24th out of 24

[2426255]

2 hours ago, VictorOnopko said:

it isn't just about the result, it's the manner of the Hungary failure which was galling, and very, very easy to predict upon seeing the lineup, pre-match (no changes except to replace Tierney; exactly the same predictable, negative tactics).

2. If you hold "fans" in such contempt, and believe that no criticism or discussion is worthwhile because it's all just hindsight and Steve Clarke is always right (or that there's no point in discussing hypotheticals), then why on earth do you spend so much time posting/spamming the Scotland threads on this forum, literally a website for football fans to debate football?

 

If Scotland win, this discussion isn't happening. It's reactionary, outcome based and emotional.

The difference in reaction between the Hungary and Norway games is incredible. Two late goals for Scotland, a late goal for Hungary: Both coin flip games, two similar levels of performance.

I don't hold all fans in contempt. I wanted to hear what you wanted Clarke to do and your answer just led me back to the above.

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

12 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

The difference in reaction between the Hungary and Norway games is incredible. Two late goals for Scotland, a late goal for Hungary: Both coin flip games, two similar levels of performance.

A ludicrous comparison if you're talking about it being outcome based reaction.   Norway the approach made sense regardless of the outcome  because we found ourselves in a position where a draw was a great result in the context of the group.  Hungary was win or go home (barring a highly unlikely set of results).

As soon as Tierney got injured,  the consensus among the travelling fans was we should play a 4.  That's not hindsight,  it's perfectly sensible reading of the dynamics of the group.   Nobody was saying go gung-ho but we needed more attacking impetus as we weren't creating much.  Christie for one of the CHs would have been a pretty straightforward change,  and no t many were happy with the starting line up,  especially when it became clear 15 minutes on they were happy to hit on the break.   Even at that point the obvious thing to do was give Hendry more license to carry the ball out of defence.

The 2nd half was desperate tactically and that's not outcome bias

[VictorOnopko]

48 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

If Scotland win, this discussion isn't happening. It's reactionary, outcome based and emotional.

The difference in reaction between the Hungary and Norway games is incredible. Two late goals for Scotland, a late goal for Hungary: Both coin flip games, two similar levels of performance.

I don't hold all fans in contempt. I wanted to hear what you wanted Clarke to do and your answer just led me back to the above.

If Scotland won then the response would have been a mixture of elation and "that was lucky given how we set up". We lost a must-win, all or nothing game at least in part because of terrible selection and tactics and it's surprising to say the least that you, as a very very frequent poster, are so completely unwilling to discuss the manager's decisions.

Of course football fans will react to results/outcomes but as I keep suggesting to you, and you keep ignoring - 95% of the aftermath chat has been about performance, not results. If the team had given their all in a shape and approach suited to the match at hand, most folk would be saying oh well, they did their best. It's also frankly very odd to dismiss the discussion on here as "emotional"  - comes across as another wee snide dig at the "fans" you have contempt for, the silly emotional fools.

One question before I give this up. Did you think Clarke handled the interview after the game well, with the Argentinian ref comments? I ask because I remember you posting various tedious interviews in the past mostly full of platitudes from him, so you presumably hold a view on his media handling at least, even if you refuse to discuss/admit he made tactical mistakes?

 

 

Edited Saturday at 12:49 by VictorOnopko

[Fratelli]

1 hour ago, 2426255 said:

If Scotland win, this discussion isn't happening. It's reactionary, outcome based and emotional.

The difference in reaction between the Hungary and Norway games is incredible. Two late goals for Scotland, a late goal for Hungary: Both coin flip games, two similar levels of performance.

I don't hold all fans in contempt. I wanted to hear what you wanted Clarke to do and your answer just led me back to the above.

 

The set up and approach against Hungary was being questioned and criticised widely during the game - long, long before they scored. There was also a lot of chat about our performance against Switzerland not being great despite the positive result.

Edited Saturday at 13:45 by Fratelli

[Butters Scotch]

2 hours ago, VictorOnopko said:

If Scotland won then the response would have been a mixture of elation and "that was lucky given how we set up". We lost a must-win, all or nothing game at least in part because of terrible selection and tactics and it's surprising to say the least that you, as a very very frequent poster, are so completely unwilling to discuss the manager's decisions.

