Scotland Vs Northern Ireland

[forameus]

29 minutes ago, kennie makevin said:

On the basis of the last few performances we are the weakest in the tournament, by a distance.

Ah yes, totally weaker than a Georgia side benefitting from the weird lower Nations league playoff rules that we're unbeaten against in qualifying.

[Lurkst]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Yip, totally agree with this.

It's a year since we beat Spain and there's a good argument that we've been in decline ever  since.  That win in Oslo was tremendously exciting, but it wasn't deserved; it was absolutely freaky.  It was the decisive match in qualifying, and we made heavy weather of it from then on, even before this run of friendlies.

The rogerings from England and France weren't pretty, but at least mealy mouthed excuses were available.  We've run out of even them now though.

We look like a team that's past the peak, similar to Scotland at Argentina 78, although if we were to get the same results as then we'd probably qualify out of our group.

 

Edited March 27 by Lurkst

[craigkillie]

13 minutes ago, kennie makevin said:

Indeed...insanely optimistic, cheerfully deluded, and if you think that wriggling out of the group (which we won't do anyway) would make this Scotland team better than the 1928 Wembley Wizards or the 67 or 77 Scotland teams then that's an opinion alright..

It would make them miles better than teams whose achievement was winning a single game at Wembley.

[craigkillie]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Yip, totally agree with this.

It's a year since we beat Spain and there's a good argument that we've been in decline ever  since.  That win in Oslo was tremendously exciting, but it wasn't deserved; it was absolutely freaky.  It was the decisive match in qualifying, and we made heavy weather of it from then on, even before this run of friendlies.

The rogerings from England and France weren't pretty, but at least mealy mouthed excuses were available.  We've run out of even them now though.

In what world did we "make heavy weather" of the wins over Georgia and Cyprus, apart from the literal heavy weather in the former?

[Lurkst]

16 minutes ago, kennie makevin said:

Indeed...insanely optimistic, cheerfully deluded, and if you think that wriggling out of the group (which we won't do anyway) would make this Scotland team better than the 1928 Wembley Wizards or the 67 or 77 Scotland teams then that's an opinion alright..

In 1992 we finished 5th at the Euros.

 

[Mr Heliums]

10 hours ago, VictorOnopko said:

If we get out of the group that'll make this the best Scotland team ever. 

The media always seems to like this daft barometer of quality, but even if it was valid, the 1974 Scotland team (World Cup last 16 and undefeated to boot), would like a word.

[BukyOHare]

10 hours ago, No_Problemo said:

The entire way we play is built on midfielders running beyond the striker linking play though. 

Adams is a lower end English Premiership striker, who basically gets a goal in four/five at that level. He certainly isn’t a goal scorer, but with the right midfield set up can be effective while still chipping in with goals occasionally. 

We'll have to agree to disagree then, Adams should never be the answer to goalscoring or playing striker at international level.

While we're expecting strikers to just "chip in" we're always going to struggle I'm afraid.

[PSJ.84]

Some absolutely wild takes in here, and at Hampden last night. It was a really poor performance but it’s the sort we’ve not seen from this group of players all too often. To say we’ve not played well since Spain at Hampden is incredibly unfair. Performances against Georgia at Hampden and Cyprus away were really good - regardless of the level of opposition. Are people really trying to rewrite history with the Norway game? We weren’t great that night but who actually cares, it’s the result that matters. Last night is the first proper black mark against this squad and manager for nearly two years. It’s not time to panic. 
 

 

[No_Problemo]

2 minutes ago, BukyOHare said:

We'll have to agree to disagree then, Adams should never be the answer to goalscoring or playing striker at international level.

While we're expecting strikers to just "chip in" we're always going to struggle I'm afraid.

I’m not sure who the answer is then tbh…

[Skyline Drifter]

12 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

I'm not having Andy Murray as Scotland's greatest EVER sportsman like Liam McLeod just suggested. Is he? Suppose he's up there but not having it.

 

12 hours ago, JS_FFC said:

Murray isn’t just “arguably” Scotland’s greatest ever sportsman, he’s miles clear. I’d argue he’s right up there for Britain’s best. 

 

12 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

I'll take Kenny Dalglish, Dennis Law and Chris Hoy off the top of my head.

