Steve Clarke - in/out/general discussion

[invergowrie arab]

2 tournaments now have been piss poor.

Yes, there is a world in which that penalty gets given we go through and suddenly nobody cares and, like the Norway game, the narrative is did enough to stay in the game rather than toothless rubbish.

However, the performances of other sides still shows that kind of approach up.

I don't think Clarke is terrible. He has given me the best Scotland moments in my lifetime and taken us back to competence. 

However, I think there is relatively little risk in moving on now. Being relegated from the NL isn't a given, nor is it a disaster.

We should stil have the players to get to a WC playoff.

My view is rolling the dice now has more upside than down.

 

[2426255]

5 hours ago, ScottishZizou said:

Understandably pretty disappointed in Scotland's efforts. 

You still adding minimal content of any quality yet commenting on every post?

Just the one's that catch my eye. I was going to ask if you enjoy punishing yourself, given the contents of your post I quoted - but I realised that you hadn't gotten over Sunday night.

It wasn't really a question, more a statement: You're still pissed off.

Edited Friday at 20:28 by 2426255

[Pocketman]

9 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

2 tournaments now have been piss poor.

Yes, there is a world in which that penalty gets given we go through and suddenly nobody cares and, like the Norway game, the narrative is did enough to stay in the game rather than toothless rubbish.

However, the performances of other sides still shows that kind of approach up.

I don't think Clarke is terrible. He has given me the best Scotland moments in my lifetime and taken us back to competence. 

However, I think there is relatively little risk in moving on now. Being relegated from the NL isn't a given, nor is it a disaster.

We should stil have the players to get to a WC playoff.

My view is rolling the dice now has more upside than down.

 

Agree with all of this with the exception of the highlighted part. I would be significantly more positive in praise of Clarke - he has proven he is a good coach and over the period has been a good manager for us. I think a number of variables contributed to the Euros performance - if we had gone straight into the Euros immediately following the winning run at quaifiers with no injuries, it would have been a completely different outcome and completely different performance. Hey ho -  all lines converge now to someone new coming in and that person imo being someone outwith Scotland, and preferably UK (no jobber beloved of our media please). It would be make for quite an exciting time, with the new guy building on what has been achieved up till now and that nucleus of a squad. 

 

Edited Saturday at 05:41 by Pocketman

[immcinto]

9 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

2 tournaments now have been piss poor.

Yes, there is a world in which that penalty gets given we go through and suddenly nobody cares and, like the Norway game, the narrative is did enough to stay in the game rather than toothless rubbish.

However, the performances of other sides still shows that kind of approach up.

I don't think Clarke is terrible. He has given me the best Scotland moments in my lifetime and taken us back to competence. 

However, I think there is relatively little risk in moving on now. Being relegated from the NL isn't a given, nor is it a disaster.

We should stil have the players to get to a WC playoff.

My view is rolling the dice now has more upside than down.

 

The NL should be considered as practice for WC qualification. Gives a new manager 6 competitive games to figure out a system. 

[Arab_R_us]

far too cautious. That last game - waiting till 15 left to have a go, you cant just turn it on like a tap.

 

Has done well for us but needs to go now.

[Butters Scotch]

7 minutes ago, Arab_R_us said:

far too cautious. That last game - waiting till 15 left to have a go, you cant just turn it on like a tap.

 

Has done well for us but needs to go now.

Said before the game that this will be the plan, play it tight first half anyway and hope to sneak a goal. Then properly go for it last twenty mins. The Hungary coach knew it aswell and set up his team the way he did to play on the counter.

Both philosophies were really bad in a game where both teams had to win and in Hungary's case by a few goals. This mentality set out by Clarke was ridiculously cautious, he did the same in the Switzerland game playing for at best a draw.

Why did we bother wasting so much time in thess two games in not putting out a system where it allows us to attack the other team and cerate chances?  

[git-intae-thum]

I think the man management side of the game should not be overlooked.

For many years we were hampered by call offs and players taking the p@ss when on Scotland duty.

To his credit Clarke has maintained the most cohesive Scotland teams since the Brown era.

I would worry bringing in someone new.

 

[Gordopolis]

11 minutes ago, git-intae-thum said:

I think the man management side of the game should not be overlooked.

For many years we were hampered by call offs and players taking the p@ss when on Scotland duty.

To his credit Clarke has maintained the most cohesive Scotland teams since the Brown era.

I would worry bringing in someone new.

