Steve Clarke - in/out/general discussion

[Hoose Rice]

5 hours ago, Bad Wolf said:

Adams did a job for Birmingham, and Southampton in the last year. In the second tier. He's been linked with a move to Wolves, which has yet to happen and probably won't now. A Portuguese winger with chocolate knees will score more than him.

Did you not just describe the £20m huddy that rangers loaned from wolves? 
 

There’s a reason prem teams want Adam’s though and nobody at all wants Shankland.  Adam’s might not score many but Shankland wouldn’t score at all.  How many did he score in the Belgian top flight the only time he’s been out his comfort zone? Adam’s would easily score 25-35 goals in our league. 

Edited June 24 by Hoose Rice

[nate]

Inhibition and tactical ineptitude. Clarke has been very good for us in qualifications obviously, but his limitations have been exposed for all to see. He’s not tournament savvy. He’s innately conservative. At least 3 of his 6 tournament games have shown him to have got it completely wrong. Even when it was clear to everyone we were playing our weakest group opponents by a mile, a team no better than many other Euro also-rans, he opted to play conservatively. He’s risk-averse. We should have been all over Hungary from KO. We should have thrown the kitchen sink at them. That’s what others teams have been doing over the past week when facing elimination.  It was now or never. Clarke’s caution did for us. The bigger question is…can any other coach get more out of a squad of international mediocrities? I’m not so sure.

[bleedingums]

I’m still erring on the side of Clarke staying at least until after the nations league, but I can’t stop thinking about the fact that all of our best results under him have been when there was next to no pressure. In the WC play off against Ukraine and both euros tournaments, we just didn’t show up. At all. I can’t decide whether that’s Clarke fault, the players or both. 

[Bad Wolf]

1 hour ago, 2426255 said:

I don't agree with the last statement. Robertson has been good for us taken over the whole of Clarke's tenure. We need solutions as we've encountered problems, but that's normal if you're trying to step up a level. I understand your first point, I also don't agree with it. The three centre-backs is not the issue in my eyes, I've explained why at length and am happy to do so again if you like.

I agree entirely that we need to find a way to step up a level, but can't agree that playing someone so transparently badly off form (and for a while too) is the way to do it. I don't object to three at the back in principle, just in practice for the reason I stated above.

[Bad Wolf]

1 hour ago, AuldReekie said:

Tierney hardly been great too. 18 months ago, it felt like the entire squad peaked and today, and it feels like most of the squad are injured or out of form. The reality is we're likely to be somewhere in the middle. When it comes to judging Clarke though, the question has to be weather he helped or hindered the performance of players:

• Robertson was clearly struggling so why play him in a role that asked him to run the length of the park?
• Ralston performed pretty well overall but was he similarly exposed in the wingback role when a full back role might have been more suitable?
• On top of this, and faced with little outlets in the last 3rd of the park, waste it overly negative to play 3 centre halves?
• Were McGregor and Gilmour too similar and adopting the same tactic?
• Adams takes a tonne of stick but Clarke did him dirty - utter scraps to feed off and removes him when suddenly opts to adopt an attacking formation

The two most frustrating aspects to last night were the utter failure to try something different until 10 minutes of the tournament remained, and the number of times the centre halves slowed down play at every opportunity. Both of these issues are entirely on the management team and significantly more impactful than individual player performances or even the specific formation.

I don't want to wait another 4 years to find out if Clarke has learned from these mistakes. He's done his time and we should thank him massively for the last 5 or so years, but I'd be happy giving someone else a go and see what they can do. 

Tierney isn't always stellar, but when fit is generally reliable. I agree with pretty much everything you write, aside from my view that McGregor is downright pish.

[Salvo Montalbano]

5 hours ago, LiviLion said:

The fact he went into this tournament talking about getting 4 points - not 9, or even 6 - is what puts me into the "Clarke out" camp.

Sure, we weren't likely to beat Germany, but before the game kicked off he had us beat and it was just damage limitation. Then you've got the Switzerland game, again he's sticking with his 4 points schtick and we only need a draw. That game was winnable on account of Switzerland being happy with the draw, instead it's toothless again and instead of going for the win he saves his subs to run down the clock and celebrates the draw. Bringing us to last night's must win game, where it took 98 minutes for a shot on target.

That's the thing that annoyed me the most about Friday. I can accept the defeat, I can accept losing heavily and that we were caught up in the occasion and that things went wrong from minute one etc, but to come out after and say "4 points is the target" when you have 2 games left and 6 points to play for is incredible. Even a manager of some no mark like Burnley or something who had Man City and Arsenal to play last, they'd be publicly saying "there are 2 games left, 6 points up for grabs, let's see where we are after those games" etc. And he has the cheek to call some fans and the media negative? Get that attitude right in the fucking bin.  

[Scary Bear]

2 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

You mean Euro winners Greece and regular "gets out of the group stages" Sweden?

Its great to get to all the World Cups in a row etc but with the mentality of just being there is good enough, they're beaten before the games begin.  

Anyway, who's up for getting one of they mad c***s in that you normally find managing LIberia or Togo?

Me! Me! It’s usually a French lad, sometimes a Russian or someone from the former Yugoslavia. Get him in!

[JS_FFC]

2 hours ago, TheScarf said:

What about that absolute ride who always seems to be managing in the AFCON?  French guy I think he is.

Herve Renard?

[Bad Wolf]

41 minutes ago, Hoose Rice said:

Did you not just describe the £20m huddy that rangers loaned from wolves? 
 

