Steve Clarke - in/out/general discussion

[JS_FFC]

Last night was our first ever home defeat in the nations league. What an absolutely disgusting situation. 

[JS_FFC]

Pros of the Clarke era:

 

- Beating Israel and Serbia to get to Euro 2020

- A really decent performance in the group stages of World Cup qualifying to comfortably finish 2nd and seal home advantage in the playoff semi final

- Promotion to nations league A in 2022

- Absolutely walking to automatic qualification for the Euros (The last 3 points basically means that for an entire two year period from September 2021-September 2023, the only disappointment was the Ukraine playoff defeat and a couple of other competitive defeats that ended up being meaningless in Copenhagen and Dublin)

 

Cons of the Clarke era:

- Bottling a fantastic position in the nations league B group in autumn 2020. We overlook this because it happened the same week as the Serbia game but we absolutely should have won that group.

- Euro 2020 in its entirety.

- Ukraine playoff

- Euro 2024 in its entirety.

- Last night.

 

Its incredibly disappointing that the cons are starting to outweigh the pros.

[Quentin Taranbino]

I think one of the main things going against him at the moment is that he himself has lost a good chunk (if not the majority) of supporters.

Forgetting people's faith in the team or players for a moment, the supporters have lost faith in Steve Clarke the human being. Whether it's his demeanour, his grumpy old man gimmick, his post match comments, his stubbornness, his smart arse attitude with reporters or a number of other things - people have turned on him as a person.

Perhaps he was always like this and it was covered/people ignored it because we were winning. Perhaps it's only recently been evident once he has a bit of pressure against him. I'm not sure.

In the last year, Clarke has become distinctly unlikeable as a person and when you couple that with poor on field results, it's never going to end well

People in general find it much harder to root for someone who is unlikeable (see Oli McBurnie) even if they are on the same side as the person. 

He has/had credit in the bank from the qualifications and even though I would have been happier if he had gone after the Euros, I don't begrudge him or the SFA decision to try and turn it around.

However a poor nations league alongside more poor media/supporters relations and he HAS to go. I hope he can turn it around for everyones sake, but I can't see it.

[Cheese]

It'll be a year to the day on Sunday since our last competitive win. If the rest of this Nations League campaign pans out as expected, we'll be looking at that being at least 18 months, with a solitary friendly win over Gibraltar the only victory.

 

[BB_Bino]

54 minutes ago, Quentin Taranbino said:

I think one of the main things going against him at the moment is that he himself has lost a good chunk (if not the majority) of supporters.

Forgetting people's faith in the team or players for a moment, the supporters have lost faith in Steve Clarke the human being. Whether it's his demeanour, his grumpy old man gimmick, his post match comments, his stubbornness, his smart arse attitude with reporters or a number of other things - people have turned on him as a person.

Perhaps he was always like this and it was covered/people ignored it because we were winning. Perhaps it's only recently been evident once he has a bit of pressure against him. I'm not sure.

In the last year, Clarke has become distinctly unlikeable as a person and when you couple that with poor on field results, it's never going to end well

People in general find it much harder to root for someone who is unlikeable (see Oli McBurnie) even if they are on the same side as the person. 

He has/had credit in the bank from the qualifications and even though I would have been happier if he had gone after the Euros, I don't begrudge him or the SFA decision to try and turn it around.

However a poor nations league alongside more poor media/supporters relations and he HAS to go. I hope he can turn it around for everyones sake, but I can't see it.

The same could be said about Gordan Strachan when he was at the end of his time as Scotland manager. I know he didn't have the same success in qualifying for the Euros as Clarke, but he was a popular guy (and appointment) when he started and became very dislikeable by the end.

[BFTD]

33 minutes ago, BB_Bino said:

The same could be said about Gordan Strachan when he was at the end of his time as Scotland manager. I know he didn't have the same success in qualifying for the Euros as Clarke, but he was a popular guy (and appointment) when he started and became very dislikeable by the end.

Hopefully Clarke doesn't start rambling about the genetic inferiority of Scots, and how we need to stop the big teams getting relegated from the top division.

