and kept just wanting to play on the stairs. I kinda felt bad for him because at that age I was just let loose on the terraces and formed a feral pack with other weans. 
The game was boring. The amount of times we received the ball with our back to goal instead of running on to a ball was utterly maddening. It was a professional job, but a few more goals would have been preferable.
Calmac needs his own song. He's class and is the beating heart of our midfield. McGinn is a crowd favourite, but McGregor plays 65 games a season and is never less than 8/10. A wonderful, wonderful footballer. 
 
 

Don't want to turn a solid win into a negative, but the "few more goals" thing is spot on
While we dominated, there was a sense of frustration about it.
For as long as I've been a Scotland fan (1990-ish), we've never had an entirely convincing goal threat. McCoist aside, we've really struggled to find a semi-regular finisher. The only time I felt relaxed in that respect was circa 2007 when Miller & McFadden were both on their mid 20s and each had 10+ international goals - yet neither really went crazy with their goalscoring after that (Miller 18, McFadden 15).
Apart from that it's been a bit desperate, with guys like Naismith and Fletcher scraping past 10 in their 30s.
I might be wrong, but I suspect we've not had anyone hit double figures before the age of 24 since Denis Law (and few late flourishers to offset this).
Bit of a ramble, but just imagine how much pressure it would take off the rest of the team to have an international class sharp shooter up front.

[HK Hibee]

44 minutes ago, Fratelli said:

Might've been someone else - but i said i thought he looked fed up, frustrated and in his own head a bit, in the way strikers do when it's just not falling for them/passes aren't finding them, which i noticed in the Ukraine game and then again in the first half. I'm a massive fan of his, still think he's by some distance the best striker we have in terms of ability and would have him starting over anyone else available. As i also said, for whatever reason, i still think he will catch fire at some point and win games on his own for us. Although even when he's not scoring, he's still hugely important to the way we play.

Completely agree with this. In first half he made so many smart little runs but the midfield were a little slow in seeing them which must be really frustrating.  In second half I thought they were looking for him a bit more, Christie in particular. He ran his socks off as well.  What more can you ask for..

[invergowrie arab]

Just home. f**k taking the car again. Cathcart Rd to M74 took longer than the journey back to Dundee.

Anyway, I suppose a win with economy of effort in a busy period is a good thing.

I would say they are the worst team I have seen at Hampden in many many years and I'm probably including Faroes and Gibraltar there.

Could have had 4 or 5 if we really wanted.

[nessies long lost ghost]

1 minute ago, Gordopolis said:

 

 

Don't want to turn a solid win into a negative, but the "few more goals" thing is spot on
While we dominated, there was a sense of frustration about it.
For as long as I've been a Scotland fan (1990-ish), we've never had an entirely convincing goal threat. McCoist aside, we've really struggled to find a semi-regular finisher. The only time I felt relaxed in that respect was circa 2007 when Miller & McFadden were both on their mid 20s and each had 10+ international goals - yet neither really went crazy with their goalscoring after that (Miller 18, McFadden 15).
Apart from that it's been a bit desperate, with guys like Naismith and Fletcher scraping past 10 in their 30s.
I might be wrong, but I suspect we've not had anyone hit double figures before the age of 24 since Denis Law (and few late flourishers to offset this).
Bit of a ramble, but just imagine how much pressure it would take off the rest of the team to have an international class sharp shooter up front.
 

 

I agree - John McGinn has about 12 goals and he is only 27

But he is not a striker

It would take so much pressure off of him too if he believed we had some c**t up front who could score a goal every 2 or 3 games

[craigkillie]

24 minutes ago, Kapowzer said:

Based on 6 senior starts at club level and Everton U23's aye?

Seems like his transfer fee is being looked at rather than his achievements.

I make it 15 starts at club level and 6 for Scotland. I don't think 20 games is too small a sample size to see what an obvious talent he is - there are definitely flaws in his game, but as a RWB for Scotland he is still a better option than Ralston (or anyone else).

[BFTD]

12 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

Just home. f**k taking the car again. Cathcart Rd to M74 took longer than the journey back to Dundee.

Anyway, I suppose a win with economy of effort in a busy period is a good thing.

I would say they are the worst team I have seen at Hampden in many many years and I'm probably including Faroes and Gibraltar there.

Could have had 4 or 5 if we really wanted.

The Faeroes definitely looked better last time we played them.

Armenia had another poor game tonight. You could see exactly how Norway managed to help themselves to so many goals, and at least they kept everyone on the field tonight.

[nessies long lost ghost]

11 minutes ago, BFTD said:

The Faeroes definitely looked better last time we played them.

Armenia had another poor game tonight. You could see exactly how Norway managed to help themselves to so many goals, and at least they kept everyone on the field tonight.

Their captain should be red carded - was already on a yellow then made a cynical push on Adams - was blatant.

[craigkillie]

15 minutes ago, BFTD said:

The Faeroes definitely looked better last time we played them.

Armenia had another poor game tonight. You could see exactly how Norway managed to help themselves to so many goals, and at least they kept everyone on the field tonight.

You could also see why they ended up getting someone sent off in a friendly, they were a bunch of c***s.

[velo army]

Our problem tonight was a complete lack of penetration. There was a lot of spreading the ball (fucking endlessly) wide, which looked to me to be a passing of responsibility. There was nobody willing to play the through ball or run into the box with it. Armstrong occasionally gave it a go in the first half but for some reason he's as slow as a week in jail these days. It actually looked very disjointed in the final third, with an awful lot of random touches and hopeful crosses. Billy Gilmour is the only one who does this, but it's not that niche a skillset that it should be acceptable for only one player to make the straight forward pass.

