Derek Adams interview

[jamamafegan]

In agreement with the majority here that he is a ginormous fud however I do agree with his comments regarding the product on display. It is shit, there is no denying that. The standard of football alongside the price of a ticket these days is the main reason why I rarely go to games anymore. I've got more important things to spend my money on, especially at this time of year.

[Dirty Sanchez]

I think it might be giving him too much credit to attribute any this to mind games.

My first memory of him as a manager was when I was driving to a game while listening to Ross County beat Celtic in the early kick off in the semi final of the cup. Via the rise of County he'd been making a name for himself and I was genuinely interested to hear what he'd be like and what he'd have to say after this greatest result in his club's history.

First impressions weren't good. Rather than being jubliant, he treated us to a bizarre rant. From the very first second of the interview he was already raging, and the crux of his ire was the stunning revelation that lots of people had apparently been predicting that Celtic would win the game.

That, yesterday and much of what we've see/heard from him in between points to a guy who at the very least cannae take it, and may even be suffering from personality disorder of some sort.

[Alert Mongoose]

The absolute worst thing about English football teams like Morecambe is that, not only are they shite, they are paying shite players £000's per week. In the current climate English football is obscene and a cancer on the game.

[MarkoRaj]

I follow Leyton Orient and have been to a few grounds watching away games, including a trip to Morecambe.

A few years ago when they got to the league one play-offs I remember thinking that the standard was quite high and that most teams in that league would give anyone outside of Celtic and Rangers a game.

The drop off in quality from league one to league two is astonishing though. It is a genuine farmer's league. A worse watch than our league one imo, which is ridiculous really, considering the wages being paid

[PSJ.84]

He’s a w**k. 

[Ya Bezzer!]

25 minutes ago, virginton said:

They're not paid to pass a ball successfully, they're paid to win games.

While there are undoubtedly dung periods of play and stinking individual errors, a lot of the passing inaccuracy is explained by the fact that teams now press the other team in possession to a far greater extent than before. (Almost) every footballer can pass a ball well - look at the warm up drills even in the regional leagues - the key difference is whether they can do it effectively under pressure and with most of your viable passing options being closed down too. 

Scottish football is far more athletic and physically intensive than in decades previously - a Chic Charnley, Andy Ritchie figure would simply not work in a modern-day team. There has definitely been a decline in individual player quality even in recent years - even the second tier is much weaker in terms of individual quality than it was 15 years ago - but the coaching is more effective. 

The idea that Scottish teams are playing some kind of well drilled pressing game is laughable. In 34 European matches this season Scottish clubs kept 2 clean sheets and conceded 68 goals.

There is barely a team in the league that can hold a straight back line so don't talk about effective coaching.  Are you honestly saying today's Ross County or St Johnstone are "more athletic and physically intensive" than McLean's Dundee Utd? 

These days most players need an age to bring the ball under control.  And this whole idea that football is 'faster, quicker, stronger' in modern times is utter guff.  Football used to be a running game, now it's about possession and passing.  If anything it's slower.  

One of the very worst things I see every week in Scottish football is players taking AN ABSOLUTE AGE to make a decision on the ball. There is no quick pass and move, no running into positions, making space. So many players just don't bother their backside off the ball. The lack of movement off the ball absolutely stinks. It's wind up robot football from players than have the absolute bare minimum technical ability and hardly any professional pride.  It's a gig for them.

And by the way, you talk about pressing?  Back in the day they didn't press, they went straight through you.  Fucking bang.  There was no standing about with the ball wondering what to do back then.  

[invergowrie arab]

3 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

The idea that Scottish teams are playing some kind of well drilled pressing game is laughable. In 34 European matches this season Scottish clubs kept 2 clean sheets and conceded 68 goals.

There is barely a team in the league that can hold a straight back line so don't talk about effective coaching.  Are you honestly saying today's Ross County or St Johnstone are "more athletic and physically intensive" than McLean's Dundee Utd? 

These days most players need an age to bring the ball under control.  And this whole idea that football is 'faster, quicker, stronger' in modern times is utter guff.  Football used to be a running game, now it's about possession and passing.  If anything it's slower.  

One of the very worst things I see every week in Scottish football is players taking AN ABSOLUTE AGE to make a decision on the ball. There is no quick pass and move, no running into positions, making space. So many players just don't bother their backside off the ball. The lack of movement off the ball absolutely stinks. It's wind up robot football from players than have the absolute bare minimum technical ability and hardly any professional pride.  It's a gig for them.

And by the way, you talk about pressing?  Back in the day they didn't press, they went straight through you.  Fucking bang.  There was no standing about with the ball wondering what to do back then.  

Tanner ba players and when men were real men. You only forgot diving for a house in boomer bingo 

[GorbalsMags]

6 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

The idea that Scottish teams are playing some kind of well drilled pressing game is laughable. In 34 European matches this season Scottish clubs kept 2 clean sheets and conceded 68 goals.

