Steve Clarke - in/out/general discussion

[Delicate Flower]

On 18/06/2023 at 21:59, craigkillie said:

Arithmetic is a branch of mathematics, I have no idea why people make that weird distinction all the time.

I got a 1 for my arithmetic o grade but only a 2 for maths. Long love the distinction. (Failed my higher maths for those interested)

[Thumper]

7 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

This Scotland team plus a peak Bale would be well beyond that Welsh team

I don't really think it's fair to say that such-and-such a team plus Gareth Bale would be better than that Wales side.

That said, of course a top-tier striker would improve the team, but it's not as if Scotland have had a single top-tier striker in forty-odd years. You wouldn't trade Scotland's squad for Norway's.

[Gordon EF]

16 minutes ago, Thumper said:

I don't really think it's fair to say that such-and-such a team plus Gareth Bale would be better than that Wales side.

That said, of course a top-tier striker would improve the team, but it's not as if Scotland have had a single top-tier striker in forty-odd years. You wouldn't trade Scotland's squad for Norway's.

Fair. Just trying to make the point that we're probably a better overall unit now than some of these smaller nations with one star man types like Wales 2016 or the current Norway.

[velo army]

I thought you were all doing that Wales 2016 team a disservice, but I had a look and, aside from Bale, Ramsey and maybe Allen it's a very workmanlike team but no more. Williams is an excellent CB, but out wide they're mediocre and they had the Welsh Lyndon Dykes up front in Hal RK.

I had a look at that Belgium team too and I remember before we played them in qualifying we were genuinely scared of them. I look at that team now and think that there isn't a single player (aside from perhaps De Bruyne and maybe Lukaku as he was then) that I would take in our team. And none that I feel are worth fearing. 

It's been a nice psychological shift tbh.

 

[PSJ.84]

Bit unfair on Dykes there

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

There's a lot of rebuilding going in in Europe right now.  Only England and France (of the giants) seem to have effective, and settled teams and are miles ahead of everyone else.  Spain seem to be capping everyone, and playing 37-year-old wing backs. The UNL win is definitely masking their obvious shortcomings that we witnessed so clearly.

Belgium's golden generation is over.  Netherlands and Germany just seriously lack the numbers of world class players they normally have, and either don't have the players coming through, or are yet to settle (the games both sides played this week were hilarious in their ineptitude).

Portugal seem to be in a decent place, and so do Croatia.  Both will be saying goodbye to their key elder statesmen shortly, however.

Serbia and Switzerland are walking their groups (albeit, the lack any serious competition), and seem impervious to the peaks and troughs of other nations.  They never really compete at the highest level, but never fall into complete disarray either.

Czechia are looking solid in a mickey mouse group.  Hungary have become a seriously effective outfit, and Austria have recovered from their capitulation in our WCQ group, and loss to Wales in the playoff.  Denmark's Euro 2020 exploits and UNL performances went straight out the window at the WC, and they're making harder work than necessary in another weak qualifying group.

Italy are still in a bit of a mess - they haven't exactly rebounded from their WCQ exit.  Poland just lost to one of the worst teams in Europe, and Greece and Turkey seem to be in a rebuilding phase having plumbed the lower positions of recent groups.  Sweden appear to be in full collapse mode, and Slovakia are trying to recover from losing both games against Kazakhstan in UNL.  Norway seem to have the players, but performing well below the sum of their parts.

Wales are where we were in 2018, with very little coming through.  Northern Ireland are even worse, and where do you even start with the Irish?

I don't know whether I'm cherry picking, whether it's just coincidence, or whether football is cyclical like this.  But, it does appear that a lot of countries are at the bottom of, or exiting the bottom of a cycle.  It's just quite pleasing that we were earlier in the cycle, and riding a bit of a wave.

[velo army]

I think the demise of a lot of teams can be exaggerated. After we heroically dispatched of them, Serbian fans went into a bit of an existential meltdown. They seem to be fine now.