 

Yeah this is huge. If (big if) SC is replaced because of recent results and tournament performance, maintaining squad cohesion should be one of the top priorities for the new incumbent. I fully fear we would f**k this up and end up with key players retiring from international football - back to the desperate old days of confetti caps and really inexperienced squads.

[immcinto]

1 hour ago, Butters Scotch said:

.

Both philosophies were really bad in a game where both teams had to win and in Hungary's case by a few goals. This mentality set out by Clarke was ridiculously cautious, he did the same in the Switzerland game playing for at best a draw.

 

 Hungary had to go all out attack to win by large margin so playing conservative made sense in the beginning. What is inexcusable is not reacting to Hungary bizarrely sitting deep by changing up tactics ASAP in the 2nd half. 

 

 

[Gordon EF]

It's only in hindsight that we know Hungary needed more goals (3 more, as it turned out). Just picking up 3 points and hoping other results went their way was the best realsiitic bet for them.

[2426255]

32 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

It's only in hindsight that we know Hungary needed more goals (3 more, as it turned out). Just picking up 3 points and hoping other results went their way was the best realsiitic bet for them.

Hungary were negative-4, for goal difference going into our game. If it were Scotland people would, probably fairly, be saying just winning isn't going to cut the mustard.

Steve Clarke suggested ahead of the tournament that 3-points and a positive goal difference may well be enough to qualify. He also said the prospect of getting through after the Germany game on 3-points was no longer a consideration given that we were also on minus-4.

If a Scotland manager had taken the course of action Hungary took, you just know fans on here would be having a go. This is a superb example of the double standard fans enjoy undertaking.

[Bing.McCrosby]

7 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Hungary were negative-4, for goal difference going into our game. If it were Scotland people would, probably fairly, be saying just winning isn't going to cut the mustard.

Steve Clarke suggested ahead of the tournament that 3-points and a positive goal difference may well be enough to qualify. He also said the prospect of getting through after the Germany game on 3-points was no longer a consideration given that we were also on minus-4.

If a Scotland manager had taken the course of action Hungary took, you just know fans on here would be having a go. This is a superb example of the double standard fans enjoy undertaking.

Look man none of this is landing.

Ok you've praised everything steve clarke has done for years. And now he's made you look very silly, but you need to just let it go.

 

[Londonwell]

17 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Hungary were negative-4, for goal difference going into our game. If it were Scotland people would, probably fairly, be saying just winning isn't going to cut the mustard.

Steve Clarke suggested ahead of the tournament that 3-points and a positive goal difference may well be enough to qualify. He also said the prospect of getting through after the Germany game on 3-points was no longer a consideration given that we were also on minus-4.

If a Scotland manager had taken the course of action Hungary took, you just know fans on here would be having a go. This is a superb example of the double standard fans enjoy undertaking.

All this is just empty, meaningless words that you shouldn’t have taken the time out your day to type.

The situation is pretty clear. Steve Clarke overall has done a very good job with the national team. However, he has just made a complete bollocks of a major tournament, leading to an embarrassing manner of exit. It’s unfortunate but that’s just the way it is. We’re now at a crossroads - do we stick or twist? I suspect we’ll stick and I think on balance I probably agree with that (just about), but lessons need learned and changes made. I do worry if Clarke is capable of that but the twist option is far from a safe bet either. 

[Butters Scotch]

1 hour ago, immcinto said:

 Hungary had to go all out attack to win by large margin so playing conservative made sense in the beginning. What is inexcusable is not reacting to Hungary bizarrely sitting deep by changing up tactics ASAP in the 2nd half. 

 

 

Yeah I do agree with what you are saying, it's more than likely Clarke thought Hungary would play very attacking and set out with 3 CB's to be conservative, hit them on the counter but I wouldn't agree it was the correct approach from the beginning considering we had no KT in there. 

 

 

[Butters Scotch]

1 hour ago, Gordon EF said:

It's only in hindsight that we know Hungary needed more goals (3 more, as it turned out). Just picking up 3 points and hoping other results went their way was the best realsiitic bet for them.

I don't think this was the case, they knew they had to beat us by a few goals to claw back their goal difference and have any real chance of progressing on three points.

[Gordon EF]

50 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Hungary were negative-4, for goal difference going into our game. If it were Scotland people would, probably fairly, be saying just winning isn't going to cut the mustard.