I know it's not what you're saying, but there's been a couple of posts about how this feels like the end of Strachan's reign. It's actually the opposite on the pitch; he went out on a high after folk had generally thought it might be time to move on. I'm surprised there aren't people saying we'd have done better if he was still in charge TBH, as there were plenty who thought he was doing well in 2017.

[forameus]

48 minutes ago, BB_Bino said:

The same could be said about Gordan Strachan when he was at the end of his time as Scotland manager. I know he didn't have the same success in qualifying for the Euros as Clarke, but he was a popular guy (and appointment) when he started and became very dislikeable by the end.

That was my first thought reading that post.  Remember Strachan being lauded for his wit and general demeanor...until it isn't, and it started becoming a millstone around his neck.

I wonder whether we'll follow the same path further and Clarke will eventually be sacked in a year or so when he was arguably in a better position than he is now. Strachan should have gone earlier and was then perhaps slightly unfairly sacked when he eventually did go.  On balance, Clarke should probably have gone after the Euros, wouldn't be surprised to see it go the same way after a spirited but ultimately failing WC campaign.

[Cheese]

Clarke has to go for the good of this forum.

[BFTD]

10 minutes ago, forameus said:

That was my first thought reading that post.  Remember Strachan being lauded for his wit and general demeanor...until it isn't, and it started becoming a millstone around his neck.

I wonder whether we'll follow the same path further and Clarke will eventually be sacked in a year or so when he was arguably in a better position than he is now. Strachan should have gone earlier and was then perhaps slightly unfairly sacked when he eventually did go.  On balance, Clarke should probably have gone after the Euros, wouldn't be surprised to see it go the same way after a spirited but ultimately failing WC campaign.

That almost feels like a best-case scenario at the moment. We've conceded 33 goals in the past 13 games and it doesn't look like there's any sign of that slowing down in the near future.

We had an air of good fortune about us for a while, but that's totally disappeared now. Even worse, a bit of luck wouldn't have helped much in a number of recent matches. We're back to the early part of Sir Steve's tenure, when it looked like he just wasn't capable of making changes for the better.

[Crawford Bridge]

Calling him "Sir" is a minter. 

Some people are too easily pleased. 

[Boo Khaki]

21 minutes ago, BFTD said:

 We've conceded 33 goals in the past 13 games and it doesn't look like there's any sign of that slowing down in the near future.

I sometimes find it a bit odd we're only ranked 48th on the planet or something, when we've made 2x Euros Finals on the spin, playing in NL Pool A etc, then there are stats like this that explain a lot. 

That is absolutely hideous. Conceding nearly 3 per game is super-minnow stuff. Absolutely inexcusable.

[BFTD]

12 minutes ago, Crawford Bridge said:

Calling him "Sir" is a minter. 

Some people are too easily pleased. 

It's still amazing how folk fail to spot when people are kidding when it comes to the national team.

During the Euros, there were posters raging about how people had genuinely thought we were going to win the tournament. Bizarre.

1 minute ago, Boo Khaki said:

I sometimes find it a bit odd we're only ranked 48th on the planet or something, when we've made 2x Euros Finals on the spin, playing in NL Pool A etc, then there are stats like this that explain a lot. 

That is absolutely hideous. Conceding nearly 3 per game is super-minnow stuff. Absolutely inexcusable.

Aye, the arse has totally dropped out in defence. We can look pretty good for large parts of a game, but it's all for nowt when we're going to let in at least a couple from what are usually pretty straightforward attacks.

Our world ranking has always been pretty fair over the years IMO. Even when we're doing badly, folk still have a bit of an inflated opinion of our abilities in comparison to other nations. The last major example was Israel, who people thought were well beneath us, even though we played them multiple times and never looked significantly better than.

[Gordon EF]

3 hours ago, Cheese said:

It'll be a year to the day on Sunday since our last competitive win. If the rest of this Nations League campaign pans out as expected, we'll be looking at that being at least 18 months, with a solitary friendly win over Gibraltar the only victory.

 

It's been been 15 months since we won a game of any description that wasn't against a small Meditteranean island/rock.

