Steve Clarke - in/out/general discussion

[Butters Scotch]

33 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

It still exemplifies the double standard applied to other teams. I agree with your point above personally, but I'm sure the Hungarian fans won't. They'll think their approach was too defensive, too negative for a game they needed to win by a few goals, regardless of the reality or what the manager was aware of.

Similarly for Scotland fans objectivity is not applied when the focus of the discussion is Scotland. According to our fans we were also too defensive and too negative in a must win game.

Well we were too conservative, too negative in a must win game, plenty of pundits who have played professionally are saying the same thing. Are you saying here that we weren't? 

[immcinto]

4 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Folk talk about style of play etc but we didn't play anything close to our best.

We didn't play like we did in our successful qualification games.

We were timid shitebags who played well, well within ourselves. 

I think we did play like we played in our qualification games. DIfference is the element of surprise is gone and there is no Plan B, if there was we would have seen it by now. The friendlies were the wake up call.

[No_Problemo]

10 hours ago, Chripper said:

He's spent 4 seasons in the Championship and 4 seasons in the EPL.

So he's spent 50% of his career out of the EPL.

In those 4 EPL seasons he's scored 25 goals in 124 games. That's 1 goal every 5 games.

He's only scored double figures in the league twice. Both in the Championship.

People want us to be progressive? To be attacking?

There are two issues with that: Zero creativity and no one who can score.

England are a prime example. They're lucky. They've always been blessed with a world class striker.

Their match tomorrow is a prime example. Take out Kane's (63 goals) from their projected XI and they've scored 26.

Slovakia's projected XI have scored 59 goals.

 

Right, so he played in the Championship until he was about 22/23 and then moved up - and has now largely stayed there bar one season. 

His goal scoring is irrelevant, he is a lower end Premiership striker. He certainly isn’t a goal scoring one, but that is what he is. He is a good footballer, who we didn’t even attempt to play to the strengths of. 

[2426255]

7 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:

Well we were too conservative, too negative in a must win game, plenty of pundits who have played professionally are saying the same thing. Are you saying here that we weren't? 

I'd describe both our performances against Spain as defensive and away to Norway as defensive. Germany also defensive. Hungary? no, definitely not defensive. We weren't good at creating opportunities, but that doesn't mean we were defensive, it means we didn't attack effectively.

[Butters Scotch]

4 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

I'd describe both our performances against Spain as defensive and away to Norway as defensive. Germany also defensive. Hungary? no, definitely not defensive. We weren't good at creating opportunities, but that doesn't mean we were defensive, it means we didn't attack effectively.

So playing one striker that was often isolated, playing an extra CB, having a RWB who was barely bombing forward, sticking to a system where we know we struggle to create chances against teams that sit in is not conservative, is not negative? Okay. 

 

[Ewanandmoreagain]

13 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:

So playing one striker that was often isolated, playing an extra CB, having a RWB who was barely bombing forward, sticking to a system where we know we struggle to create chances against teams that sit in is not conservative, is not negative? Okay. 

 

Lyndon was injured 

 

Playing an extra CB is o.k. if KT is fit 

 

Our RWB s who were capable of bombing forward were injured 

Edited Sunday at 09:25 by Ewanandmoreagain

[No_Problemo]

1 minute ago, Ewanandmoreagain said:

Our RWB s who were capable of bombing forward were injured 

We had someone who could potentially play that role in a more attacking manner on the bench, and another sitting at home. 

[willywastecoat]

2 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:

So playing one striker that was often isolated, playing an extra CB, having a RWB who was barely bombing forward, sticking to a system where we know we struggle to create chances against teams that sit in is not conservative, is not negative? Okay. 

 

Clarke has excuses on that but he didn't use them,Hickey and Dykes, I tend to agree he had options with Forrest,Conway plus to use Shankland more.
His passive aggressive approach to games got us this far,qualifying for tournaments is something, getting us out the group is another thing.
In general this group of players should qualify for tournaments that's what Clarke has done taking the next step with or without Clarke is irrelevant,change if we regress for me progress is being there.

