Euro 2024 Expectations

[craigkillie]

52 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Until Norway scored against in Oslo they were dominant in the game and had created loads of chances. They were in total control. We tend to look at that game from our perspective but really, Norway Hibsed it. After they scored they changed formation and tactics, replacing Solbakken with Berge, a defensive midfielder, and sat in to hold the lead. That's a bloody stupid thing to do against Scotland, who are at their best on the front foot. They even took off Haaland in a triple change 10 minutes before the end. They completely Hibsed it.

Haaland is often quiet in games until he scores. He still won the penalty and left the pitch with his side 1-0 up.

None of this is relevant now of course, or to the discussion on the thread.

Norway's "total control" and "loads of chances" in that game corresponded to six shots, one on target, before that penalty. It was a dull game where both teams cancelled each other out, they were definitely slightly the better team, but you'd expect that, they were at home. We defended excellently throughout that game.

Edited May 7 by craigkillie

[Butters Scotch]

6 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Norway's "total control" and "loads of chances" in that game corresponded to six shots, one on target, before that penalty. It was a dull game where both teams cancelled each other out, they were definitely slightly the better team, but you'd expect that, they were at home.

They were dominant and in total control most of the game, we were really bad in the first half in particular. They missed a sitter when they were 1 nil up which would of burried the game IMO and then took Haaland off also which was a really strange decision, I think that helped revitalise the team and from that point we took the game more to Norway and played more like ourselves. Let's still remember our first goal was from their defender making a big hash of his interception and the keeper being in no man's land. Those are the breaks you get though which is why we love football so much but i remember being unhappy about how we played and thought we totally got away with that one.

[lubo_blaha]

1 hour ago, GordonS said:

Until Norway scored against in Oslo they were dominant in the game and had created loads of chances. They were in total control. We tend to look at that game from our perspective but really, Norway Hibsed it. After they scored they changed formation and tactics, replacing Solbakken with Berge, a defensive midfielder, and sat in to hold the lead. That's a bloody stupid thing to do against Scotland, who are at their best on the front foot. They even took off Haaland in a triple change 10 minutes before the end. They completely Hibsed it.

Haaland is often quiet in games until he scores. He still won the penalty and left the pitch with his side 1-0 up.

None of this is relevant now of course, or to the discussion on the thread.

I don’t think that’s accurate. They had the header straight at Gunn and another bent just past the post I can’t recall any other good chances apart from that. If there was then they didn’t make the highlights! Norway were of course the better side.

[2426255]

I think it was more a case of us trying to control the game without the ball. Similar to Ukraine away and Spain home & away. We carried some luck in both the Norway and Ukraine game in particular. It can be effective. Northern Ireland did it to us.

I think it'll be similar against Germany. We've tried to control the game with the ball in friendlies against England, France and the Netherlands as part of evolving the team. It's showed promise, we've done better in each game - but we're probably not ready to do it away to Germany in a game with something on it.

The Nations League might be a different kettle of fish.

Edited May 7 by 2426255

[2426255]

4 hours ago, Butters Scotch said:

Form is not black and white, it's one of many indicators of a teams current level of performance. However, surely you'd want your team to be going into the tournament prepared and confident in our tactics, formation, trust for your teamates, trust in your own ability, belief that we can go out and beat the other teams etc. If there is any self-doubt due to the recent losses then this will have a negative impact on the team more likely than not (not saying this is the case as we seem to have a strong mentality).

The vast majority of the team have been through good and bad runs. Shown strength through adverse results and turned bad 'form'. They automatically qualified for the tournament. 

Why would their confidence, belief and trust in each other falter. They simply have to looked at how they  bounced back in similar situations. You're barking up the wrong tree on this.

Maybe you're transferring your own lack of belief onto the team.

Edited May 7 by 2426255

[Butters Scotch]

4 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

The vast majority of the team have been through good and bad runs. Shown strength through adverse results and turned bad 'form'. They automatically qualified for the tournament. 

Why would their confidence, belief and trust in each other falter. They simply have to looked at how they  bounced back in similar situations. You're barking up the wrong tree on this.

Maybe you're transferring your own lack of belief onto the team.

We accumulated more points than the likes of Georgia, Norway and Cyprus so i'm not gonna get a boner and say we are now some fantastic team all of a sudden. 