You can throw Colin Montgomerie and Stephen Hendry in the mix too I suppose though some won't consider Snooker a sport as there's no physical aspect to it. He and Hoy are in niche sports though and, as fantastic as Hoy's achievements were, he benefited enormously from the money that UK Sport throws at cycling compared to other countries in terms of training facilities, coaching and most importantly technological development of the equipment. Montgomerie's legacy will always be clouded by his failure to ever win a major. Those Scots who did win one (like Lyle and Laurie) never dominated golf overall)

We're on a football forum, people will tend to favour footballers but I don't think either Dalglish or Law were ever the best in the world, though they may have been for periods in the best in the UK. Murray was one of four who absolutely dominated his sport for a decade or so and whilst he was probably 4th of four (and damned unlucky to share an era with them), he was for periods the best player in the world in what is a world profile sport and not one where technology is massively different from player to player. As much as the LTA throw a lot of money at youth coaching, etc, Murray didn't come through their pathway.

On balance I'd agree with @JS_FFC, and Liam McLeod if he said it, that Murray is Scotland's greatest ever sportsman. Not what I expected to be posting about on this thread though !

[2426255]

4 minutes ago, BukyOHare said:

While we're expecting strikers to just "chip in" we're always going to struggle I'm afraid.

Struggle like we struggled to qualify for Euro-2024. Oh wait...

The system has been effective for us. We don't have great strikers and we have to find alternative ways to score.

Edited March 27 by 2426255

[kennie makevin]

7 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

It would make them miles better than teams whose achievement was winning a single game at Wembley.

It may make this team statistically more successful but it would not make them player for player a better team. No one would seriously make that claim, certainly compared to the 1928 team. Shankland, Dykes, Adams or Hughie Gallacher ? McTominey or Alex James ? Ryan Christie or Alan Morton ? Aye, right !!!

[2426255]

1 hour ago, PSJ.84 said:

Some absolutely wild takes in here, and at Hampden last night. It was a really poor performance but it’s the sort we’ve not seen from this group of players all too often. To say we’ve not played well since Spain at Hampden is incredibly unfair. Performances against Georgia at Hampden and Cyprus away were really good - regardless of the level of opposition. Are people really trying to rewrite history with the Norway game? We weren’t great that night but who actually cares, it’s the result that matters. Last night is the first proper black mark against this squad and manager for nearly two years. It’s not time to panic. 
 

 

People seem to be forgetting how good the performance was for the first 2/3's of the game in Amsterdam. So the negativity covers the result in the Netherlands and the performance in Norway just to make sure things seem worse than they are. Fans can be hard fucking work. 

Edited March 27 by 2426255

[craigkillie]

2 minutes ago, kennie makevin said:

It may make this team statistically more successful but it would not make them player for player a better team. No one would seriously make that claim, certainly compared to the 1928 team. Shankland, Dykes, Adams or Hughie Gallacher ? McTominey or Alex James ? Ryan Christie or Alan Morton ? Aye, right !!!

The clue is in the word "team".

There's also barely anyone alive who actually watched these players, they might have been rubbish but everyone around them was much worse.

[BukyOHare]

11 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Struggle like we struggled to qualify for Euro-2024. Oh wait...

The system has been effective for us. We don't have great strikers and we have to find alternative ways to score.

But then you get performances like we got last night not far away. Last night highlighted issues that aren't going away anytime soon.

Its brilliant we've qualified but to think we can keep setting up at international level with strikers who work hard or chip in with goals will eventually get us found out.

[forameus]

1 minute ago, Skyline Drifter said:

You can throw Colin Montgomerie and Stephen Hendry in the mix too I suppose though some won't consider Snooker a sport as there's no physical aspect to it. He and Hoy are in niche sports though and, as fantastic as Hoy's achievements were, he benefited enormously from the money that UK Sport throws at cycling compared to other countries in terms of training facilities, coaching and most importantly technological development of the equipment. Montgomerie's legacy will always be clouded by his failure to ever win a major. Those Scots who did win one (like Lyle and Laurie) never dominated golf overall)

We're on a football forum, people will tend to favour footballers but I don't think either Dalglish or Law were ever the best in the world, though they may have been for periods in the best in the UK. Murray was one of four who absolutely dominated his sport for a decade or so and whilst he was probably 4th of four (and damned unlucky to share an era with them), he was for periods the best player in the world in what is a world profile sport and not one where technology is massively different from player to player. As much as the LTA throw a lot of money at youth coaching, etc, Murray didn't come through their pathway.

