The End Of The Line - Players

[TheScarf]

14 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Tierney, McGinn, McTominay, Gilmour, and McGregor into the same team that we’ve ended up doing what England do - playing our strongest players at the expense of an effective tactical setup.

 

6 minutes ago, DukDukGoose said:

I feel we suffer from the same issues as England. We try to shoe horn all of our best players in to a line up and then it gets sussed or we're scrambling about trying to push square pegs in to round holes when there's an injury.

This is exactly one of the main issues.

[Richey Edwards]

Grant Hanley a better finish away from having statues built of him in every town in Scotland.

[TheScarf]

1 minute ago, Richey Edwards said:

Grant Hanley a better finish away from having statues built of him in every town in Scotland.

Towns only though, no cities, villages, and certainly no hamlets.

[qos_75]

8 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

Grant Hanley a better finish away from having statues built of him in every town in Scotland.

Sadly our two best chances of the tournament fell to him. Fair play to him being in the position, but you need to finish at least one of those. 

Edited June 24 by qos_75

[Gordon EF]

2 hours ago, Coooombe said:

 

I'd like to see us go 433 

Gunn

Hickey Hendry Porteous/McKenna Robertson

Ferguson Gilmour McTominay

Doak Dykes McGinn

Aye. 5 at the back / 3 centre halves needs binned. As you say, it relies on Tierney being fit, which we can't always count on.

Really wouldn't mind going something like...

Gunn

Hickey - Porteuous/Hendry - McKenna - Tierney/Doig

Gilmour - McGinn

Doak - Ferguson - Robertson

McTominay

Tierney when he's fit, Doig when he's not. Ferguson and McTominay rotating between 9 and 10. And I still think Robbo can play as an out and out winger.

[PrestersKTID]

Definitely need a freshen up.

Forrest, Jack, Cooper, Mclean all too old and hardly play anyway.

Armstrong been a good servant but we need to build for future.

Hanley could maybe squeeze another campaign out of.

 

Clarke if he stays should be going back to the 4-3-3 that worked so well for Killie imo. The 3-5-2 works only if Tierney and Hickey are fit.

Keep and Adams or Dykes up top but have a Doak wide right and a Christie or someone else wide left.

Just accept that the 4 of mcgregor, gilmour, mctominay and mcginn cant all play. Mcgregor probably the one to miss out imo.

If all fit, Robertson Tierney/Mckenna Porteous/Hanley Hickey along the back. You'd have Hendry in reserve with hopefully some new blood.  

 

[Jives Miguel]

 

26 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

We need to concern ourselves less by who needs to be on the way out, and more who needs to be on the way in.

None of the players we rely on heavily are of an age, or reducing in capability such that they need to be put out to pasture.

What is as clear as it ever has been, is that we’ve reached the limit of what a team can do without pace, trickery, or guile. 

Everyone else who plays 3 or 5atb has wingers who can run at centre halves and full backs. We’ve seen it in all 3 games, and saw it against Norway, Georgia and Spain.

We’ve focused so much on how to fit Tierney, McGinn, McTominay, Gilmour, and McGregor into the same team that we’ve ended up doing what England do - playing our strongest players at the expense of an effective tactical setup.

Players like Morgan, and hopefully soon enough, Doak, are our equivalent of what everyone else plays with. Perhaps we only play with one, with McTominay or McGinn a much slower version on the other side, but we’ll always struggle when playing one-dimensional football in third gear.

Our strikers aren’t remotely good enough in the current arrangement, but frankly speaking, Lewandowski or Kane wouldn’t have helped this week since we created F all in the last third. 

 

18 minutes ago, DukDukGoose said:

I expect to get heavily red dotted for this but f**k it.

I feel we suffer from the same issues as England. We try to shoe horn all of our best players in to a line up and then it gets sussed or we're scrambling about trying to push square pegs in to round holes when there's an injury.

Look at all the countries who go deep in these tournaments. They're built around a team that fits the system, rather than finding a system to fit the team.

Folk were calling for Shankland all tournament. Brilliant player in a Hearts team that is built around him. He's going to struggle playing the role Clarke expects of his striker.

I'm not suggesting Simon Murray should be playing for Scotland, but the way we're set up suits a player with his skillset. You're not expected to score, you're there to do the donkey work for the other players. Instead we'll force finishers or attacking midfielders in to the role. It's obviously an exaggerated comparison but France were miles better with Giroud as foil for Mbappe rather than Benzema.

