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Scots abroad 2023/24


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Thiago Motta on Lewis Ferguson:

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"We have to leave this boy hidden because you can see that he is a player of the highest level in everything he does. He knows how to play well, he knows how to defend, he has a great mentality, he knows how to attack too, This is a real top level player. From today onwards I will no longer talk about him!”

If this isn't high praise then I don't know what is. While it would be great to see him go to a bigger club/higher level, he's in a perfect place at the moment with a manager who appreciates his strengths and accommodates his weaknesses. I think both Ferguson and Motta will be in demand and it'll be sad when they're broken up. 

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1 hour ago, accies1874 said:

Thiago Motta on Lewis Ferguson:

If this isn't high praise then I don't know what is. While it would be great to see him go to a bigger club/higher level, he's in a perfect place at the moment with a manager who appreciates his strengths and accommodates his weaknesses. I think both Ferguson and Motta will be in demand and it'll be sad when they're broken up. 

He did the job for his team at the weekend - it was him fouled for the penalty for their first goal and got the assist for the second. Put a decent left foot effort from the edge of the box just wide in the first half too. I always liked him as a player, but I couldn't have imagined that he'd be so transformed by moving to a stronger league, and that he'd be used primarily as an attacking threat rather than just played in a defensive role because he's tall (see also Scott McTominay).

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4 hours ago, Alan Twelve said:

He did the job for his team at the weekend - it was him fouled for the penalty for their first goal and got the assist for the second. Put a decent left foot effort from the edge of the box just wide in the first half too. I always liked him as a player, but I couldn't have imagined that he'd be so transformed by moving to a stronger league, and that he'd be used primarily as an attacking threat rather than just played in a defensive role because he's tall (see also Scott McTominay).

He's clearly a key player for them and played very well in this game. Assist stats are a PTTGOMN though as he played the ball through to the boy who then did a lot of work to make the space and fire the shot in. Claiming an assist should only be valid if you play a ball through for the lad to have a reasonably straightforward shot on goal or if you go on a mazy run to the byeline. Being the last one to pass the ball to the goalscorer should not be recorded in the annals of history.

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Hopefully Ferguson manages to get into double figures this season - three goals and three assists in eleven not a bad start for him. 

I do think that he should now be in front of Armstrong for those positions behind the striker. Christie is very much up for debate, but there is definitely a conversation to be bad there too. 

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Estoril winning at Porto last night was a pretty major shock, with the only goal of the game from Jordan Holsgrove. So that'll be him in for Christie, right?

A great freekick, to be fair - the second time he's scored a direct freekick to win a game this season, I think:

 

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1 hour ago, No_Problemo said:

I do think that he should now be in front of Armstrong for those positions behind the striker. Christie is very much up for debate, but there is definitely a conversation to be bad there too. 

Horses for courses.

Are Lewis Ferguson and Stuart Armstrong comparable beyond the fact that they're both attacking midfielders? Some games might be more suited to Armstrong or Christie as we've seen enough with this team under Clarke just depending on what kind of game it will be. The biggest problem for Ferguson in my view is the players he is in direct competition with for a starting place, the players he is most similar to are John McGinn and Scott McTominay, two of our key players. I think it would require Steve Clarke to tweak our approach one way or another to fit him into the team.

That said, It would definitely be interesting to see if Ferguson could perform within the existing setup on the left side of our attack where we have a greater tendency to work the ball using combination play and movement. I don't think we've seen that yet though.

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Just now, 2426255 said:

Horses for courses.

Are Lewis Ferguson and Stuart Armstrong comparable beyond the fact that they're both attacking midfielders? Some games might be more suited to Armstrong or Christie as we've seen enough with this team under Clarke just depending on what kind of game it will be. The biggest problem for Ferguson in my view is the players he is in direct competition with for a starting place, the players he is most similar to are John McGinn and Scott McTominay, two of our key players. I think it would require Steve Clarke to tweak our approach one way or another to fit him into the team.

That said, It would definitely be interesting to see if Ferguson could perform within the existing setup on the left side of our attack where we have a greater tendency to work the ball using combination play and movement. I don't think we've seen that yet though.

They are comparable in terms of playing in the same positions for Scotland, and that Armstrong is generally called upon first. 

Yeah - I don’t envision Ferguson actually starting and that is absolutely fair enough but I do think he should be moved up a notch in terms of being one of our first attacking subs. 

A midfield containing McGregor, Gilmour, McTominay, McGinn and Ferguson would definitely be one I would be interested to see though. 

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18 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

Yeah - I don’t envision Ferguson actually starting and that is absolutely fair enough but I do think he should be moved up a notch in terms of being one of our first attacking subs.

That's fine, I still think it kind of depends what you need from your attacking sub. I don't think it's as straightforward as saying we need goals from an attacking sub and Lewis Ferguson is banging them in for fun at Bologna so he is the best choice. It's more how you plan to get that goal and how the attacking sub fits into that.

He is showing good signs that he will eventually force his way into the team and become a top player. I think the sticking point at the moment and for a while is where do you play him? he hasn't to date shown that he would suit how we build attacks down the left and the competition on the right is too strong for him to break through as a sub or a starter.

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12 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

They are comparable in terms of playing in the same positions for Scotland, and that Armstrong is generally called upon first. 

Yeah - I don’t envision Ferguson actually starting and that is absolutely fair enough but I do think he should be moved up a notch in terms of being one of our first attacking subs. 

A midfield containing McGregor, Gilmour, McTominay, McGinn and Ferguson would definitely be one I would be interested to see though. 

All good players and can obviously grab a goal but some creativity and width would be nice.

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2 minutes ago, ArabFC said:

All good players and can obviously grab a goal but some creativity and width would be nice.

Robertson, Tierney and to some extent Hickey all provide the width for us though. We don’t really have wide midfielders that provide proper width but McGinn and Ferguson are definitely creative in their own way. 

I do generally agree that some genuine pace/ability to stretch teams would potentially improve is though. 

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