On balance I'd agree with @JS_FFC, and Liam McLeod if he said it, that Murray is Scotland's greatest ever sportsman. Not what I expected to be posting about on this thread though !

I'd have Murray as top too. Growing up in the shadow of one of the countries biggest tragedies as a child, then getting undeserved hate from the sort of gammons that can't take a joke and imagine everyone loves England.  Never quite taken to heart until he lost at Wimbledon in 2012 and broke down post-match.  Then goes on to win the Olympics on "home" soil, break his major duck, then come back a year later to absolutely pump Djokovic in the next Wimbledon final.  I think it would be hard to argue that any Scot in any sport has had the combination of story and success that he's had.

I'd have had him at right-back over Patterson last night. Fucked hip and all.

[Skyline Drifter]

36 minutes ago, BB_Bino said:

By the time I got home last night, I couldn't really be bothered posting, I jut felt so flat and let down. For as much as calm heads are required, alarm bells should also be ringing, as has been said by others in this thread, since Oslo, we seem like we are taking backwards steps.

Our big players didn't show on the night, I've read a lot about who got pass marks, I think those that did were simply ok but in general everyone was way below the standard that they have set. We're looking at players like McGinn, McTominy, Christie and Gilmour to get on the ball and drag the game by the scruff of the neck and none of them did. 

For me, last night offered more questions than answers. Although I've praised him on a number of occasions, Dykes was well off it and looks a shadow of the player we were desperate to come play for us. Has he peaked?? He's become a bit part player at the lower end of the English Championship and has become less effective for Scotland. Jason Brown had this level of performance for us and was written off as a jobber by many supporters, I can't help but think Dykes is really no better on current form. 

In over 30 years of going to Hampden, I've seen some woeful individual performances by players, however, if the player started then the Manager would put them out of their misery and take them off. Patterson's performance last night must go down as the worst 90 minute performance I have seen from a player in all that time. Why Clarke kept him on is beyond me. He's not the first and won't be the last player to make an error and be punished for it, I can forgive that, but his whole game was just error after error after error. The argument of some on our bus was that Ralston was no better, and if you move Tierney over there like Strachan did, then Taylor is no better than Ralston, well I'm sorry, I don't buy that. Clarke calls up a squad of players that he feels he can use in every circumstance....well last night was one of those circumstances and the squad available should have coped with it.

I know we have had great success with a back 3, although not a huge fan myself, I can see why Clarke sees it as our best opinion and you can't argue with him, however when Robertson went off, it was good to see that he wasn't too stubborn to change the shape. The problem with changing the shape is, we didn't really have the pace out wide to cause the N.Irish problems. Clarke mentioned in his interview that seeing us in another shape was one of the positives he would take from the game, but we were extremely 1 paced all night and the ball was continually killed by the more advanced players with the slow tempi build ups. I don't know who is available to fill that void, your Facebook warriors will scream "Gauld" or "Fraser", I don't know if that's the answer but the lack of pace in the final third worries me. Armstrong come on and had a bit of luck getting past his man, but again, against higher ranked opposition, I don't think he would have been "as effective".

So where do we go from here?? Well there were positives, I thought Ferguson come on and did well and brought himself more under consideration, although not really tested by the strike force, Cooper looked good at the back, Shankland looked lively and at least got into positions to have a chance and I thought Tierney did what he does when he was moved out wide, although very often didn't have the options needed when he ventured over the half way line.

It's no time to push the panic button. Our bigger players will have better games, but the concern going into the next group of friendlies is that we still don't have a settled back 3, we still don't know who our main Striker is....and if Hickey and Robertson don't make it then we don't have suitable replacements if we want to continue in the same set up that got us there.  Clarke shouldn't rip up what he has built so far, and has given us our pride back, but I am starting to question if this is a bridge too far for certain members of the squad.

 

Good post though I think certain aspects of it are a bit too much.

