Jump to content

Netherlands (A) - 22/03/2024


Recommended Posts

The first match thread of what will be a big year for the national team. 

I'm really interested to see how we line up for this one. I'm expecting it to be a full-strength 11, but there are questions regarding the goalkeeper, how we cope with McGregor's absence and how we respond to recent disappointments. I'd probably go something like:

Gunn
Porteous Hendry Tierney
Patterson McTominay Gilmour Ferguson Robertson
McGinn Dykes

Not sure about that LCM spot or even the 3-5-2, so all alternative ideas are welcome (even the bad ones). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, accies1874 said:

The first match thread of what will be a big year for the national team. 

I'm really interested to see how we line up for this one. I'm expecting it to be a full-strength 11, but there are questions regarding the goalkeeper, how we cope with McGregor's absence and how we respond to recent disappointments. I'd probably go something like:

Gunn
Porteous Hendry Tierney
Patterson McTominay Gilmour Ferguson Robertson
McGinn Dykes

Not sure about that LCM spot or even the 3-5-2, so all alternative ideas are welcome (even the bad ones). 

I think that's the team he will go for, only with McLean in for Ferguson. Hickey is a massive loss at the minute, Patterson gives me the fear every time he plays. He's a complete liability defensively. 

Hopefully Shankland gets 45 to show what he can do, and McGregor being injured gives us a great chance to see what Ferguson can offer so I hope he gets some meaningful time too. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some relevant quotes

Spoiler

You can call it that if you want (Dress Rehearsal for Germany). If you want to put that as your headline you can do that. 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. 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. 

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.

Steve Clarke

Spoiler

We’ve really concentrated on The Netherlands, looking at how they play and how we’re going to play. I don’t know how he’s (Clarke) going to approach it with regard to game time, because like I said at the start there we need to get back to winning ways again so in particular in this first game (The Netherlands). We’re going to have to have the right mindset, have the right players on the pitch to try and win the game.

John Carver

Spoiler

Steve and myself know how we want to play, what system we are going to use and how we are going to fit the players in. It's quite exciting, but we need to get back to winning because the Euros is the carrot, I think the friendlies will be more competitive than normal friendlies. I'm hoping we will see that competitive edge unlike a normal friendly. We're not interested in experimenting. We already know what the system is. 

John Carver

Spoiler

Difficult game first up. Away from home against another team that’s qualified so that’s going to be a tough test, but we’ve done well away from home. The team always sets up really well, we’re a difficult team to beat so I expect us to go there and work on that side of our game and we always believe that we’re capable of getting results against anybody so it’s going to be a good test for us that one.

Craig Gordon

Spoiler

I think these two games are more about showing what we can do, particularly in the first game against the top teams and I think that’s why we picked the games against England and France in the previous camps that we want to try and compete against the best and learn from the last Euro’s and take that forward so these games are probably more about developing as a team and hopefully we can do that.    

Ryan Porteous

I think from those quotes it's clear we will play the same system we used in the games against Norway, Spain and France away as well as Spain at home. 5-4-1 flat.

Quote

He's great. He's got a tireless shift up there when I play that 5-4-1 flat. He never stops running, he never stops trying.

Steve Clarke, Norway v Scotland

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65941355

We'll mostly go strong, no experimenting. The Netherlands game is preparation, the Northern Ireland game is for the Tartan Army. That's what I'm expecting.

Edited by 2426255
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the team will be close to this maybe with a few changes depending on specifics around the match such as Christie and McGinn swapping sides or the odd player swapped out, say Adams for Dykes.

image.png.74748af81533d67db2773c42b91c8b8d.png

There aren't many direct links to the Dutch team, so Hendry had already played against M'Bappe for Club Brugge and so it made sense to move him to RCB against France - I haven't seen anything similar for this game.

Edited by 2426255
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Clarke will play as close to his strongest first eleven as he can tomorrow. Like numbers has said, this is his Germany dress rehearsal, I think his starting line up will be almost identical to what we see against the Germans.

Gunn, Tierney, Hendry, Porteous, Robertson, Patterson, McTominay, Gilmour, McGinn will all start

McLean/Christie/Ferguson will make up the other midfield spot in McGregors absence

I think Adams will get the nod ahead of Dykes but its a close call

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Quentin Taranbino said:

I think Clarke will play as close to his strongest first eleven as he can tomorrow. Like numbers has said, this is his Germany dress rehearsal, I think his starting line up will be almost identical to what we see against the Germans.

Gunn, Tierney, Hendry, Porteous, Robertson, Patterson, McTominay, Gilmour, McGinn will all start

McLean/Christie/Ferguson will make up the other midfield spot in McGregors absence

I think Adams will get the nod ahead of Dykes but its a close call

Thing is Dutch and German football are poles apart in terms of preferred style

They might be neighbours but the Dutch will always crave Total Football and die on that alter if need be.

it’s not called the Johann Cruyff Arena for nothing 

I know it’s not as cut and dried as that anymore but Germany will be more physical and direct than Holland

We will need to be compact and positionally very tight tomorrow night

If we can deprive them space we’ve a chance with our midfield drive to cause them problems 

prediction - who knows 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Meh, I've had the boy complaining half the day its colder than home!

I didnt even have a jacket on. 

Can confirm after a few beers you really don’t feel it, although my head is quite sore this morning. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Steve Clarke's Press Conference for those who haven't seen it.

There was an interesting quote in there from Clarke, not sure what he's planning - but something to watch out for tonight.

Quote

We’ve had a couple of really good training sessions where I’ve asked them to think about maybe doing something a little bit different. I won’t tell you what it is, but these are the kind of games where you can use that opportunity to try something that’s maybe a little bit different. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t - maybe we have to readjust after we’ve seen it in action against the Dutch. 

Steve Clarke

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...