There are clearly a lot of improvement needed going by some of the latter performances of late. Do you not think the players will be thinking similarly and Clarke will be working hard on this? I would be pissed of if they weren't tbh.

[2426255]

24 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:

We accumulated more points than the likes of Georgia, Norway and Cyprus so i'm not gonna get a boner and say we are now some fantastic team all of a sudden. 

There are clearly a lot of improvement needed going by some of the latter performances of late. Do you not think the players will be thinking similarly and Clarke will be working hard on this? I would be pissed of if they weren't tbh.

I think they'll look at what they did well, what they did poorly in March if it relates to the games in the Euros and discard the rest. Maybe look at aspects of the Spain games, even the game in Oslo.

Maybe work on general principles, situational stuff, set plays and at some point shift the focus to opposition analysis and our match specific strategy.

I don't think they'll need a pick me up. The two friendlies probably about fitness and maybe test one or two things and for the fans hopefully win at least one of the games to get the fans and media off their back and all the 'winless run' crap. They want the Tartan Army onside.

Edited May 7 by 2426255

[Old Bing]

12 hours ago, KingRocketman II said:

Posters are starting to demonstrate their claimed "decent competitive level" credentials to add gravitas to forum opinions.

Always nice to see such posturing as we get close to the business end of the season. 

 

I apologise if me saying I had played a sport competitively intimidated you

[Old Bing]

6 hours ago, GordonS said:

Until Norway scored against in Oslo they were dominant in the game and had created loads of chances. They were in total control. We tend to look at that game from our perspective but really, Norway Hibsed it. After they scored they changed formation and tactics, replacing Solbakken with Berge, a defensive midfielder, and sat in to hold the lead. That's a bloody stupid thing to do against Scotland, who are at their best on the front foot. They even took off Haaland in a triple change 10 minutes before the end. They completely Hibsed it.

Haaland is often quiet in games until he scores. He still won the penalty and left the pitch with his side 1-0 up.

None of this is relevant now of course, or to the discussion on the thread.

100% this, I mean it was a decent performance from us and I thought we maybe could have been worthy of sneaking a draw. 

But we took the chances we got at the end very well. 

[No_Problemo]

3 hours ago, 2426255 said:

I think they'll look at what they did well, what they did poorly in March if it relates to the games in the Euros and discard the rest. Maybe look at aspects of the Spain games, even the game in Oslo.

Maybe work on general principles, situational stuff, set plays and at some point shift the focus to opposition analysis and our match specific strategy.

I don't think they'll need a pick me up. The two friendlies probably about fitness and maybe test one or two things and for the fans hopefully win at least one of the games to get the fans and media off their back and all the 'winless run' crap. They want the Tartan Army onside.

I can visualise us being booed off the park against Finland after a narrow defeat, as our send off to the Euro’s due to this “bad form”….

[Old Bing]

2 hours ago, No_Problemo said:

I can visualise us being booed off the park against Finland after a narrow defeat, as our send off to the Euro’s due to this “bad form”….

Well personally I've never booed my own team. But it would be a very bad result for us, and not helpful at all going into the euros.

Are you OK with us losing those games also?

[No_Problemo]

7 minutes ago, Bing.McCrosby said:

Well personally I've never booed my own team. But it would be a very bad result for us, and not helpful at all going into the euros.

Are you OK with us losing those games also?

It wasn’t really a reference to your point tbh - more so after the amount of booing against NI, but surely to f**k it’ll be a good send off regardless of the result. 

I’m honestly not remotely bothered, I just want to avoid injuries and get certain players up to speed. There is zero chance players will be playing at an intensity, given what is on the line with a knock. 

[Old Bing]

2 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

It wasn’t really a reference to your point tbh - more so after the amount of booing against NI, but surely to f**k it’ll be a good send off regardless of the result. 

I’m honestly not remotely bothered, I just want to avoid injuries and get certain players up to speed. There is zero chance players will be playing at an intensity, given what is on the line with a knock. 

Yeah last part might be accurate, there will be a few looking to stake their claim for a start tho.

[2426255]

3 hours ago, No_Problemo said:

I can visualise us being booed off the park against Finland after a narrow defeat, as our send off to the Euro’s due to this “bad form”….