Of course football fans will react to results/outcomes but as I keep suggesting to you, and you keep ignoring - 95% of the aftermath chat has been about performance, not results. If the team had given their all in a shape and approach suited to the match at hand, most folk would be saying oh well, they did their best. It's also frankly very odd to dismiss the discussion on here as "emotional"  - comes across as another wee snide dig at the "fans" you have contempt for, the silly emotional fools.

One question before I give this up. Did you think Clarke handled the interview after the game well, with the Argentinian ref comments? I ask because I remember you posting various tedious interviews in the past mostly full of platitudes from him, so you presumably hold a view on his media handling at least, even if you refuse to discuss/admit he made tactical mistakes?

 

 

Numbers is Clarke's no 1 fanboy, you won't get anywhere with him on this topic.

He also never admits to when he is wrong and as you've pointed out rightfully, he has a a lot of contempt for other posters. We are just silly little people to him that are all emotional and can't see the bigger picture of things.

It's all very ironic. 

[nate]

The facts say Safety Steve is the worst coach at the Euros. We can say this with certainty because other teams with similarly mediocre squads - at least 3 of them - are in the knockouts. They played to their strengths. Their coaches were able to adapt to changing circumstances over 3 matches in a short space of time. They improvised when necessary. Clarke doesn’t have the mentality to do this. He is a very conservative man. He’s proved himself the best since Brown in the long haul of qualifications, but his tournament performances have been worse than bad (2 points from 18!). You can invent excuses but you can’t argue with the facts. 24 out of 24 is where we deserve to be after those 3 performances. Best fans (maybe), worst team (definitely). I put it to the old timers on here that Germany 24 was worse than Argentina 78. At least we showed up for the final, must-win match back then. 

[Chripper]

In fairness, in terms of showing contempt, if a Scotland fan thinks that a back (back three + goalkeeper) which contains two players from the English Championship, Saudi League and one from the Danish league, should be able to compete at the top level of European football, realms of reality has very much left the building.

Add to that a central midfielder from the SPL and a striker from the English Championship.

Then in the same breath a Scotland fan called Austria "jobbers", even though 7 of their previous XI play in Serie A/German Bundesliga.

Then I had someone tell me that Kobbie Mainoo is a world class player because he's playing for club and country at 19.

If that's not enough, someone here scoffed at the notion of Scotland producing world class players.

I'm all for showing respect, but come on. Some opinions have more credence than others.

I tend to show everyone respect (unless they loss that privilege) but lots of Scottish football fans are stuck in the dark ages.

I'm sure there are still some people who take the piss out of Ian Cathro for using a laptop on the bench.

Dark ages.

[Butters Scotch]

9 minutes ago, Chripper said:

In fairness, in terms of showing contempt, if a Scotland fan thinks that a back (back three + goalkeeper) which contains two players from the English Championship, Saudi League and one from the Danish league, should be able to compete at the top level of European football, realms of reality has very much left the building.

Add to that a central midfielder from the SPL and a striker from the English Championship.

Then in the same breath a Scotland fan called Austria "jobbers", even though 7 of their previous XI play in Serie A/German Bundesliga.

Then I had someone tell me that Kobbie Mainoo is a world class player because he's playing for club and country at 19.

If that's not enough, someone here scoffed at the notion of Scotland producing world class players.

I'm all for showing respect, but come on. Some opinions have more credence than others.

I tend to show everyone respect (unless they loss that privilege) but lots of Scottish football fans are stuck in the dark ages.

 

I'm sure there are still some people who take the piss out of Ian Cathro for using a laptop on the bench.

Dark ages.

Eh what you on about now? Are you forgetting you were the one saying you 'expected' Scotland to win the whole euros.... 

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, Butters Scotch said:

Numbers is Clarke's no 1 fanboy, you won't get anywhere with him on this topic.

He also never admits to when he is wrong and as you've pointed out rightfully, he has a a lot of contempt for other posters. 

Yes, this is where he comes down.  