Steve Clarke suggested ahead of the tournament that 3-points and a positive goal difference may well be enough to qualify. He also said the prospect of getting through after the Germany game on 3-points was no longer a consideration given that we were also on minus-4.

If a Scotland manager had taken the course of action Hungary took, you just know fans on here would be having a go. This is a superb example of the double standard fans enjoy undertaking.

Right. But the outlook before a ball is kicked is very different to the outlook after losing two games with a -4 goal difference.

if Hungary had gone absolute all out attack against us, in some effort to win 4-0, there's a good chance they would have lost. Getting teh 3 points was the best bet of going through they had. If England had beaten Slovenia or Georgia hadn't beaten Portugal, Hungary would be the last 16.

You can't make up scenarios and people's reactions to a hypothetical scenario to try and prove yourself right. If Scotland's and Hungary's positions were reversed, I think people would still be dissapointed, but not qute as critical as they're being.

[Gordon EF]

34 minutes ago, Londonwell said:

All this is just empty, meaningless words that you shouldn’t have taken the time out your day to type.

The situation is pretty clear. Steve Clarke overall has done a very good job with the national team. However, he has just made a complete bollocks of a major tournament, leading to an embarrassing manner of exit. It’s unfortunate but that’s just the way it is. We’re now at a crossroads - do we stick or twist? I suspect we’ll stick and I think on balance I probably agree with that (just about), but lessons need learned and changes made. I do worry if Clarke is capable of that but the twist option is far from a safe bet either. 

Agreed. Clarke's tenure has not been some unmitigated disaster or some unmitigated success. Across the three major tournaments he's been in charge for, we could have done worse, we could have done better.

Clarke has to be judged against fair expectations. Personally, I'd say with the squad we have available, the  minimum expectation is that we're inside the 'top 24' in Europe in a given tournament - that means at least finishing 2nd and making the play-offs in WC qualification and at least qualifying for a 24 team Euros. If we're not doing that, that's enough to seriously consider removing the manager. Steve Clarke has a 3/3 record on meeting that minimum.

What we should be aiming for is hitting 'top 16' - so actually qualifying for a WC and making it out of the group stage at the Euros. Steve Clarke has a 0/3 record on hitting this goal.

We've had some great results, performances, runs under Clarke - the run to finish 2nd in WC qualifying, winning our NL group, the start of the Euros qualifying campaign. But there's no argument that he has failed when it comes to the 'crunch' games so far. We've played 7 Euros / World Cup play-off games under Clarke and our record is 0-2-5.

I'm sure he'll be given the next WC at least but it's completely reasonable to question whether he's the man to get us to that 'next step' of WC qualification or actually getting out of a group stage at a major tournament.

[Gordon EF]

28 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:

I don't think this was the case, they knew they had to beat us by a few goals to claw back their goal difference and have any real chance of progressing on three points.

It absolutely was the case. We know now what they needed, only because the group stages had finished. Hungary would be the last 16 right now if England had beaten Slovenia OR Georgia had not beaten Portugal. Obviously didn't pan out for them but there was always decent odds of at least one of those happening. When the final whistle blew on Sunday night, Hungary had a very good chance of making the last 16, which is why their players were celebrating like they;d qualified.

[immcinto]

8 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

It absolutely was the case. We know now what they needed, only because the group stages had finished. Hungary would be the last 16 right now if England had beaten Slovenia OR Georgia had not beaten Portugal. Obviously didn't pan out for them but there was always decent odds of at least one of those happening. When the final whistle blew on Sunday night, Hungary had a very good chance of making the last 16, which is why their players were celebrating like they;d qualified.

They won the game with the last kick that's why they were celebrating. They were only in a slightly better position than we would have been with the draw. 

Before the Switzerland game is was broadly accepted that if we lost then our only chance was to batter Hungary. 

[Butters Scotch]

6 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

It absolutely was the case. We know now what they needed, only because the group stages had finished. Hungary would be the last 16 right now if England had beaten Slovenia OR Georgia had not beaten Portugal. Obviously didn't pan out for them but there was always decent odds of at least one of those happening. When the final whistle blew on Sunday night, Hungary had a very good chance of making the last 16, which is why their players were celebrating like they;d qualified.

Hungary had a very high chance of not making it by beating us by one goal due to their poor goal difference, it was stupid of them to play for this result. There could of been a range of permatations that could of played out, for example Croatia beating Italy would of put Italy ahead of them in the third place rankings being one of them.