I just want to see a coach come in with a clear sense of how to play, then pick the players to play it rather than deciding Robertson, Tierney, Hickey, McGinn, Gilmour, McTominay and McGregor need to play before you've considered how you're going to do it.

 

I don't see any other set up we can play that would be more effective, for the time being. We have no wingers, no decent strikers and our attacking midfielders are in the mould of industrious players like McGinn and Ferguson rather than your typical number 10. Regardless, I don't think you can say that Clarke is just trying to shoehorn the best players we have into our team, we've been playing this way and this system for the vast majority of his tenure. We've been playing it before Giilmour and Hickey came into the set-up, he used McTominay in defence at the start of it, we've stuck with it when Tierney's not been fit, getting another striker in in Adams didn't change it. It's clearly the system he believes gets the best out of the players available to us, rightly or wrongly.

 

Doak might be the one that encourages a change, but still a while away from him being a cast iron member of the squad.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

25 minutes ago, Jives Miguel said:

 

 

 

I don't see any other set up we can play that would be more effective, for the time being. We have no wingers, no decent strikers and our attacking midfielders are in the mould of industrious players like McGinn and Ferguson rather than your typical number 10. Regardless, I don't think you can say that Clarke is just trying to shoehorn the best players we have into our team, we've been playing this way and this system for the vast majority of his tenure. We've been playing it before Giilmour and Hickey came into the set-up, he used McTominay in defence at the start of it, we've stuck with it when Tierney's not been fit, getting another striker in in Adams didn't change it. It's clearly the system he believes gets the best out of the players available to us, rightly or wrongly.

 

Doak might be the one that encourages a change, but still a while away from him being a cast iron member of the squad.

I think at this stage we’ve been shown up as to our limitations. Teams with players less talented or similarly talented to us are objectively doing better.

Perhaps some of that is due the massive imbalance we have on the right-side, but we’ve known for some time that we don’t look like breaking down a low block. Northern Ireland showed it, and Hungary nullified us completely.

Of course Clarke has been shoehorning players in - that’s why we play almost every game with four centrally-minded midfielders.

As to whether no other option would be more effective, we probably couldn’t have been less effective in these games…!

Ironically, despite the Germany result, our defence was pretty effective. We gave Switzerland a goal, and conceded to Hungary when attacking with 10 men.

It needs evolution - Gilmour ran the entire first half (at least until McGregor gave the ball away and we didn’t see it from 30-40 minutes) but we had nobody taking the ball from him higher up the pitch and able or willing to beat a man.

What’s clear is that without something changing, the NL is going to be quite the slog. 

Edited June 24 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[ArabFC]

There isn't any players who necessarily need booted, but we do need a change-up, that much is clear and is slightly more difficult, which is one reason why Clarke isn't the man to do it.

The era of choosing a system for the team to accommodate Robertson/Tierney should be at an end. There's no doubt it was effective for it's time, but Robertson is clearly on the downward curve now and Tierney has never been a constant. Time to grow some balls and pick one or the other.

Also, McGregor while still a player I would trust to play when needed, needs to be replaced as the starter by someone who can better complement Gilmour.

Personally I'd reign in McGinn a bit and have his all action style in there. McTominay as an 8/10 to make those runs. Hell, you've got Ferguson to throw in there now too.

Doak out wide, with someone like Christie on the other flank covering inside a little.

Obviously that leaves only 4 at the back, but I'm content with that.

[BB_Bino]

1 hour ago, ArabFC said:

There isn't any players who necessarily need booted, but we do need a change-up, that much is clear and is slightly more difficult, which is one reason why Clarke isn't the man to do it.

Totally agree, every squad at every level needs a refresh every few years, that's why the likes of Alex Ferguson stay at the top for a long time as well as they know when to do it, even if it means cutting fans favourites.

I'm reading the names of those that others think needed booted and I don't disagree with it, what I would say is that we probably need refreshed across the board, but the players need to be identified first. The Nations League, as difficult as it's going to be, needs to be used for that and the ideas and "new blood" need to be bedded in before the World Cup Qualifiers kick off in 2025.

Of the current squad, I think you build around Gunn, Tierney, Hickey, Patterson, Porteous, Henry, Gilmour, McTominay and Ferguson and your lead by Robertson & McGinn. Other players like Christie, McGregor, Adams etc etc to be there but maybe have less of a reliance, and you look to blood Conway, Doak, Johnston, Doig, Barron and Milller. There's 20 players already and that's without even mentioning you Back Up Goalkeepers (Clark and a Youngster for me), and the likes of Dykes, Shankland, Soutter, Armstrong etc etc who still have a couple of campaigns in them.