[Butters Scotch]

45 minutes ago, Ewanandmoreagain said:

Lyndon was injured 

 

Playing an extra CB is o.k. if KT is fit 

 

Our RWB s who were capable of bombing forward were injured 

Dykes being injured meant he could of gone for a different game plan, Ralston is an attacking full back but was hardly being used as part of our attack, KT was out injured before the Hungary game but again Clarke didn't change the approach

[Ewanandmoreagain]

8 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:

Dykes being injured meant he could of gone for a different game plan, Ralston is an attacking full back but was hardly being used as part of our attack, KT was out injured before the Hungary game but again Clarke didn't change the approach

The game plan had worked before with Adams

Our opponents did not let Ralston do any attacking .

We should have played 4atb v. Hungary 

[Bing.McCrosby]

12 hours ago, Chripper said:

In fairness, I only said you were being sarcastic. That isn't personal.

The "sad sack" talk wasn't specifically about you.

It's a general observation about the toxic atmosphere in this place.

There are some people here who are awfully serious and some people who take themselves very serious.

Some people should take a day off and smile a wee bit. Taking away all the politics, etc, this is a great time to be a Scotland fan.

It genuinely feels to me like some people just like to moan and groan. Which is fine, it's their perogative.

It just feels weird. We qualified for a tournament (fine. It went badly). We have a manager who has proven that he get us to tournaments. We have a squad who are now experienced with two top tier tournaments under their belt.

We also have a few good young players coming through.

These are good times.

I wasn't having a dig at you, mate. If I was, you'd know about it

The Internet has this ability to turn even the most rational and even minded of people into thundering loonies.

Again, not talking about you specifically.

You misunderstand, I'm not bothered. But your complaining yourself about exactly that. People responding to a football discussion with personal digs.

Edited Sunday at 10:29 by Bing.McCrosby

[Scary Bear]

15 hours ago, Bing.McCrosby said:

We don't know what the options are.

But there's 8 billion people in the world, the argument he's the only decent coach we could get isn't a strong one.

The general point made was that the SFA are in charge of appointing the right person from the 8 billion and they are generally not good at this.

[Hendricks]

3 hours ago, immcinto said:

I think we did play like we played in our qualification games. DIfference is the element of surprise is gone and there is no Plan B, if there was we would have seen it by now. The friendlies were the wake up call.

We also played without too many key players when our depth is quite simply not good enough especially when playing 3 highly competitive matches in 10 days.

To lose Hickey was always a bigger disaster than some realised, followed by the training ground injury to a key player in Dykes, a significant squad player in Ferguson, a pacy wild card in Doak and then the nightmare scenario, which sadly came as no surprise, of the Tierney injury. Coupled with a few players being knackered and off form after a long domestic season we didn't play collectively or individually to our best level but still competed well in the 2 games most expected us to and could have won/lost either. As usual we got few breaks when it mattered; header of Swiss post and the huge penalty claim being massive moments. If one goes for us we are likely through. 

Edited Sunday at 12:32 by Hendricks

[Bing.McCrosby]

1 hour ago, Scary Bear said:

The general point made was that the SFA are in charge of appointing the right person from the 8 billion and they are generally not good at this.

I agree, but if the alternative is knowing in big games our plan will always be to pull our pants down and plead to be done gently then Id rather roll the dice.

Edited Sunday at 12:38 by Bing.McCrosby

[willywastecoat]

3 hours ago, Butters Scotch said:

Dykes being injured meant he could of gone for a different game plan, Ralston is an attacking full back but was hardly being used as part of our attack, KT was out injured before the Hungary game but again Clarke didn't change the approach

It wouldn't matter what game plan he came up with, the Germans were always going to win the first game.
So judge and jury on two winnable games is harsh considering the circumstances,the players did underperform in both games it's hard to say any player got pass marks.
Pointing the finger is easy, he could've should've would've made many mistakes,agree or disagree it was poor from the start to the finish.
 

[Gordon EF]

1 hour ago, Hendricks said:

We also played without too many key players when our depth is quite simply not good enough especially when playing 3 highly competitive matches in 10 days.

To lose Hickey was always a bigger disaster than some realised, followed by the training ground injury to a key player in Dykes, a significant squad player in Ferguson, a pacy wild card in Doak and then the nightmare scenario, which sadly came as no surprise, of the Tierney injury. Coupled with a few players being knackered and off form after a long domestic season we didn't play collectively or individually to our best level but still competed well in the 2 games most expected us to and could have won/lost either. As usual we got few breaks when it mattered; header of Swiss post and the huge penalty claim being massive moments. If one goes for us we are likely through. 