There is barely a team in the league that can hold a straight back line so don't talk about effective coaching.  Are you honestly saying today's Ross County or St Johnstone are "more athletic and physically intensive" than McLean's Dundee Utd? 

These days most players need an age to bring the ball under control.  And this whole idea that football is 'faster, quicker, stronger' in modern times is utter guff.  Football used to be a running game, now it's about possession and passing.  If anything it's slower.  

One of the very worst things I see every week in Scottish football is players taking AN ABSOLUTE AGE to make a decision on the ball. There is no quick pass and move, no running into positions, making space. So many players just don't bother their backside off the ball. The lack of movement off the ball absolutely stinks. It's wind up robot football from players than have the absolute bare minimum technical ability and hardly any professional pride.  It's a gig for them.

And by the way, you talk about pressing?  Back in the day they didn't press, they went straight through you.  Fucking bang.  There was no standing about with the ball wondering what to do back then.  

Every single team in the Premiership today could beat just about any team from the Premiership in the 80s or 90s and if you think otherwise you fundamentally don't understand football.

[Walter]

[craigkillie]

8 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

The idea that Scottish teams are playing some kind of well drilled pressing game is laughable. In 34 European matches this season Scottish clubs kept 2 clean sheets and conceded 68 goals.

I'm sure Rangers will be devastated that they beat Real Betis 3-2 rather than 1-0 to win their group.

[welldaft]

In summary he came across as a Grade A asshole. Sure he was upset they lost a last minute goal. But to come out with that amount of pish in a short interview is some going. 

To label your players as 100 times worse than a league 2 side is some motivational tactic. Not sure I have seen that strategy before. 

Clearly I have a vested interest in this going tits up for County. Yesterday was a good start…..

[GorbalsMags]

3 minutes ago, welldaft said:

In summary he came across as a Grade A asshole. Sure he was upset they lost a last minute goal. But to come out with that amount of pish in a short interview is some going. 

To label your players as 100 times worse than a league 2 side is some motivational tactic. Not sure I have seen that strategy before. 

Clearly I have a vested interest in this going tits up for County. Yesterday was a good start…..

Complaining about the standard of football when you've willingly chosen to go to Ross County and it's a game in the middle of December is like going to see a Tarantino film and complaining about the language

Edited December 17, 2023 by GorbalsMags

[HibeeJibee]

1 hour ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

He's right.

I've been going to matches since 1981.  The standard has declined massively it's not even an argument.  Coaching and players.

Now I understand there will be much younger guys than me posting but you don't even have to be a 'dinosaur' to acknowledge the state our game is in.

I was thinking the other day about the Motherwell side that beat Rangers in the relegation play off.  By league position that's our worst team in the last 20 years yet in terms of talent it was so far ahead of what we watch today it's mind boggling.

In recent years I've seen teams from Wales, Iceland and Ireland pump Motherwell.  And it's not a Motherwell problem, pretty much ever Scottish team outside Rangers and Celtic get humiliated in Europe.  Celtic have dominated Scottish football for a long time.  Their European record is catastrophically bad.   We talk up Aberdeen's European campaign this season.  1 win in 8.  In a dead rubber fixture.

We hardly produce any native talent and what little talent there is gets ground down to the prevailing mediocrity.  The best thing any Scottish player with ambitions can do is get out this league ASAP.....and most of them do.

But forget about words.  Just watch the football.  If you know anything about the game you MUST know it's terrible.  You know what an incomplete pass is right?  You know what an inability to cross is right?  You know what an aimless hoof up the pitch is right?  You know what a complete lack of creativity is right?

The SPL was the worst thing that has ever happened to Scottish football.  We've been in a deep dive ever since and no one has done anything since, except of course, to make things worse.

It used to be a genuine shock when Euro minnows and lower league clubs beat the top level Scottish teams.  Now it's just business as usual.

And that's the problem, we gotten so complacent and so used to the abysmal standards it's just 'normal' now.  It shouldn't be.

... yet per head of population more Scots turn up to watch each Saturday than almost anywhere else in the world; and today than almost any point in our history too. Despite comparatively very high prices. To be precise last season's top division average was only bettered from 1946-47 to 1952-53, in 1954-55, and from 1996-97 to 1999-00.

So whether or not the quality is worse than ever we seem to be lapping-it-up. Globally and historically.

Edited December 17, 2023 by HibeeJibee

[GorbalsMags]

Just now, HibeeJibee said:

... yet per head of population more Scots turn up to watch each Saturday than almost anywhere else in the world; and today than almost any point in our history too.

To be precise last season's top division average was only bettered from 1946-47 to 1952-53, in 1954-55, and from 1996-97 to 1999-00.

So whether or not the quality is worse than ever we seem to be lapping it up. Globally and historically.