 

[Gordon EF]

Anyone else developing this feeling that we've become a properly horrible team to play against? Disclaimers out first, I don't think we're seriously going to win every game or win the Euros next summer. There are top teams out there who will still likely beat us through sheer weight of talent, if nothing else, and we could easily have lost that Norway game. But it feels like we've developed this ability of being genuinely difficult to beat, whilst still being able to retain possession and offer enough of an attacking threat.

over the last three games, we've faced three very different chllenges, some proper, top class individuals and between Spain, Norway, and Georgia, we've probably scored more goals than we've allowed the opposition to even have clear goal scoring oppoertunities.

Granted, I'm not an international-level football manager but just looking at us, I think we must be very difficult to 'figure out;.

• We don't have a 'key' attacking player in the same way Norway or the likes of Wales or Sweden used to. There's nobody you can look at and say 'stop this guy and you stop Scotland'. Robertson is potentially the closest we have but nobody is going to seriously double or treble up on a full back and even if he is kept quiet, there's enough elsewhere to still carry a serious threat.
• Out of possession, we seem to be able to effectively switch between this high-press and low-block when neccesary and offer pretty significant counter-attacking threat from most areas of the pitch.

The Norway game probably highlighted our main weakness - creating chances in tough games against roughly similar opposition. We wont be able to rely on creating only two clear opportunities and taking both of them all the time. Againt Spain, we knew they would take risks against us and we set up to exploit those. Againt Georgia, we knew we would have spells where we dominated possession and be able to commit players forward to create chances.

Uusually, you can look at a team and at least have a vague idea of how you should go about playing against them but I genuinley don't know how teams should go about playing against us yet.

[Snobot]

Interesting to look back at how this side compares (in my opinion) to other Scotland teams. I remember 1982 onwards and this team is genuinely one of the most technically accomplished I can remember. 

82 was much less than the sum of its parts and seemed to play scared - maybe the result and psychological scarring of the 78 fiasco. Playing a great Brazil team didn’t help and ended up crashing out on goal difference with some peculiar selection decisions from Stein.

86 - absolute stinker of a group. Decent team but you wonder if things like the Dalglish non-selection / huff made a difference despite his advancing age. Charlie Nicholas was on top form but got cynically taken out in the Denmark game to end his tournament. Turns out Aitken’s equaliser was actually onside. 

90 - However, any team with Roy Aitken as the midfield lynchpin is unlikely to be smooth and pleasing on the eye. The Sweden game had a midfield of Macleod, Aitken, Durie and McCall. “Hard-running” I’d say. Dave McPherson as RB. Tried hard, defended well, to be charitable. 

92 - we were really good, went toe to toe with a really good Dutch team, were incredibly unlucky v Germany (Dave McPherson missing a couple of great chances) and spanked CIS playing great  technical football across the tournament. McStay for once looked like the player who broke through in the early 80s.

96 - decent but Brown always set up to be solid and didn’t pick natural wingbacks - eg Burley who was a CM. We were really good v Switzerland but couldn’t score the goals our play deserved (my first Scotland away game). Should have taken something v Eng but we all know how that panned out.

98 - as above. Stoppers at CH, guys playing out of position at wingback - Dailly on the left who was completely right footed, hard working forwards (although Gallacher was quite underrated and was on fire for the 98 qualifiers). We generally scraped results by being very compact and had one of the best defensive records in Europe.

You look at how comfortable we are in possession now compared to these well-regarded Scotland teams. We have top class wingbacks playing in their right possession. We have a genuine baller like Tierney at CH who did what he did v Spain compared to defensively great but limited CHs of the past.

It would be nice to have a genuine top class forward but are Dykes and Adams any worse than Durie or the like? Even our top 1980s / early 90s forwards didn’t exactly set the heather on fire for Scotland. 

We always looked technically inferior to supposed diddy teams even when we did well but the whole team now looks comfortable and confident, with Gilmour and MacGregor top class technical players.

We aren’t necessarily world beaters yet but we are definitely going in the right direction. Hopefully Doak / R Wilson and others develop as forwards to complete the picture.