It was only last week on the Austin MacPhee thread that he was exposed, rather embarrassingly, as lacking even a basic grasp of the offside rule.  He doubled down on it briefly, then just went quiet for a bit.  He couldn't display humility in the face of being humbled.

 

I do think he has a point regarding outcome bias, but the best example of it came from our game in Oslo last year, rather from anything apparent in the last fortnight.   In this tournament, the outcomes have been in line with our contributions.

[Arthurlie1981]

8 hours ago, 2426255 said:

Please, don't feel the need to apologise. It might be worth reconsidering that concept given Ross McCrorie finished his season with Bristol City on May-4th and the Gibraltar game was June-3rd. If you think that's the only example, you'll be disappointed. 

Using that category the only players whose teams fall into that category were Porteous, McCrorie perhaps Hendry (not sure). Not sure about McKenna either as he missed Copenhagen’s game in May. Even if the rest didn’t play games they would still be training.
 

[2426255]

4 hours ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

A ludicrous comparison if you're talking about it being outcome based reaction.  Norway the approach made sense regardless of the outcome because we found ourselves in a position where a draw was a great result in the context of the group.  Hungary was win or go home.

If the Norway game had ended in a 1-nil defeat then the reaction would have been negative.

If you look back at the Norway thread before Dykes scored you'll  get a taste of that.

4 hours ago, VictorOnopko said:

95% of the aftermath chat has been about performance, not results.

The performance is only discussed if the result is poor. If we win the best you get is: 'we are sum team'.

This discussion and related forum topics are because of the outcome of the game.

[Monkey Tennis]

10 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

If the Norway game had ended in a 1-nil defeat then the reaction would have been negative.

If you look back at the Norway thread before Dykes scored you'll  get a taste of that.

The performance is only discussed if the result is poor. If we win the best you get is: 'we are sum team'.

This discussion and related forum topics are because of the outcome of the game.

There's a lot of truth in this.  

However, we'd have needed plenty luck for the outcomes to have been different given how little threat we carried.

It can happen, with Norway away last year a great example, but it was unlikely.

[Bing.McCrosby]

1 hour ago, 2426255 said:

If the Norway game had ended in a 1-nil defeat then the reaction would have been negative.

If you look back at the Norway thread before Dykes scored you'll  get a taste of that.

The performance is only discussed if the result is poor. If we win the best you get is: 'we are sum team'.

This discussion and related forum topics are because of the outcome of the game.

It'd hard to keep track of all these imaginary games and results, and the perceived fans reactions to the imaginary results tbh.

We still bombed out the euros in record breakingly bad fashion didn't we tho.

[eez-eh]

7 hours ago, 2426255 said:

If Scotland win, this discussion isn't happening. It's reactionary, outcome based and emotional.

The difference in reaction between the Hungary and Norway games is incredible. Two late goals for Scotland, a late goal for Hungary: Both coin flip games, two similar levels of performance.

I don't hold all fans in contempt. I wanted to hear what you wanted Clarke to do and your answer just led me back to the above.

There is however a correlation between poor performances and poor outcomes. The outcome bias thing has merit with some things - such as people declaring a player is past it after one or two poor game - but using it to obfuscate a series of pish performances doesn’t hold much weight.

Edited Saturday at 19:10 by eez-eh

[2426255]

12 hours ago, eez-eh said:

There is however a correlation between poor performances and poor outcomes.

Gareth Southgate mentioned it in an interview yesterday: "We live in a world where the outcome determines the narrative". 

The performance is poor because because of the outcome. Previous examples of poor performances (Moldova, Faroe Islands, Norway, Israel) where the desired outcome is achieved lead to a discussion different to that of the Hungary game. Some poor performances have yielded the most memorable and thrilling victories.

If Scotland had beaten Hungary 1-nil with that performance level then we wouldn't be seeing this reaction. The driver for fans unhappiness with the performance is the outcome and that's why I see this entire discussion essentially as a toys out the pram scenario from the fans.

[Butters Scotch]

13 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Gareth Southgate mentioned it in an interview yesterday: "We live in a world where the outcome determines the narrative". 

