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March and June friendlies


Donathan

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2 hours ago, sparky88 said:

Matches v NI and Finland live on BBC. Been a while since a Scotland friendly was shown on council telly, outside the occasional England match.  Can count on one hand the Scotland matches shown for free in last 20 years

Surely heads will roll at the SFA for allowing this to happen. 

Pedant alert. Your post got me thinking.

Off the top of my head, in recent times the three Euro 21 games, the Serbia play-off and both qualifiers v England for WC 2018 were on council telly. As for friendlies, the Hungary-Scotland game in March 2018 (1-0, Scott Brown, penalty missed by Charlie Mulgrew) was on council telly. Fellow posters may be able to confirm any other rare Scotland appearances on council channels.

Edited by Barney Rubble
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The most recent friendly against England was on, and I think the Ukraine Nations League game recently may have been too. I'm also pretty sure the Mexico and Peru games in 2018 were on the BBC.

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14 hours ago, Jives Miguel said:

I would like to see Gordon go, then start the 3rd group game after we've already qualified 

The impression I get from the squad announcement is that he really wants to take Gordon, but knows his club form doesn't justify dropping Kelly. So he'll use these friendlies as the excuse to take him to the Euros.

Possibly a similar scenario with the CBs. He knows Cooper doesn't deserve a squad place over Souttar based on club form.

So, when he announces his final 23 with Cooper and Gordon, and without Kelly and Souttar, he'll be able to at least point to these friendlies as an excuse for doing it.

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2 hours ago, Tartan Blood said:

The impression I get from the squad announcement is that he really wants to take Gordon, but knows his club form doesn't justify dropping Kelly. So he'll use these friendlies as the excuse to take him to the Euros.

Possibly a similar scenario with the CBs. He knows Cooper doesn't deserve a squad place over Souttar based on club form.

So, when he announces his final 23 with Cooper and Gordon, and without Kelly and Souttar, he'll be able to at least point to these friendlies as an excuse for doing it.

There's probably some truth in this, at least insofar as he wants them both to play more football. I'm more of a mind that he knows he probably can't take them if they don't play more. But he wants to take them. So he picks them here, he maybe gives them a bit of game time himself and he keeps them in the fold hoping they'll play more in the last couple of months of the season.

Leeds are chasing promotion and unlikely to deviate much from their first eleven no matter how many games they play. Cooper probably needs a centre back injury ahead of him to get much game time. Without it he probably drops behind Souttar in the selections (though again not convinced Jack doesn't go ahead of both if he's fit).

I've said all along Steven Naismith would decide which Hearts keeper went to Germany by his team selections. I thought one of them might go out on loan for the rest of the season in January but that didn't happen. It's still possible they'll both go though but I don't think Gordon goes if the only game he plays between now and the end of the season is a Scottish Cup semi final v Rangers (and a Final if they happen to win that semi final). At this stage I think Clark's position is pretty secure behind Gunn. There's a potential I suppose that if Hearts secure 3rd with 4 or 5 games to go Naismith maybe lets Gordon have a run of games to try to win his place.

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A few quotes around what we can expect from the March friendlies. Try a few things out with a view to the Euro's and look to build some positive momentum.

Quote

We want positive results going into the tournament in the Summer and these two games are the first two chances to do that. I’ll have a chance to look at one or two different things with the Euros in mind, but obviously we want to start winning matches again. It’s been a while since we won a game and I’d quite like to put that right this month.     

Steve Clarke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJTTnKI_PMQ

Quote

I would imagine I'll look at a number of players over the two games, but I don't want to be too distracted with thinking about giving people chances to play.

Steve Clarke

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68542609

The quote below is from the Hungarian manager, Marco Rossi. I thought it was interesting that they see Turkey as good preparation for both Scotland and Switzerland.

Quote

Since the arrival of Montella, the Turkish team has been playing very direct football and a match against such a team serves very well to prepare for our Euro-2024 matches against Switzerland and Scotland.

Marco Rossi

https://twitter.com/MLSZhivatalos/status/1767527768709910844

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Dutch squad has been reduced to 26. Van de Ven (Spurs), De Jong (Barca) and Zirkzee (Bologna) plus the 4th goalie dropping out.

GItM7SCXgAE3m9C.thumb.jpeg.3ffdfc46e319584fe52b919adbe276c2.jpeg

https://x.com/OnsOranje/status/1768593374330700222?s=20

Northern Irelands is below. I also saw that Germany and Northern Ireland have also named 4 goalkeepers.

Image

https://x.com/NorthernIreland/status/1768230711352299637?s=20

Edited by 2426255
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It's always funny seeing the squads for the 'home nations.' Northern Ireland have a standout player for one of the Premier League's top teams, a bunch of guys I've never heard of, and a bunch of ex-SPFL marks including an old Accies goalkeeper. 

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24 minutes ago, accies1874 said:

It's always funny seeing the squads for the 'home nations.' Northern Ireland have a standout player for one of the Premier League's top teams, a bunch of guys I've never heard of, and a bunch of ex-SPFL marks including an old Accies goalkeeper. 

Michael O'Neill said in his press conference they'll be using these friendlies along with the Nations League to prepare for the next WC qualifying cycle.

They're team in transition, still at the bottom of their cycle. I don't think we'll get much out of the game prep wise for the Euros. This game is for the Tartan Army as far as I'm concerned.

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11 hours ago, accies1874 said:

It's always funny seeing the squads for the 'home nations.' Northern Ireland have a standout player for one of the Premier League's top teams, a bunch of guys I've never heard of, and a bunch of ex-SPFL marks including an old Accies goalkeeper. 


I was looking forward to having two Killie players playing against us but they're both out injured.

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A few more words from Steve Clarke around what we are trying to achieve from the friendlies against The Dutch and Northern Ireland. 

Quote

You can call it that if you want (Dress rehearsal for Germany v Scotland), if you want to put that as your headline you can do that. It’s one of the top European sides. It’s a good challenge, same as France and England was a challenge. Those three friendlies were tough, playing against Spain in the qualifiers was similar. We go to Germany for the opening game against the host nation, it’s going to be a tough night. The more we can play against good opposition, the more ready we will be for that challenge.

It will be pretty much bedding in. Trying to do what we do. Trying to do it well. Trying to play as well as we can play. Obviously, the first game is another where the players keep looking at me thinking: Another friendly like that? but as I’ve said before, you have to challenge yourself and playing Holland away in Amsterdam will be a challenge so it will be a good competitive match for us and don’t underestimate the game against Northern Ireland out there because that will be a tough game as well.

Steve Clarke

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/24185779.shankland-get-scotland-chance-friendlies-says-clarke/

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