Because it's a great, entertaining league that produces great, entertaining games

[KirkieRR]

No doubt if he has experience at such an exalted English level, he will now cause County to surge to the top of the table like a leaping salmon.

Although how he will do this having just suggested his players, corporately, are rancid mince, I do not know.

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, Black_and_White_Stripes said:

 

All three Scottish clubs won in Europe this week, beating clubs from the Bundesliga, Eredivisie and La Liga.

I think you've got to be careful there.

Rangers had a good result, but Aberdeen and Celtic won dead rubber home matches, their only wins of their campaigns. In the last two seasons Celtic have won one of twelves Champions League games, conceding THIRTY goals in the process, and Hearts and Aberdeen have 3 wins in 12 combined ECL group games, one of which was a dead rubber at home with both sides making changes, and the other two against a team from Latvia.

The Aberdeen and Celtic wins this week came in a week where we saw the likes of Barcelona and Liverpool also lose away to smaller clubs in games that didn't matter. It happens at the end of dead groups.

Our league is not a strong league. And I think few people who can remember very far back would try to argue it's improved over the last thirty years, or that it's improving now. It hasn't and it isn't.

[GorbalsMags]

2 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

I think you've got to be careful there.

Rangers had a good result, but Aberdeen and Celtic won dead rubber home matches, their only wins of their campaigns. In the last two seasons Celtic have won one of twelves Champions League games, conceding THIRTY goals in the process, and Hearts and Aberdeen have 3 wins in 12 combined ECL group games, one of which was a dead rubber at home with both sides making changes, and the other two against a team from Latvia.

The Aberdeen and Celtic wins this week came in a week where we saw the likes of Barcelona and Liverpool also lose away to smaller clubs in games that didn't matter. It happens at the end of dead groups.

Our league is not a strong league. And I think few people who can remember very far back would try to argue it's improved over the last thirty years, or that it's improving now. It hasn't and it isn't.

I would say it absolutely has improved since 2008 when our national team started its precipitous decline and the arse fell out of the finances and teams had to work on actually developing their players more, but that's increasingly outweighed by the sheer gulf in finances between us and the big boys. But the fact we're still sending Scottish teams to European finals around once every 8 years is still a damn good showing.

[VincentGuerin]

8 minutes ago, GorbalsMags said:

I would say it absolutely has improved since 2008 when our national team started its precipitous decline and the arse fell out of the finances and teams had to work on actually developing their players more, but that's increasingly outweighed by the sheer gulf in finances between us and the big boys. But the fact we're still sending Scottish teams to European finals around once every 8 years is still a damn good showing.

That's a very generous reading of the situation, imo.

Back in the 2000s Hearts beat the likes of Braga and Basel in Europe, as well as getting a win in Bordeaux, and having close-run ties with the likes of Stuttgart and Mallorca. Aberdeen got to the last 32 of the UEFA Cup. Our teams were generally stronger, and competitive to a level. Now we're a good bit off that level, and I'd simply disagree with you that it's improved since then.

And the idea that "Scottish teams" make a European final every eight years sounds good, but the Old Firm are on such a different level to the other clubs that it's a pretty disingenuous statistic. More relevant is our recurring defeats to sides from Malta, Wales, Lithuania, Slovenia, etc.

I think in the last couple of seasons we've seen some signs of life. The results in the qualifiers for Hearts and Hibs this year were ok, and Aberdeen have been competitive. But the fact is they drew home and away with a Finnish side and their only win was in what was basically a friendly. But then we also had United losing 7-0 and Rangers being record-breakingly bad in the CL. The main story of the last fifteen years or so has been decline and disappointing results.

Edited December 17, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[LIVIFOREVER]

Canny wait to see his post match comments when he plays us at the Spaghettihad on a freezing cold January. 

[GorbalsMags]

2 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

That's a very generous reading of the situation, imo.

Back in the 2000s Hearts beat the likes of Braga and Basel in Europe, as well as getting a win in Bordeaux, and having close-run ties with the likes of Stuttgart and Mallorca. Aberdeen got to the last 32 of the UEFA Cup. Our teams were generally stronger, and competitive to a level. Now we're a good bit off that level, and I'd simply disagree with you that it's improved since then.

And the idea that "Scottish teams" make a European final every eight years sounds good, but the Old Firm are on such a different level to the other clubs that it's a pretty disingenuous statistic. More relevant is our recurring defeats to sides from Malta, Wales, Lithuania, Slovenia, etc.

I think in the last couple of seasons we've seen some signs of life. The results in the qualifiers for Hearts and Hibs this year were ok, and Aberdeen have been competitive. But the fact is they drew home and away with a Finnish side and their only win was in what was basically a friendly. The main story of the last fifteen years or so has been decline and disappointing results.

Saints got a draw away to Galatasaray and LASK, knocked out Rosenborg and some other pretty decent teams, came within penalties of the playoff round for the group stages, etc etc. Let's not talk about what's happened since then...