Last night was completely flat from the word go. Even before Patterson's aberration we were looking toothless and devoid of ideas and movement. It looked like a heavy legged end of season game and, in hindsight, maybe we needed to make a few more changes from the start. I don't see any particular reason to conclude it's a bridge too far for anyone. I'm not even sure who that's aimed at. I think the oldest player on the pitch was Cooper who didn't particularly do anything wrong. I appreciate the Irish aren't very good but actually we were pretty unbothered by them defensively apart from Patterson selling them a deflected goal.

Dykes isn't having a particularly good season, that's fair, players go in and out of form and he's not in great form but he got zero service last night and I'm not sure centre forward is the first problem I'd be looking at last night. Adams did no better when he came on (we actually watched to see how long it took him to get his first touch and it was about 10 minutes!). Shankland looked marginally more involved but by the time he came on we had two up and the whole game was being played in the final third, it's inevitable there will be more opportunities to show at that point.

Patterson had a holocaust of a game and I felt for him. Having defended his performance in Netherlands on Friday, there's no real defending it last night. He sold the goal (he's not the first or last to do that, Robertson sold one against England but he picked himself up and played well the rest of the game). Even before that though his positioning and use of the ball had been poor and he just seemed to collapse after that. I'll credit him for not hiding and continuing to make runs and look for the ball but cross after cross was straight out of play. It was crying out for a change and if Clarke was trying to support him by leaving him on, he maybe did the opposite.

The problem last night was the lack of movement in midfield particularly. The Christie, Gilmoour, McGinn, McTominay combination just didn't work like it normally does and personally I didn't think Ferguson improved it one bit to be honest. I know it's easy to give players too much credit when they aren't there but I thought we seriously missed McGregor's drive from midfield. You sometimes don't realise how good something is till it's not there. That said, we had plenty of energy and drive from midfield in Amsterdam on Friday and McGregor wasn't there either.

Fundamentally it was a bad night at the office but a worrying trend.

[2426255]

Just now, BukyOHare said:

But then you get performances like we got last night not far away. Last night highlighted issues that aren't going away anytime soon.

Its brilliant we've qualified but to think we can keep setting up at international level with strikers who work hard or chip in with goals will eventually get us found out.

I don't understand what you are wanting us to do.

[BukyOHare]

13 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

I’m not sure who the answer is then tbh…

And that there is the massive problem and has been for longer than most of us can remember.

At grassroots level, our players are coached to be tidy on the ball, to play sideways and generally be safe on the ball. We produce decent midfielders and not a lot else.

Why should we be surprised when all of that's replicated at international level?

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

Northern Ireland are limited, but were effectively setup to stifle us.  They - in effect - did exactly what we did to Spain.  Allowed us to have the ball in front of them, and in the wings.  They know we're fairly one-dimensional as we lack pace, and trickery - either out wide, or in the middle.

It seems to always be harder to analyse a game from the stands but we seemed pretty one-paced and gave up trying to have any real passages of play through the middle, excepting a burst from Christie and McTominay in the first half, and perhaps a couple in the second.  

Enough has been said about Patterson, but McGinn seemed hugely off it.  His touch was poor, and by not moving the ball on quickly seemed to get quickly pressured and seemed never to take a pass on the half-turn.  Far too many of the passes our players received were with their back to goal and so limited progress was made with the ball.

Gilmour was the only player who seemed to be playing with any sort of impetus.  In a game like that we need another of his type to take the ball in the last third and keep the progression going.  Instead, we cycled the ball from wing to wing, rarely taking on the full back or creating overloads.

I don't recall Dykes doing anything, and Adams - for the time he was on the pitch - seemed only to take the ball in wide areas.  Armstrong looked like an improvement, but again, if you have a low block and a team setup defensively we have zero pace or trickery in the side.  A game like that needs a player like Fraser who forces the opposition to do something else.

Anyway, I'm not as disillusioned as others.  Switzerland and Hungary won't play us like that any more than us showing how to beat Spain would inform the French or English how to nullify them.  We struggle against a disciplined low block in friendlies - that's neither novel nor surprising, and no semi-decent team is going to do that against us.  

Asides from the awful Gibraltar, we'll play a minimum of 10 games in the rest of 2024 and every single side will be at a minimum of the caliber of Georgia/Norway/Ukraine, and often better, or much better.  They'll create far more chances against us, but equally they'll play in a manner we're better set to exploit (assuming unlike in Amsterdam, we're able to take our chances).