France (A) - Tuesday 17/10/23

[PrestersKTID]

Love seeing players absolutely buzzing to play for Scotland Liam Kelly

[Desp]

9 minutes ago, kingjoey said:

So there's no point in playing world class teams and there's no point in playing diddys. Of course it was good to see us playing against the best teams in the tournament that we're going to be in next year. I thought we did reasonably well in spells tonight and tells us that we won't be steamrollered. 

Now you're being silly. It's not about never playing top teams or diddy teams, it's about playing them at a time which works for Scotland where possible. 

I understand there were only so many teams available for a game tonight, but was this a game our manager would've chosen, or is it simply a case of the SFA dropping their knickers to the highest bidders? 

As mentioned above, the manager chucked out a B team tonight, to get minutes into legs, which speaks volumes. However, like you say, there were spells where we looked decent enough and a first choice Scotland XI does a lot better than what we got tonight.  

[Billy Jean King]

14 minutes ago, BukyOHare said:

Like the England game at Hampden proved, we're absolutely light years off the elite teams.

Even with a full strength team out I fail to see how we can come up with a plan to compete against these teams.

For Scottish fans of a certain age it's quite sad that we're so far behind these teams.

I'm closer to 60 than 50 and it's been this way my whole life following Scotland. Sure we can beat these teams in a one off game (usually at a raucous Hampden) but overall we have never been at the level of the elite teams and it really shows when the competitive edge is dulled like in a friendly. These teams are man for man better so generally beat us. Always have, always will but for every game like tonight there's a Spain (twice in my time), France (at least twice) and an odd beating of England. 

[Monkey Tennis]

I actually thought we played ok tonight.

They're just quite a lot better.  

 

[GroundskeeperWillie]

13 minutes ago, ClydeTon said:

Three in a row against Europe's top sides will help us.

Clarke now knows - if he didn't already - what we'll be up against. Part of me wishes we played a minnow at home solely so tonight would just be 'Euro 2024 Partyyyy' but from a more sensible standpoint - the big tests are what we need.

A solid performance when on the ball, but a strong showing of how weak our defense is when we rotate it.

Jacob Brown looked good, and - for what he was up against - I thought Ferguson was alright.

Onwards and upwards.

Can't argue with that, I know its easy to sit back and say we shouldn't have taken the game, but much rather we tested ourselves in a friendly and at least get a  chance to see what we need (which defensively is plenty) when the real stuff comes up in the summer.

I think the one thing we may have had if our full defence was available to us tonight would have been better protection for the centre backs from out wide.  Patterson and Taylor did okay going forward, but the former especially was scarily positionally and tactically naive at times, especially as he has been playing games in the Premier League.  Think also its safe to place Liam Cooper in the 'to be used only if absolutely necessary' as he was well off it.

I agree with your assessment on Brown and Ferguson, Brown actually looked lively and showed a better touch and slightly better movement than Adams, while Ferguson I thought came more into the game as it wore on.

Tonight was always going to be a tough one, France are in my opinion favourites to win the tournament next year, but at least on occasions we showed some nice periods of possession which we didn't do enough of against Spain - if we could get that defensive a bit more solid (and at times we needed to not make as many daft errors, there were some slapdash attempts at clearances and a couple of brainfarts thrown in) then we can have some confidence ahead of the Euros.

[ekok]

1 hour ago, No_Problemo said:

A clear and obvious error as they pull each others shirts, an utter nonsense. 

The issue is who is goalside, Cooper is miles off the pace at this level. Allowing the striker to be goalside is criminal.  Then because you have allowed that, the only comeback is let him go or pull him back. That applies at under 14s as well. Utterly terrible defending .

We are actually OK going forward,  but we can't lose a KT or Robbo and cope.

Lastly what the F is that female interviewer about, inane , stupid, irrelevant questions about everything rather than about the game.  More interested about Karaoke and whether our keeper was having an orgasm facing Mbappe at the penalty.  Embarrassing 

 

[Gibby82]

14 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

The money the English and French FAs pump into their academies is obscene. Amounts the SFA could only dream of. 

Aye. Wasn't that long ago the English media were prophesying the death of their national team due too many Johnny Foreigner types coining it in their league (to be fair they had Ricky Lambert up front for a while) but it's been quite the opposite, their academy system seems light years ahead of everyone else bar the French as you say.

[kingjoey]

1 minute ago, Desp said:

Now you're being silly. It's not about never playing top teams or diddy teams, it's about playing them at a time which works for Scotland where possible. 

I understand there were only so many teams available for a game tonight, but was this a game our manager would've chosen, or is it simply a case of the SFA dropping their knickers to the highest bidders? 

As mentioned above, the manager chucked out a B team tonight, to get minutes into legs, which speaks volumes. However, like you say, there were spells where we looked decent enough and a first choice Scotland XI does a lot better than what we got tonight.  