 

 

[Gordopolis]

You could also see why they ended up getting someone sent off in a friendly, they were a bunch of c***s.

That seemed kind of weird - there seemed to be a lot of pre-emptive needle, especially from our side.
Was there some previous grievance I had missed?

[Gordopolis]

Our problem tonight was a complete lack of penetration.
 

Jesus Christ, mate, if only our chances tonight had been lined up so perfectly...

[craigkillie]

Our problem tonight was a complete lack of penetration. There was a lot of spreading the ball (fucking endlessly) wide, which looked to me to be a passing of responsibility. There was nobody willing to play the through ball or run into the box with it. Armstrong occasionally gave it a go in the first half but for some reason he's as slow as a week in jail these days. It actually looked very disjointed in the final third, with an awful lot of random touches and hopeful crosses. Billy Gilmour is the only one who does this, but it's not that niche a skillset that it should be acceptable for only one player to make the straight forward pass.
 
 

It's very hard for any team to break through an 8/9 man defence, you either have to try to move the ball quickly and force things, which runs the risk of giving it away, or you do what we mostly did which is switch it from side to side until an opening appears or you can get a decent cross in. I'd say the quality of those final balls, and the subsequent finishing at the end of them, was more of an issue, but we had total control of the game regardless.

[Satoshi]

3 hours ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

One thing that needs to change is that if we play 3atb with Hendry in games like that, McGregor doesn’t need to drop back and take the ball off his toes.

The Armenian defensive line finished at 45 yards from their goal. McGregor dropping deep to take the ball is a poor use of space and bodies.

McTominay was a big improvement over Armstrong. He rattles the ball around quicker and get passes through the lines. It also moved McGinn up the pitch. He’s still not himself, but he was much improved in the last 20 minutes over the previous 70+90.

Only changes I’d make for Saturday would be McTominay>Armstrong, and potentially starting Patterson. It may be a physical game, so whoever can cope with Duffy/Egan etc I’d start.

Ralston was far better than I expected. Difficult to know his ceiling given how bad Armenia are, but I’ll happily have him as second choice behind a fit Patterson.

Odd to take so long to make changes. There’s no value at all in giving Brown and Stewart 5 minutes. 

Other than that, we still can’t shoot, but that wasn’t learned tonight. That’s why a player like Bale/Haaland turns a team like us/Wales/Norway into a side that qualifies for tournaments.

Norway haven't qualified for a tournament since the year 2000, and weren't even close this time with Haaland.

6 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

That seemed kind of weird - there seemed to be a lot of pre-emptive needle, especially from our side.
Was there some previous grievance I had missed?

Nah, it's a tactic rubbish teams tend to resort to. Bring it down to their level and beat them with experience.

Armenia as a country has plenty of grievance with their neighbours of course, but not Scotland. We're nice and friendly with our neighbours.

Solid professional job to a side who recently beat Ireland, looking forward to the next game. Think McKenna has the spot as Tierney's replacement on the left and certainly helps that he plays it at club level.

[Satoshi]

4 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

It's very hard for any team to break through an 8/9 man defence, you either have to try to move the ball quickly and force things, which runs the risk of giving it away, or you do what we mostly did which is switch it from side to side until an opening appears or you can get a decent cross in. I'd say the quality of those final balls, and the subsequent finishing at the end of them, was more of an issue, but we had total control of the game regardless.

Indeed, I remember in a 2010 world cup North Korea using this tactic managed to successfully hold Brazil for 55 minutes until Maicon scored a pretty bizarre goal that was a keeper error. Ended up 2-1 in the end.

Particularly surprising as the evidence suggests many people in North Korea have chronic parasite problems due to the unsanitary conditions there.

Point is, in international football especially very limited teams can eek out results with such tactics even against good sides. It doesn't always work, but usually makes it hard to rack up a big score.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Satoshi

[Raidernation]

It’s wild the lengths some people will go to to avoid giving Ralston any credit 

It’s wild the lengths any arsecheek fan will go to to avoid giving credit to a non-cheek player

[AMMjag]

Obviously it's a considerable downgrade in opposition, but everything you'd have wanted to see after last week was on display for most of last night - effective pressing, higher tempo, good ball retention and aggression. We could/should have scored more but it wasn't for lack of trying against a very defensive set-up - we hit the bar/post at least 3 times, had a goal disallowed and forced a very good save as well as the two goals scored. It was as comfortable and well-managed a home win as you'd want to see.

This subforum is responsible for some of the most stultifyingly ill-informed opinions I've ever seen, but I'm not sure what more some people were expecting from the team last night.

[TheScarf]

Norway are horseshit even with Haaland.

[GAD]

I thought we were pretty good to be honest, Armenia weren't great, but they were the team supposedly going into this in a high, whereas we couldn't have been much lower. I thought we dominated every aspect, and the game was over as a contest before half time.

I think the reason though for so much whining and negativity after such a comfortable win is because it's hard to shake the feeling that if we don't start scoring the goals we are due, then we will always come up short when it matters. 4 or 5-0 wouldn't have flattered us, but the inability to take good chances was on display again and it's that that's haunting us at the moment. Nobody would care when the subs came on if it had been 4-0 at 60 mins.

[2426255]

We didn't get enough goals and we played three at the back. Clarke out.

[Steven W]

6 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

Just home. f**k taking the car again. Cathcart Rd to M74 took longer than the journey back to Dundee.

This was my experience too. Two Wednesday nights in a row I've took the car - never again.

And yet I often I read on line of folks saying how quickly they got away. Back in the house for half ten etc ..