There's a lot to this. And in terms of "excuses", it's the closest to a really valid one. We've all pointed out squad depth as a major issue since the Georgia / Norway double header last year.

Hickey is one of our genuinely top players and I don't think the wing back system works without really good players in those position, which Ralston is not.

We all know Dykes is not a top international forward but I think he's generally found a way to work quite well in the system that we have. I think Adams is a better general player, but Dykes works better on our system.

Ferguson might not have started too many games prior to the tournament but it's clear that in the Hungary game in particular, he could have been useful.

Losing Tierney midway through is obviously a blow.

And even Doak to some extent. He could have been a great option to come off the bench.

Whilst our bestbstarting 11, I would argue, is more than capable of matching up to teams of the standard of Hungary, and wouldn't look.out of place in the last 16, given some of the sides that did manage to get there, we're woefully short of depth in some key areas of the team.

It's fair to call that out as a big mitigating factor. I think there's still questions to be asked about the lack of a plan B though. To me, it looks like we went out and played this tournament as if Dykes, Hickey, Tierney were still there.

[2426255]

4 hours ago, Butters Scotch said:

So playing one striker that was often isolated, playing an extra CB, having a RWB who was barely bombing forward, sticking to a system where we know we struggle to create chances against teams that sit in is not conservative, is not negative? Okay. 

 

I've looked back at the first 30 minutes of Scotland with the ball. Adams, McTominay and McGinn formed front-3 for that period. The link up was okay: bounce passes,  flick ons etc.

In that period Ralston was quiet, but grew into the game and contributed to several attacks with progressive passes or forward runs.

Hanley spent a significant period around the halfway line, so we had good territory. It was mostly a controlled performance without a spark, but became more bitty, more turnovers, after 20 minutes. We defended the counter fairly well. 

It was decent start: not negative, it was controlled. From memory that was as good as it got. Hungary came into it and was more 50:50.

[Monkey Tennis]

12 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

I've looked back at the first 30 minutes of Scotland with the ball. Adams, McTominay and McGinn formed front-3 for that period. The link up was okay: bounce passes,  flick ons etc.

In that period Ralston was quiet, but grew into the game and contributed to several attacks with progressive passes or forward runs.

Hanley spent a significant period around the halfway line, so we had good territory. It was mostly a controlled performance without a spark, but became more bitty, more turnovers, after 20 minutes. We defended the counter fairly well. 

It was decent start: not negative, it was controlled. From memory that was as good as it got. Hungary came into it and was more 50:50.

I've no plans to re-visit it, but this ties in with my own memories.

I thought we started well, securing that foothold that had been elusive.  I was a wee bit surprised at the negativity of the half-time TV punditry. 

 Our inability to hurt them was asserting itself more as time passed though.

[Butters Scotch]

30 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

I've looked back at the first 30 minutes of Scotland with the ball. Adams, McTominay and McGinn formed front-3 for that period. The link up was okay: bounce passes,  flick ons etc.

In that period Ralston was quiet, but grew into the game and contributed to several attacks with progressive passes or forward runs.

Hanley spent a significant period around the halfway line, so we had good territory. It was mostly a controlled performance without a spark, but became more bitty, more turnovers, after 20 minutes. We defended the counter fairly well. 

It was decent start: not negative, it was controlled. From memory that was as good as it got. Hungary came into it and was more 50:50.

It was more Hungary controlling the game when out of possession for me, they just let us pass it around without ever getting the ball to stick to our more advanced players, ball was often going sideways or backwards anytime we did get it to McGinn etc. The point most of us are making is that we didn't we have an additional creative player in there to make runs in behind, get more support to the AM's and striker. 

[Londonwell]

1 hour ago, Butters Scotch said:

It was more Hungary controlling the game when out of possession for me, they just let us pass it around without ever getting the ball to stick to our more advanced players, ball was often going sideways or backwards anytime we did get it to McGinn etc. The point most of us are making is that we didn't we have an additional creative player in there to make runs in behind, get more support to the AM's and striker. 

Exactly that. There’s a difference between having the ball and being in control of the game. Hungary controlled the game by letting us have the ball in our completely ineffectual manner and then creating the odd chance on the break.