Hope not. They're warmup games after all, our equivalent of pre-season games. Punters expectations must be carefully juggled to keep them onside. 

[GordonS]

13 hours ago, craigkillie said:

Norway's "total control" and "loads of chances" in that game corresponded to six shots, one on target, before that penalty. It was a dull game where both teams cancelled each other out, they were definitely slightly the better team, but you'd expect that, they were at home. We defended excellently throughout that game.

 

13 hours ago, lubo_blaha said:

I don’t think that’s accurate. They had the header straight at Gunn and another bent just past the post I can’t recall any other good chances apart from that. If there was then they didn’t make the highlights! Norway were of course the better side.

I think it you watch the first hour again in the cold light of day, you'll see Norway were dominant. That doesn't mean they needed to have a bucketload of clear chances or that we didn't defend well, and don't forget that we barely threatened them at all. 

[GordonS]

13 hours ago, Butters Scotch said:

They were dominant and in total control most of the game, we were really bad in the first half in particular. They missed a sitter when they were 1 nil up which would of burried the game IMO and then took Haaland off also which was a really strange decision, I think that helped revitalise the team and from that point we took the game more to Norway and played more like ourselves. Let's still remember our first goal was from their defender making a big hash of his interception and the keeper being in no man's land. Those are the breaks you get though which is why we love football so much but i remember being unhappy about how we played and thought we totally got away with that one.

I was nowhere near as negative about it, but I remember thinking if the roles were reversed we'd have been absolutely fkn raging at our players and our manager. 

[Dons_1988]

8 hours ago, GordonS said:

 

I think it you watch the first hour again in the cold light of day, you'll see Norway were dominant. That doesn't mean they needed to have a bucketload of clear chances or that we didn't defend well, and don't forget that we barely threatened them at all. 

No this still isn’t right. 

It’s true to say we were poor with possession for the vast majority of the game and didn’t impact it the way we wanted. 

But the game plan was clearly heavily weighted around haaland and making sure we defended that threat appropriately (you can debate whether this was the right approach). That would have involved allowing Norway as the home team more of the play and making sure the big lump was under control. The fact that Norway didn’t create loads of chances is testament to the defensive side of the game plan. 

Of course being poor with possession, which we were, leaves you liable to conceding a daft goal like a daft penalty and ultimately losing the game, which could easily have happened. But the narrative that Norway absolutely dominated us or significantly imposed their game plan on us just isn’t accurate. 

[craigkillie]

And the fact that it was a really good defensive performance proves the original point which started this discussion, specifically that our missing defenders and goalkeepers (and the change of shape which this led to) for the home game had a big impact on our performance.

[Butters Scotch]

9 hours ago, GordonS said:

I was nowhere near as negative about it, but I remember thinking if the roles were reversed we'd have been absolutely fkn raging at our players and our manager. 

I wasn't raging at the win, I was delighted at the time but the performance was poor IMO. It was obvious to see where we were playing defensively and aiming to grind down the opposition which worked to a point but we were fortunate to still be in the game by the time we got the equaliser and we got the breaks. It could of quite easily swung the other way and I think we would all be fuming and asking why we didn't take the game to Norway considering they are similar ranked team, it wasn't as if we were playing a top tier nation.

[Butters Scotch]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

No this still isn’t right. 

It’s true to say we were poor with possession for the vast majority of the game and didn’t impact it the way we wanted. 

But the game plan was clearly heavily weighted around haaland and making sure we defended that threat appropriately (you can debate whether this was the right approach). That would have involved allowing Norway as the home team more of the play and making sure the big lump was under control. The fact that Norway didn’t create loads of chances is testament to the defensive side of the game plan. 

Of course being poor with possession, which we were, leaves you liable to conceding a daft goal like a daft penalty and ultimately losing the game, which could easily have happened. But the narrative that Norway absolutely dominated us or significantly imposed their game plan on us just isn’t accurate. 

We defended well overall considering Haaland didn't have many chances and was snuffed out but we did next to nothing ourselves majority of the game which is the bit I can't agree with. If you're gonna be defensive then at least hit them on the counter attack which wasn't happening until late in the game. In my opinion, if you played like that again against the same opposition then you will end up losing 9/10 times.