 

The performance is pish because because of the outcome. If we get what we need it's not discussed. There are previous examples of 'pish performances' where we've got what we need and the following discussion isn't similar to the critique of the Hungary game (Moldova, Faroe Islands, Norway, Israel). The discussion can even be overwhelmingly positive and even euphoric: Some poor performances have yielded the most memorable and thrilling victories.

If Scotland had beaten Hungary 1-nil with that performance level then we wouldn't be seeing this reaction. The only reason for that is the outcome and that's why I see this discussion essentially as a toys out the pram scenario from the fans.

There is no doubt that some folk throw their toys out the pram after bad results, it happens at club level all the time, managers and players being written off after one bad game or losing a high profile match when there is a lot at stake. 

However, you seem to forget we have been poor for a while now and the fact of the matter is we were poor at the tournament once again.  Lost to a shit team in a very winnable game, for that the fans have every right to be angry. You need to let this go man. 

[immcinto]

10 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

 

If Scotland had beaten Hungary 1-nil with that performance level then we wouldn't be seeing this reaction. The driver for fans unhappiness with the performance is the outcome and that's why I see this entire discussion essentially as a toys out the pram scenario from the fans.

In  the last AFCON, Ivory Coast sneaked through their group as 3rd place qualifiers with 3 pts. They sacked their manager before the knockout round started. Went on to win the tournament. 

 

Stop accepting mediocrity.

[2426255]

13 minutes ago, immcinto said:

In  the last AFCON, Ivory Coast sneaked through their group as 3rd place qualifiers with 3 pts. They sacked their manager before the knockout round started. Went on to win the tournament. 

 

Stop accepting mediocrity.

Greece won the Euros in 2004, so that should be our aspiration. If they can do it: so can we. Crazy argument.

Edited yesterday at 08:17 by 2426255

[VictorOnopko]

14 hours ago, 2426255 said:

If the Norway game had ended in a 1-nil defeat then the reaction would have been negative.

If you look back at the Norway thread before Dykes scored you'll  get a taste of that.

The performance is only discussed if the result is poor. If we win the best you get is: 'we are sum team'.

This discussion and related forum topics are because of the outcome of the game.

OK, I understand your position which is that we shouldn't discuss a poor outcome because it could have been different and then we wouldn't have been talking about it.  It's a bit of a bizarre view, given that the outcome quite clearly emerges from various decisions made by the manager and players, but there's no point in trying to discuss the team selection, tactics, approach, or performance with you when you doggedly trot out the same line over and over again.

However, another football forum talking point is Clarke's interview. You blanked the question I put to you yesterday: Did you think Clarke handled the interview after the game well, with the Argentinian ref comments? Any views on his reaction, and media handling, and what it says about him?

[2426255]

 

13 minutes ago, VictorOnopko said:

OK, I understand your position which is that we shouldn't discuss a poor outcome because it could have been different and then we wouldn't have been talking about it.  It's a bit of a bizarre view, given that the outcome quite clearly emerges from various decisions made by the manager and players, but there's no point in trying to discuss the team selection, tactics, approach, or performance with you when you doggedly trot out the same line over and over again.

However, another football forum talking point is Clarke's interview. You blanked the question I put to you yesterday: Did you think Clarke handled the interview after the game well, with the Argentinian ref comments? Any views on his reaction, and media handling, and what it says about him?

Only in part: The outcome isn't only related to decisions made by the manager and players. For example, the other team also have a say in proceedings.

I've already answered that question.

On 24/06/2024 at 16:56, 2426255 said:

The referee comments were out of order. So we can agree on that, I didn't expect that from him given his stance on Sectarianism.

I thought taken at face value the comments made about the referee were poor, irrational and not in keeping with someone who has fought hard against sectarianism. I don't have a strong view on how the media have handled it, but Clarke was obviously emotional, reactionary and perhaps would regret saying that in the cold light of day.

If I were his manager at the SFA then I would sit down with him and ask him why he said that. I wouldn't jump to conclusions, but if it turns out he is an imperialist racist and was implying that an Argentinean ref wasn't ever going to let a UK team win because of the Falklands War then I'd support him being sacked.