[velo army]

45 minutes ago, Snobot said:

Interesting to look back at how this side compares (in my opinion) to other Scotland teams. I remember 1982 onwards and this team is genuinely one of the most technically accomplished I can remember. 

82 was much less than the sum of its parts and seemed to play scared - maybe the result and psychological scarring of the 78 fiasco. Playing a great Brazil team didn’t help and ended up crashing out on goal difference with some peculiar selection decisions from Stein.

86 - absolute stinker of a group. Decent team but you wonder if things like the Dalglish non-selection / huff made a difference despite his advancing age. Charlie Nicholas was on top form but got cynically taken out in the Denmark game to end his tournament. Turns out Aitken’s equaliser was actually onside. 

90 - However, any team with Roy Aitken as the midfield lynchpin is unlikely to be smooth and pleasing on the eye. The Sweden game had a midfield of Macleod, Aitken, Durie and McCall. “Hard-running” I’d say. Dave McPherson as RB. Tried hard, defended well, to be charitable. 

92 - we were really good, went toe to toe with a really good Dutch team, were incredibly unlucky v Germany (Dave McPherson missing a couple of great chances) and spanked CIS playing great  technical football across the tournament. McStay for once looked like the player who broke through in the early 80s.

96 - decent but Brown always set up to be solid and didn’t pick natural wingbacks - eg Burley who was a CM. We were really good v Switzerland but couldn’t score the goals our play deserved (my first Scotland away game). Should have taken something v Eng but we all know how that panned out.

98 - as above. Stoppers at CH, guys playing out of position at wingback - Dailly on the left who was completely right footed, hard working forwards (although Gallacher was quite underrated and was on fire for the 98 qualifiers). We generally scraped results by being very compact and had one of the best defensive records in Europe.

You look at how comfortable we are in possession now compared to these well-regarded Scotland teams. We have top class wingbacks playing in their right possession. We have a genuine baller like Tierney at CH who did what he did v Spain compared to defensively great but limited CHs of the past.

It would be nice to have a genuine top class forward but are Dykes and Adams any worse than Durie or the like? Even our top 1980s / early 90s forwards didn’t exactly set the heather on fire for Scotland. 

We always looked technically inferior to supposed diddy teams even when we did well but the whole team now looks comfortable and confident, with Gilmour and MacGregor top class technical players.

We aren’t necessarily world beaters yet but we are definitely going in the right direction. Hopefully Doak / R Wilson and others develop as forwards to complete the picture.

I've been thinking this for a while. We're the best we've been in my lifetime (I'm 40) and across the board we're excellent. The question for me is who would you swap in from past sides? Perhaps Willie Miller or Andy Goram, but even then Goram couldn't kick. Perhaps Joe Jordan or Mo Johnstone? Dalgleish instead of Christie?

Not sure, but I think we're a top side now. More importantly, we believe that we are.

[craigkillie]

I think we are a lot better than even a lot of our own fans think we are.

[Gordon EF]

1 hour ago, Snobot said:

We always looked technically inferior to supposed diddy teams even when we did well but the whole team now looks comfortable and confident, with Gilmour and MacGregor top class technical players.

For me, this is the biggest change. I'm 38 and this is the first Scotland team I can remember who actually look they're on a technical par with other 'good' European sides. Even against Spain, whilst they are technically ahead of us, we were good enough to try and take the game to them, rather than just pull everyone back and pray.

I've seen more than enough games where even relatively diddy countries looked better than us technically. Scotland teams of the past would 100% have toiled against that Georgia side and looked technically inferior, even if we had managed to scrape out a result.

[aberdeen1970]

17 hours ago, velo army said:

I've been thinking this for a while. We're the best we've been in my lifetime (I'm 40) and across the board we're excellent. The question for me is who would you swap in from past sides? Perhaps Willie Miller or Andy Goram, but even then Goram couldn't kick. Perhaps Joe Jordan or Mo Johnstone? Dalgleish instead of Christie?

Not sure, but I think we're a top side now. More importantly, we believe that we are.

I'm pretty confident Dalglish would get in the side ahead of Christie. 