I have no idea what you mean by "the manager chucked out a B team tonight, to get minutes into legs, which speaks volumes." Speaks volumes of what? Two things were covered tonight. Playing a top, top team and giving players who haven't been playing regularly a game.  The only new caps were the goalies, who did better than I thought they would, so the team were all players who have either been playing or coming on at points during matches. Everything that Scotland and Clarke did tonight around this match made perfect sense.

[Londonwell]

12 minutes ago, Desp said:

Now you're being silly. It's not about never playing top teams or diddy teams, it's about playing them at a time which works for Scotland where possible. 

I understand there were only so many teams available for a game tonight, but was this a game our manager would've chosen, or is it simply a case of the SFA dropping their knickers to the highest bidders? 

As mentioned above, the manager chucked out a B team tonight, to get minutes into legs, which speaks volumes. However, like you say, there were spells where we looked decent enough and a first choice Scotland XI does a lot better than what we got tonight.  

With the Euros and Nations League A coming up it’s probably as good a time as any to play these teams tbh.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Londonwell

[ekok]

Does that idiot interviewer know this is not Love Island,  Keagan was 100% correct.  

[EvilScotsman]

Both keepers made some confortable saves, no really much chance for either with any of the goals.

Taylor is basically fine, but suffers from not being Andy Robertson, which is hardly his fault. If he was 15 years younger he'd have made 50 caps easily.

I can't believe Patterson is getting any stick; he's the one player on our side who is definitely better than his opposite number tonight, and there are very, very few full backs around who won't get rinsed by Mbappe a couple of times a game.

[Londonwell]

I thought we passed it around fine but Adams hold up play wasn’t at the required level tonight. Actually thought that improved when Brown came on.

Most of France’s goals came from our mistakes but also you feel that they could have stepped it up if necessary. Plenty to take from it and all in all, it’s been a fantastic week. Job done. 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Londonwell

[kingjoey]

17 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

I'm closer to 60 than 50 and it's been this way my whole life following Scotland. Sure we can beat these teams in a one off game (usually at a raucous Hampden) but overall we have never been at the level of the elite teams and it really shows when the competitive edge is dulled like in a friendly. These teams are man for man better so generally beat us. Always have, always will but for every game like tonight there's a Spain (twice in my time), France (at least twice) and an odd beating of England. 

France will be 3 times.

[BukyOHare]

25 minutes ago, Gibby82 said:

I'm 41. All I've known is bang average, sometimes decent, with a fair skelp of utter shite.

Fair enough. 

[dstuart82]

23 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

I'm closer to 60 than 50 and it's been this way my whole life following Scotland. Sure we can beat these teams in a one off game (usually at a raucous Hampden) but overall we have never been at the level of the elite teams and it really shows when the competitive edge is dulled like in a friendly. These teams are man for man better so generally beat us. Always have, always will but for every game like tonight there's a Spain (twice in my time), France (at least twice) and an odd beating of England. 

And why does it always have to be that way, what reason?

It’s not been that way for Croatia since they became an independent nation in the early 90s

[shizzlemanizzle]

1 hour ago, Dirty Sanchez said:

3-1 up in an essentially meaningless friendly and you're diving, untouched looking for another penalty. I'll just never be on the wavelength of that mentality. It's alien to me. lf there was something on the line it would still be weaselly but would at least be understandable.

Practice. Even cuntz practice. 

[2426255]

Thought it was a good performance with the ball for periods. There is always a question around the risk/reward of keeping possession against losing it in dangerous areas, but for a friendly it's fine. In a competitive game we are maybe a bit away from doing that against the likes of Spain. France aren't a pressing team and so they did let us play to a degree which has to be accounted for.

Taylor, McTominay, Gilmour, Hendry and Brown were the players that stood out to me. Kelly, McKenna and McLean also did well. None of the other players let themselves down and yes Patterson had a really hard night, but got better later in the game and had a hard assignment. All in all quite happy with the game despite losing.

Edited October 17, 2023 by 2426255

[Jacky1990]

I swear some people are absolutely chocking to be raging at the football no matter what.

Clarke has rewarded loyal players with a bit of game time and will have learned a lot about those very players against top quality opposition, which can only be a benefit going into the next year or so.

All this neysaying and criticism is all performative IMO.

[Alert Mongoose]

The only criticism I would have is that it's slightly unfair on the backup players having to come into a game like that. I'm sure Clarke will not judge them harshly based on away friendly in France. 

 

[Fratelli]

Aye tonight was a non event for me, 4-1 is fine. 5-1 is pumping territory strangely enough but 4-1 is fine. That game will disappear from my memory within about a fortnight.

They’re ridiculous, they’ll batter far better teams than our B team. Even if we’d pumped loads into our infrastructure and produced our best ever crop of players, that lot would probably still give them a hiding. It’s a taster of playing against a top side for them again, will only be a learning experience. Im not going to pretend that I’m even slightly worked up about it, although strangely enough if we hadn’t qualified the other night I’d have cared and been a bit more concerned about this game. I’d maybe have liked to have seen our full strength team in that game, but ah well.