[immcinto]

Russell Martin's position is looking under threat at Southampton. Too committed to positive possession play for a weak team in the EPL. Just thought I would mention it

[Lex]

1 hour ago, Gordon EF said:

It's been been 15 months since we won a game of any description that wasn't against a small Meditteranean island/rock.

Absolutely remarkable really. Can’t see us winning any of these nations league games now either. We just had the easiest fixture in the group and we couldn’t even draw it.

Yet another bottom of the group finish awaits. 

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Cleary the SFA are in the denial state right now over firing the racist gimp. 
 

[AlloaAdam]

As much as it saddens me it’s time for him to go IMO. He’s taken us further than anyone else has for the past 20 years but we’ve got probably the best squad we’ve had in that time right now and the way our form is at the minute I don’t think we can afford to waste 2 years of McTominay, McGinn, Gilmour etc with our momentum completely gone.

If you had won 1 game in 13 at club level and were still persisting with the same under-performing players you would be let go and it shouldn’t be any different now. McLean and Hanley still starting for us is his loyalty / stubbornness holding us back.

However, Mulraney doesn’t sack managers and seeing as he didn’t even sack Barry Ferguson for us when we were an utter embarrassment for months and he had quite literally had a physical fight with a fan in the stand, he 100% will not sack Clarke which would rely on him chucking it. Can’t see him doing that so I reckon he’s here until the end of his deal.

Edited September 6 by AlloaAdam

[Old Bing]

1 hour ago, AlloaAdam said:

As much as it saddens me it’s time for him to go IMO. He’s taken us further than anyone else has for the past 20 years but we’ve got probably the best squad we’ve had in that time right now and the way our form is at the minute I don’t think we can afford to waste 2 years of McTominay, McGinn, Gilmour etc with our momentum completely gone.

If you had won 1 game in 13 at club level and were still persisting with the same under-performing players you would be let go and it shouldn’t be any different now. McLean and Hanley still starting for us is his loyalty / stubbornness holding us back.

However, Mulraney doesn’t sack managers and seeing as he didn’t even sack Barry Ferguson for us when we were an utter embarrassment for months and he had quite literally had a physical fight with a fan in the stand, he 100% will not sack Clarke which would rely on him chucking it. Can’t see him doing that so I reckon he’s here until the end of his deal.

The last paragraph there is a pretty depressing read tbh.

The fans opinion has certainly turned, I reckon another shit show in Portugal and the fans and press will hopefully put on alot of pressure.

I'd quite like to look forward to the world cup qualifiers.

[Chripper]

Some of the privileged comments from some so- called Scotland fans is verging on English fan territory.

We are mixing it with Poland, Portugal and Croatia because of the good work Steve Clarke had done.

We have qualified for two European Championships because of the good work Steve Clarke has done.

People would do well to remember the two decades where Scotland failed to qualify for a tournament and could barely string three passes together.

Personally, I'd rather finish bottom of a European Championships group than fail to qualify.

I'd rather get beat (unfairly) by Poland than beat the likes of Kazakhstan or Estonia.

Kleenex must be raking it in with the tears from a bunch of privileged Scottish people.

I was going to replace "people" with "fans", but.. nah.

All this negativity will definitely be affecting the players. So yeah, you lot continue giving Clarke pelters. That's super helpful.

Whose side are you lot on?

Oh. Newsflash: We won't beat Portugal. Load up on your Kleenex early.

[Monkey Tennis]

37 minutes ago, Chripper said:

Some of the privileged comments from some so- called Scotland fans is verging on English fan territory.

We are mixing it with Poland, Portugal and Croatia because of the good work Steve Clarke had done.

We have qualified for two European Championships because of the good work Steve Clarke has done.

People would do well to remember the two decades where Scotland failed to qualify for a tournament and could barely string three passes together.

Personally, I'd rather finish bottom of a European Championships group than fail to qualify.

I'd rather get beat (unfairly) by Poland than beat the likes of Kazakhstan or Estonia.

Kleenex must be raking it in with the tears from a bunch of privileged Scottish people.

Privileged?

Odd choice of word.