Ross. Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Just now, GordonS said: I'd maybe quibble over the midfield a little, but the bigger point is that we have a midfield and two left backs, whereas they have a functioning team based around a good spine through keeper, central defence, central midfield and up front. Where they are stronger than us they're a lot stronger than us, and that's in both boxes where it matters most. Amdouni v Hanley and Akanji v Adams/ Shankland? Jesus. They also have experience of progress in tournaments while we have none, which has to count for a lot. Sommer, Akanji and Xhaka are miles ahead of anything we have, the rest it’s more down to mentality and attitude. For all that the Swiss have 4/5 forwards who are miles better than ours, it’s more to do with our lack of options than theirs being particularly good. Amdouni and Okofor both have huge potential for sure but aren’t there yet, Embolo is a James McFadden tribute act and the boy Duah that scored their opener was more or less a journeyman until the last couple of seasons. In the last year or so they have struggled against Romani, Israel, Belarus and Kosovo, all games they would have been winning with relative ease for most of the last decade. They are a team in transition and there for the taking if we get it right on the day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Henry Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Ross. said: Sommer, Akanji and Xhaka are miles ahead of anything we have, the rest it’s more down to mentality and attitude. For all that the Swiss have 4/5 forwards who are miles better than ours, it’s more to do with our lack of options than theirs being particularly good. Amdouni and Okofor both have huge potential for sure but aren’t there yet, Embolo is a James McFadden tribute act and the boy Duah that scored their opener was more or less a journeyman until the last couple of seasons. In the last year or so they have struggled against Romani, Israel, Belarus and Kosovo, all games they would have been winning with relative ease for most of the last decade. They are a team in transition and there for the taking if we get it right on the day. I salute your indefatigability, but Switzerland are miles ahead of Scotland right across the board. We’re in all sorts of trouble if they play well. Embolo is a fabulous player, who would transform Scotland, with the greatest of respect to Ché Adams.. Edited June 16 by Savage Henry 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomGuy. Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 1 hour ago, Ross. said: Man for man there is very little between the teams. If I was picking a strongest 11 I reckon it would be 6/5 one way or the other. They are in confident mood though, and Embolo continues to do that James McFadden thing of being borderline fucking useless at club level but turning into Pelé when he puts on the national team jersey. Before Friday I was confident of a draw and hoped we might nick it. Now I can’t see it being anything but a struggle. I love Embolo. He seems very much a "Euros" player who just disappears for 4 years then spawns to rip defences apart and score wondergoals for a week or two. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 54 minutes ago, Gaz said: If we finish on six points, finish third, and don't qualify, then I will personally eat my own arse. Remember to link us to the video on Pornhub. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross. Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 2 minutes ago, Savage Henry said: I salute your indefatigability, but Switzerland are miles ahead of Scotland right across the board. We’re in all sorts of trouble if they play well. Embolo is a fabulous player, who would transform Scotland, with the greatest of respect to Ché Adams.. The biggest difference between the sides is mentality. We go out hoping to get a result and retreat into our shells when the breaks go against us, they go out expecting to get a result and can generally dig themselves out of a hole when they make a c**t of it. Just now, RandomGuy. said: I love Embolo. He seems very much a "Euros" player who just disappears for 4 years then spawns to rip defences apart and score wondergoals for a week or two. He was a cracking player when he came through at Basel but has never fully recovered from his knee injuries. His record at club level, albeit mostly in the Bundesliga, is poor for a guy who mostly plays centre forward, but when he puts that Swiss top on he turns into a different beast. Just constantly reminds me of McFadden. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skiblue Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Need to summon our inner 'Spain at Hampden' performance... Although it seems to have well passed by 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross. Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Switzerlands biggest weakness is probably the head coach, for what it’s worth. At club and international level he seems fine setting them up for games that are expected to be difficult, but when they are strong favourites he has a habit of changing things and watching them struggle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyline Drifter Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 (edited) 40 minutes ago, Scary Bear said: I think the criticism is harsh. Third goal he saves. The team in front of him allowed Musiala to saunter through, knock the ball wide, get the cross in, win the header. He saves. Team in front of him fail to clear the ball when it breaks out from him. Can’t recall the circumstances for the disallowed goal. Fifth goal was right in the bottom corner. I wouldn’t blame him for that either. The ‘keeper is always the easy one to blame but the team in front of him were shocking on the night, especially in the first half. Every keeper in the world is coached to parry things wide if they cant hold them, not back into the middle of goal. He's an international keeper, you cant simply say 'he saves the inital shot' and absolve all blame. He should do much better than fumble it six yards into the middle of goal. The 5th was in the corner but it wasnt absolutely lashed and came from outside the box. He got to it, then didnt save it. You cant completely absolve him of that either. The offside one he parried into the air but didnt get over the bar and it dropped over his head into the net. I'm not suggesting he be shot at dawn for it. In the cold light of day he's still our best option, but he had a bad night, especially with the first goal. Edited June 16 by Skyline Drifter 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaz Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 34 minutes ago, BFTD said: Remember to link us to the video on Pornhub. I'll do it in the middle of Falkirk High Street 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 2 minutes ago, Gaz said: I'll do it in the middle of Falkirk High Street Falkirk High Street has seen worse. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Connolly Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Switzerland were the last team to lose to Scotland at a major championship, and I'm confident they will also be the next. I'm not saying it will definitely happen on Wednesday though 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lichtie23 Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Gilmour in for McGregor is a change I would absolutely make. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 1 hour ago, Skyline Drifter said: Every keeper in the world is coached to parry things wide if they cant hold them, not back into the middle of goal. He's an international keeper, you cant simply say 'he saves the inital shot' and absolve all blame. He should do much better than fumble it six yards into the middle of goal. The 5th was in the corner but it wasnt absolutely lashed and came from outside the box. He got to it, then didnt save it. You cant completely absolve him of that either. The offside one he parried into the air but didnt get over the bar and it dropped over his head into the net. I'm not suggesting he be shot at dawn for it. In the cold light of day he's still our best option, but he had a bad night, especially with the first goal. As I say, first goal I agree it was poor goalkeeping. Fifth goal, I’d need to watch again but in real time I wasn’t blaming him. The German player has aimed for the far bottom corner and found it. Third goal was bad all round by the team. The keepers main aim is to keep the ball out, which he did, ideally he would parry to the side but he didn’t. I could watch the highlights again to change my mind, but I’m not putting myself through that again. Hopefully we play better against the Swiss. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zetterlund Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 At the first goal it looked like Gunn could have got a full hand to it but tried to turn it round the post, in the end not getting enough on it. Maybe at the third goal this was on his mind and he overcompensated. It looked like he made a very definite motion to push the ball straight out, when he may well have been able to collect it. The fifth wasn't so clear cut, but it still looked like with a stronger hand/fingers he got enough on it to keep it out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyline Drifter Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 10 minutes ago, Scary Bear said: As I say, first goal I agree it was poor goalkeeping. Fifth goal, I’d need to watch again but in real time I wasn’t blaming him. The German player has aimed for the far bottom corner and found it. Third goal was bad all round by the team. The keepers main aim is to keep the ball out, which he did, ideally he would parry to the side but he didn’t. I could watch the highlights again to change my mind, but I’m not putting myself through that again. Hopefully we play better against the Swiss. He aimed right for the corner and found it and if Gunn doesn't get there I'm not sure I'd blame him either. A shorter keeper definitely wouldn't have. But he DID get there, put a hand on it, and didn't keep it out. It's nowhere near as bad as the 1st but he's put a hand on both those shots and they went in anyway. 2 minutes ago, Zetterlund said: At the first goal it looked like Gunn could have got a full hand to it but tried to turn it round the post, in the end not getting enough on it. Maybe at the third goal this was on his mind and he overcompensated. It looked like he made a very definite motion to push the ball straight out, when he may well have been able to collect it. The fifth wasn't so clear cut, but it still looked like with a stronger hand/fingers he got enough on it to keep it out. Perhaps. I suspect you're looking at it too deeply though. He just made an arse of all three to varying degrees. The first is definitely the worst of them though. As @Scary Bear suggests though, what's done is done. I don't think Clark would have done any worse on the night, fair chance he'd have done better, but Gunn is our first choice and dropping him for one bad game isn't the right thing to do. Lets hope he has a better time of it against the Swiss and Hungarians. We're not out yet. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 3 hours ago, Ross. said: Sommer, Akanji and Xhaka are miles ahead of anything we have, the rest it’s more down to mentality and attitude. For all that the Swiss have 4/5 forwards who are miles better than ours, it’s more to do with our lack of options than theirs being particularly good. Amdouni and Okofor both have huge potential for sure but aren’t there yet, Embolo is a James McFadden tribute act and the boy Duah that scored their opener was more or less a journeyman until the last couple of seasons. In the last year or so they have struggled against Romani, Israel, Belarus and Kosovo, all games they would have been winning with relative ease for most of the last decade. They are a team in transition and there for the taking if we get it right on the day. I know they toiled in qualifying so I'm hoping you're right that they're in transition They looked pretty good in beating Hungary. IMO we have something like a 25% chance of winning, 25% the draw and 50% getting beat. One thing I'm sure of is that the Tartan Army can play a big role in this game. If we're right up for this, back the team throughout and dominate the atmosphere it will surely help the players' frayed confidence. It's shaping up as one of those games when the crowd can carry a team. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMDP Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Some mad betwetting on this thread. Switzerland are a decent side who had a very good first half the other day but let's not pretend they are world beaters or miles ahead of us. They laboured through qualifying whilst we strolled through but are now clearly low on confidence. They might cuff us but with the exception of Akanji, don't have anyone world class. Same as us with Robertson. We are in awful form and might get beat but this rush to automatically tear us down is mental. We were terrible on Friday but as dominant as Switzerland were in the first 50 mins or so yesterday, they were lucky not to get pegged back to 2-2 and looked particularly susceptible to cross balls and cut backs - an area where we had great success in qualifying. At our best, we beat them. Unfortunately, I don't think we are even close to that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyline Drifter Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 22 minutes ago, JMDP said: Some mad betwetting on this thread. Switzerland are a decent side who had a very good first half the other day but let's not pretend they are world beaters or miles ahead of us. They laboured through qualifying whilst we strolled through but are now clearly low on confidence. They might cuff us but with the exception of Akanji, don't have anyone world class. Same as us with Robertson. I'd say Xhaka is closer to world class than Akanji is but they are both very good players. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJF Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 For some reason I’m growing a little cautiously optimistic ahead of this match and about our chances of qualifying in general. That may have a lot to do with the alcohol making it difficult for me to recall how bad we actually were on Friday night, but nevertheless, I think we have a fighting chance. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RudiSkacel51 Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Got to drop this 3 at the back pish! Our defence is shite, so we might aswell sacrifice that and chuck another attacking player in the line up and actually get some fecking width in the team and have a bit of a go. There was times against Germany where there was no outball and no one on the wing, we Need to change that or we will get beat again. For me it should be a 4-2-3-1 formation, I would make several changes to the starting line up, Clark Ralston Hanley Cooper Tierney Mctominay Gilmour Forrest Mcginn Robbo Shankland 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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