We're doing well because we have a better balanced team and squad than previous generations comprising a fair amount of players performing at a good level domestically.

We have good players in just about every position with less obvious weak areas to exploit. 

[ClydeTon]

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66008108)

And with that, the 2023 'stating the obvious' award goes to...

[Gordon EF]

Maxwell's still a c**t.

[Crawford Bridge]

Decent video for the layman IMO. 

 

[Ewanandmoreagain]

On 23/06/2023 at 18:16, velo army said:

I've been thinking this for a while. We're the best we've been in my lifetime (I'm 40) and across the board we're excellent. The question for me is who would you swap in from past sides? Perhaps Willie Miller or Andy Goram, but even then Goram couldn't kick. Perhaps Joe Jordan or Mo Johnstone? Dalgleish instead of Christie?

Not sure, but I think we're a top side now. More importantly, we believe that we are.

Richard Gough at RCB ?!

 

Colin Hendry CB.

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Ewanandmoreagain

[Old Bing]

On 23/06/2023 at 18:16, velo army said:

I've been thinking this for a while. We're the best we've been in my lifetime (I'm 40) and across the board we're excellent. The question for me is who would you swap in from past sides? Perhaps Willie Miller or Andy Goram, but even then Goram couldn't kick. Perhaps Joe Jordan or Mo Johnstone? Dalgleish instead of Christie?

Not sure, but I think we're a top side now. More importantly, we believe that we are.

Yeah its a very good point, we have better players and strength in depth than we've had in a long time. Im 40ish as well and its a far better situation than I can remember. You always try and be positive, but then a look back at some of the teams we put out in finals and there was some stinkers in there. And you think in hindsight "why was I so positive about that"

For who would/could swap in and improve. Without thinking about it too hard as the previous poster said, Hendry at centre back would be a shoe in. He was the main centre back for one of the best teams in England at the time. Gough easily would be in there too. Thats probably the easiest position to swap.

Goram or Leighton in goals as well no question.

Collins would get into the midfield ahead of any of them at the moment.

Mccoist or Mo Johnston up front?

[velo army]

6 minutes ago, Bing.McCrosby said:

Yeah its a very good point, we have better players and strength in depth than we've had in a long time. Im 40ish as well and its a far better situation than I can remember. You always try and be positive, but then a look back at some of the teams we put out in finals and there was some stinkers in there. And you think in hindsight "why was I so positive about that"

For who would/could swap in and improve. Without thinking about it too hard as the previous poster said, Hendry at centre back would be a shoe in. He was the main centre back for one of the best teams in England at the time. Gough easily would be in there too. Thats probably the easiest position to swap.

Goram or Leighton in goals as well no question.

Collins would get into the midfield ahead of any of them at the moment.

Mccoist or Mo Johnston up front?

I actually don't think Leighton would make it mainly as he was the world's worst with the ball at his feet, and that's a big part of being a keeper in our system.

Who would Collins come in for? Perhaps McGinn, but not for wee Billy or McTam.

In terms of striker aye, MoJo mibbe, but not super. 

While Hendry would be a shoo-in, I don't think any of the rest of your mentions (or mine) would be guaranteed to get in. It's a great feeling tbh.

 

[Gordon EF]

I remember watching teh Euros in 96 and world cup in 98 but was probably a bit young to have a real appreciation of how good some of the players then were compared to now. But looking back at players who made their Scotland debuts from 1990 onwards, I think this is the list that would at least be in with a decent shout of getting in the current team at their peak

• Gary McAllister
• Colin Hendry
• Paul Lambert
• David Weir
• James McFadden
• Darren Fletcher
• Scott Brown
• Allan McGregor

I've tried to err on the side of being a bit generous. It really does show how good the current team is when I can only come up with just over half a dozen names for a period of about 25 years worth of Scotland players.

There were some really decent players not on the list tbf. I think Gary Naysmith was a class act but there's no way he's getting in ahead of Robertson. Guys like Craig Burley and Alan Hutton also wouldn't have been ridiculous to include I don't think.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Gordon EF