There’s a reason prem teams want Adam’s though and nobody at all wants Shankland.  Adam’s might not score many but Shankland wouldn’t score at all.  How many did he score in the Belgian top flight the only time he’s been out his comfort zone? Adam’s would easily score 25-35 goals in our league. 

That £20m huddy actually scored a shitload of goals on loan in Belgium and the Netherlands in the previous season, but has been amusingly rubbish at Castle Doom. I have nothing invested in talking Adams down, but for me (even allowing for the lack of service) he showed absolutely nothing in the last three games. Despite being a denizen of Edinburgh for more than three decades, I have no strong feelings either way about Shankland, but feel he should have had more time on the pitch to show what (if anything) he can do.

Edited June 24 by Bad Wolf

[TheScarf]

7 minutes ago, JS_FFC said:

Herve Renard?

That's the boy.

[54_and_counting]

20 minutes ago, bleedingums said:

I’m still erring on the side of Clarke staying at least until after the nations league, but I can’t stop thinking about the fact that all of our best results under him have been when there was next to no pressure. In the WC play off against Ukraine and both euros tournaments, we just didn’t show up. At all. I can’t decide whether that’s Clarke fault, the players or both. 

It needs to be asked, were the players allowed to show up

The qualifiers are completely different, is a long league based system where to odd point instead of a loss can mean the difference 

At a tournament its much different, an opening day win almost guarantees you qualification, 3pts now could get you into the playoffs 

Yet even knowing how evenly matched scotland are with hungary, clarke still set them up to not concede firstly before even thinking of scoring 

[Mr Heliums]

8 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Despite being a denizen of Edinburgh for more than three decades, I have no strong feelings either way about Shankland, but feel he should have had more time on the pitch to show what (if anything) he can do.

Likewise I'm no Hearts fan and thought Shankland bang average for years, but watching Hearts this season I thought he looked really good. So irrelevant to me if he was poor a few years ago in the Belgian league, or played at Championship level a couple of years ago. He was absolutely in form and confident and that's what I'd want in a striker going into the Euros where he was only likely to get a couple of chances a game.

Edited June 24 by Mr Heliums

[No_Problemo]

1 hour ago, Butters Scotch said:

Starting with three CB's in this Scotland team is all that is wrong with us tbh, we are just as shit defensively as we are going forward even with KT in there yet we persist on playing it without him. Game plan was off from the start and we could have done with an extra midfielder in there from the beginning to give Gilmour and McGregor more options to play into. 

I think it was fair enough starting that way, given the turnaround between games BUT he could have made it more progressive by starting Forrest. 

For me it showed up a further mistake in not having Ryan Fraser in the squad. He could have played that RWB role and offered you that pace we just didn’t have. 

[Old Bing]

16 minutes ago, JS_FFC said:

Herve Renard?

Currently manager of the French woman's team! Christ he would take it, amazing international experience

[DiegoDiego]

Like many I'm not fussed if Clarke stays or goes from a footballing perspective. The injuries really did hamper us, with Hickey and Tierney on the pitch last night, maybe even Dykes, with Ferguson as an option things could have been quite different.

However, he has to get the best out of those available and I'm not sure that really happened in any of the three games, or has for a while now. The switch from cautious build up to balls-oot seemed like the choice of a man who had realised he had fucked it.

His comments about the referee were an absolute disgrace. If one of my employees said something similar I'd be straight into HR for bringing the company into disrepute. That's exactly what Clarke did last night. Everyone over here is very cognisant that we're representing our nation and have tried to show our best face, then Clarke comes out with that nonsense. He's embarrassed us all. England punted Allardyce and Hoddle for similar. Clarke should go for his comments.

Edited June 24 by DiegoDiego

[TheGoon]

12 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

I think it was fair enough starting that way, given the turnaround between games BUT he could have made it more progressive by starting Forrest. 

 

For me it showed up a further mistake in not having Ryan Fraser in the squad. He could have played that RWB role and offered you that pace we just didn’t have. 

Fraser’s a lazy b*****d though and really did not look interested in being here. There’s a reason he’s been nowhere near.

[No_Problemo]

1 minute ago, TheGoon said:

Fraser’s a lazy b*****d though and really did not look interested in being here. There’s a reason he’s been nowhere near.

Not remotely something I’ve ever noticed with Fraser tbh. 

Think they are just convenient excuses to pick Lewis Morgan over him, who he clearly never had any intention to use. 

[TheGoon]

Just now, No_Problemo said:

Not remotely something I’ve ever noticed with Fraser tbh. 

Think they are just convenient excuses to pick Lewis Morgan over him, who he clearly never had any intention to use. 

I thought it was pretty common knowledge this is why he wasn’t here? There was a whole incident will him pulling out of the squad in 2021 with an ‘injury’ that Clarke had serious doubts over.

[Hoose Rice]

33 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

That £20m huddy actually scored a shitload of goals on loan in Belgium and the Netherlands in the previous season, but has been amusingly rubbish at Castle Doom. I have nothing invested in talking Adams down, but for me (even allowing for the lack of service) he showed absolutely nothing in the last three games. Despite being a denizen of Edinburgh for more than three decades, I have no strong feelings either way about Shankland, but feel he should have had more time on the pitch to show what (if anything) he can do.

Shankland has shown absolutely nothing in a Scotland top either.  Even against Gibraltar.  He got lots of time in the games up to the Euro's to stake his place and show what he could do and showed zero.  So after that we just chuck him in anyway?  If anything Conway should have gotten more of a chance.  He's at least playing at a higher level than Shankland and hasn't had the chance to show what he can do with the full NT.

[DukDukGoose]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c9777vz1d08o