Scots in the Premier League 2023/24

[velo army]

On 07/12/2023 at 17:53, 2426255 said:

Villa have released their own John McGinn best bits highlights from the game. His hold up play and dribbling looked strong. You forget he was playing against Man City. For Scotland he has been guilty of losing the ball in pretty bad areas so good to see him doing it well last night. He gave that young Norwegian player Oscar Bobb a hard time of it.

 

That's verging on pornographic.

[No_Problemo]

6 hours ago, accies1874 said:

Not involved all that much. From memory, he had one 1v1 to defend against Gordon which he did OK with but did fall on his arse at the end of it, and tbh I don't remember much else from his performance. 

This is great to hear. He's finally playing every week for a good side whose fans don't despise him, so it's no wonder that De Zerbi's seeing a difference in him. I'm sure he'll have plenty more bumps in the road this season - as seems to be typical of his career so far - but it's quite a difference compared to where he was a year ago, or even back in March/April. 

Yeah - it is! It’s easy to forget that he hasn’t actually played that many first team games, still loads of room for improvement - he does make football look very fucking easy at times. 

He has started to take up good positions on the edge of the box, so I would love to start seeing him getting the odd goal - his shooting hasn’t been the best though! Playing alongside Baleba he seems to get more scope to show how creative his passing can be further up the park. 

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

Gilmour could get his 25th cap in March, still aged 22. It wasn’t that long ago that anyone getting their silver cap was a big deal - and we’ve now got a side where players are picking them up regularly, and a generation of players making the roll of honour together.

Had the last couple of years been a bit kinder, he’d already have it. 

Anyone any idea who the youngest player was to get their 25th cap? And who got to 50 fastest?

edit: possibly Calum McGregor, 5.5 years to 50. A few players on ~6 or so.

Edited December 9, 2023 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[Gordopolis]

1 hour ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Gilmour could get his 25th cap in March, still aged 22. It wasn’t that long ago that anyone getting their silver cap was a big deal - and we’ve now got a side where players are picking them up regularly, and a generation of players making the roll of honour together.

Had the last couple of years been a bit kinder, he’d already have it. 

Anyone any idea who the youngest player was to get their 25th cap? And who got to 50 fastest?

edit: possibly Calum McGregor, 5.5 years to 50. A few players on ~6 or so.

The importance of building up a core of highly-capped players was brought up on here many times during the fallow years, but more often than not poo-pooed (not by you) with replies like "oh, because having more caps makes you a better international player, does it?".

It evidently does benefit you as a player to be exposed to international level football, but more importantly it benefits the cohesion of the squad as a whole.

Granted, this generation of players lend themselves much more readily to consistent selection (has there ever been a more settled Scotland squad?) than the grim decades, but back then, we were recklessly scattergun with our selection imo (and I don't just mean the vogts period by that).

In summary, times are good just now, and I hope that when an inevitable dip happens further down the line, we keep in mind the benefits of consistency of selection (as a rule of thumb rather than a hard policy).

[Gordopolis]

McGinn scores Vs Arsenal