[Basile Boli]

For the next year or two the team should look along the lines of this:

Adams Conway

Armstrong
McTominay Ferguson
Gilmour

Robertson McKenna Souttar Hickey

Gunn

442 Diamond.

Glaring weaknesses in the front 3, centre halves and GK but probably as good as you’re going to get. Hopefully over the next 12-18 months Doak can develop and we can try and play with a semblance of width - something we’ve not had for a long time. Then you just need to find another competent winger to go alongside him.

[JS_FFC]

We’ve had 38 players called up in the past year. Well 39, but that includes Elliott Anderson who we can’t count on to ever actually play for Scotland (and that performance last night won’t help to convince him). I’d broadly group them into the following categories:

Vital building blocks (5)

Andy Robertson, Billy Gilmour, John McGinn, Scott McTominay, Aaron Hickey 

 

Key squad players (8)

Jack Hendry, Scott McKenna, Ryan Christie, Grant Hanley, Ryan Porteous, Stuart Armstrong, Callum McGregor, Lewis Ferguson

 

Youngsters, time to make the leap into key squad players (3)

Ben Doak, Josh Doig, Tommy Conway

Perma-crocked, anything we get is a bonus (2)

Kieran Tierney, John Souttar

 

Not really good enough, but will still be there out of necessity (7)

Angus Gunn, Zander Clark, Liam Kelly, Nathan Patterson, Che Adams, Lyndon Dykes, Lawrence Shankland

 

Fringe squad, injury cover type player (8)

Greg Taylor, Max Johnston, Tony Ralston, Ross McCrorie, Lewis Morgan, Robby McCrorie, Jacob Brown, Kevin Nisbet

Should retire or be dropped (5)

Liam Cooper, Ryan Jack, Kenny McLean, James Forrest, Craig Gordon

[Chripper]

6 hours ago, Chripper said:

Cooper, Armstrong, Forrest, Hanley, Jack.

Adding McLean to the list.

[Steve Carrella]

We can make lists all day long but as long as Clarke is in charge he will persist in sticking to a formation  that 50% of the players don't fit -  that encompasses defence,  midfield and the poor sod stuck up front. There is the basis of a decent team but it needs someone to focus on the varying individual abilities and build a playing style that suits them and,  importantly,  they have faith in. 

[Gordopolis]

I know the purpose of this thread is listing players who are "done", but I don't think that's really all that helpful. 

What's "done" is the toolkit that brought us our recent success in qualifying and in the Nations League - namely the Tierney/Robbo overlap and the McGinn/McT late runs and goals from midfield.

Not to say that we can't use them again in future, just that it's clearly not working to use them as it default anymore. Opposition teams have us figured out 

To that end, it's probably more a change of system\shape that should be driving a squad refresh. So instead of ditching anyone based on age, perhaps we should be easing out players who don't fit - for talking sake - a 433 built around pace and a classic goal threat #9

So you'd perhaps phase out Armstrong (a skilful attacking mf, but not a rapid winger) in favour of Doak. That sort of thing.

But none of the current pool are "done" in any objective sense.

 

[JS_FFC]

I would love to build a team around this XI

 

Gunn

 

Hickey - Hendry - McKenna - Robertson

 

Ferguson - Gilmour - McTominay

 

McGinn - Adams - Doak

 

Gunn and Adams aren’t really good enough, but they’re the best we have at the moment.

 

Then Hanley, Souttar, Tierney, McGregor, Christie, Porteous, Patterson, Dykes, Doig and Conway making up the main replacements.

[gerrymcc1978]

12 hours ago, gerrymcc1978 said:

aye i'd agree with this. I wish hendry was added to this list too, never seen a  defender make so many poor decisions in my life.

ArabFc thinks hendrys decent ? Ban him

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

Baffled at the folk who watched Adams and Shankland over the last 10 days and still think Adams is a better player

[Maltese falcon]

30 minutes ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

Baffled at the folk who watched Adams and Shankland over the last 10 days and still think Adams is a better player

We have to start being honest with ourselves.

Everybody recognizes what a great season Shankland has had and he is undoubtedly a better finisher than Adams.

However the reason Celtic and Rangers sign better players is because have more money.  The better players give or take go to the leagues/teams where more money is available.

English Clubs have more money and are signing up Scottish youngsters.  Che Adams is not a great striker but is good enough for Eng Lower Prem or champsionship money.

if Shankland was considered good enough he probably would have been attracting similar moneu