🔵🟡Scotland v Poland 🔴⚪

[Skyline Drifter]

3 minutes ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

Your point about crossing. For me Robertson is very guilty of getting into a position and far too often delivering a really poor cross/pass. Other players would be called out for it much more often. 

I've said before that 90% of Robertson's crosses are looking for Mo Salah at the back post. I'm not sure how long he needs to play for Scotland to realise Mo Salah won't be there.

At least we had a wide back post player late on last night. However, Ben Doak is unlikely to get on the end of crosses.

1 minute ago, No_Problemo said:

Better with the ball at his feet as opposed to football player…

Athleticism is McKenna’s main strength, he isn’t remotely slow. 

Porteous use of the ball is better than Hanley's yes. He's not a better defender.

I've spent the last three seasons watching McKenna regularly. He absolutely is slow. That and a few brain farts is why he's no longer at Forest.

[Scary Bear]

36 minutes ago, Unleash The Nade said:

Your attitude is being “ glorious in failure “, but at the end of the day it’s still failure .

Also can’t  understand your fixation with Croatia, which again shows lack of ambition  as there are lots of teams higher ranked than them , so surely if you wanted Scotland to be “ like “ another team , surely you’d pick someone else . 
 

My attitude is that we were 2-0 down and at least we had enough about us to get ourselves back to a position at 2-2 where we weren’t losing. No one likes losing. Football is all about winning. Personally, I have no time for draws, but I like a team to have the fight in it to come back into a game they’ve made a poor start to.

Croatia are a small nation who have reached two World Cup Semi-finals and a World Cup Final in recent times. Any Scotland fan would bite your hand off for that sort of history. Scotland are a small nation who have done f**k all worth talking about on the international scene for their entire history.

[No_Problemo]

1 minute ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I've said before that 90% of Robertson's crosses are looking for Mo Salah at the back post. I'm not sure how long he needs to play for Scotland to realise Mo Salah won't be there.

At least we had a wide back post player late on last night. However, Ben Doak is unlikely to get on the end of crosses.

Porteous use of the ball is better than Hanley's yes. He's not a better defender.

I've spent the last three seasons watching McKenna regularly. He absolutely is slow. That and a few brain farts is why he's no longer at Forest.

Their use of the ball was my entire point - Porteous and Hanley are now (Hanley was clearly ahead previously) at a similar level defensively. Hanley is absolutely abysmal on the ball and we need far better than him in there or we just end up playing the ball between our centre backs. There is a clip on twitter from last night of his absolute inability to even do the basics on the ball. 

Clarke has played a high line with McKenna as one of the centre backs on a few occasions. 

[Butters Scotch]

2 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

While it was always going to be the biggest stick to beat Clarke if we didn't win, I could see the logic in picking McLean.

The alternatives to play beside Gilmour and open up a space to freshen things up further forward were McTominay who's wasted as an attacking threat when he plays deeper, McGinn who lacks the positional discipline to be trusted defensively there, Christie who has never played there for Scotland and ultimately had a good game as a winger, or Barron who is worse than McLean.

I'd prefer Christie there personally but there was a credible argument that starting McLean beside Gilmour to allow Christie to play further forward and provide some attacking width is better than either not having as much width or starting one of the natural wingers in Morgan (in the same never going to be quite good enough to start for Scotland regularly category as McLean having played at a lower level for most of his career) or Doak (has started four games in his career) to get it.

Of course, whether fairly or unfairly it does play into a perception of conservatism and unwillingness to change things, the fact you then see McLean make a f**k up in the build up to the first goal only makes things worse (albeit that mistake is forgotten about if we have a competent goalkeeper to make that simple save) and we're at the point where the logic behind decisions being sound before a defeat doesn't really matter: Clarke needs to get results and once again didn't.

I could see the reasoning behind picking McClean as we needed someone more defensively minded in there alongside Gilmour but is he really our best option in there? Not only did he f**k up once with the initial pass but then a second time when he needlessly slided in, what the f**k was he thinking? We could either just put Christie in there as he does for Bournemouth or get Barron in there and get him ready for the WC qualifiers.

What was clear from this game is the lack of discipline in the midfield when it was 2-2 especially, they were several times where we had midfielders mind-numbingly sprinting towards the ball to close down the opposition only to leave huge gaps behind them where it was easy to pass into. Number of players were sliding in needlessly in the middle of the park also getting nowhere near the ball again leaving huge gaps for Poland to counter attack us in. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing in the last 20-25 mins of that second half, really amateur stuff.

[Skyline Drifter]

2 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

Their use of the ball was my entire point - Porteous and Hanley are now (Hanley was clearly ahead previously) at a similar level defensively. Hanley is absolutely abysmal on the ball and we need far better than him in there or we just end up playing the ball between our centre backs. There is a clip on twitter from last night of his absolute inability to even do the basics on the ball. 

Clarke has played a high line with McKenna as one of the centre backs on a few occasions. 

I'm not massively bothered by our centre halves ability on the ball though, particularly in a flat four. In a five there's an argument that at least one of them should be able to play out from the back but Tierney and Hendry both do so. If Hanley's playing he doesn't need to do anything more than keep it simple, defend strongly and ideally get on the end of an attacking set piece. He did that absolutely fine for 95 minutes last night. I'm not excusing the horrendous error for the goal. It's criminal. If he's dropped for it so be it, he can have no complaints. The idea that he should be permanently cast aside for it though, particularly for the equally error prone Porteous, seems daft to me though.

I'm not sure what the relevance of the Clarke / McKenna point is? Has he? Against good sides? Regardless of whether he has or hasn't, McKenna will still be our slowest defender (he's possibly quicker than Souttar but Souttar's clearly not favoured and likely wouldn't be in the squad if we had Hendry and Tierney available).

[The Moonster]

28 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I don't disagree with the overall point here, but I can't recall Hanley making many mistakes for Scotland before now.

I was a big fan of Hanley and would always defend him in debates with my mates over team selections when he first played for us. The longer his Scotland career has gone on I've noticed him making a lot of silly decisions, either through not being switched on enough or just plain daft choices. They don't always lead to goals or chances, but he no longer inspires me with any confidence. He looked a broken man at full time and at 32 you really can't be selling your team down the river with mistakes like that. Porteous will make mistakes as well, no doubt about it, but he's going to be our centre half for the best part of the next decade unless we unearth two or three in the next 5 years.

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

10 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I'm not massively bothered by our centre halves ability on the ball though, particularly in a flat four. In a five there's an argument that at least one of them should be able to play out from the back but Tierney and Hendry both do so. If Hanley's playing he doesn't need to do anything more than keep it simple, defend strongly and ideally get on the end of an attacking set piece. He did that absolutely fine for 95 minutes last night. I'm not excusing the horrendous error for the goal. It's criminal. If he's dropped for it so be it, he can have no complaints. The idea that he should be permanently cast aside for it though, particularly for the equally error prone Porteous, seems daft to me though.

I'm not sure what the relevance of the Clarke / McKenna point is? Has he? Against good sides? Regardless of whether he has or hasn't, McKenna will still be our slowest defender (he's possibly quicker than Souttar but Souttar's clearly not favoured and likely wouldn't be in the squad if we had Hendry and Tierney available).

McKenna is not slow,  but he's not particularly quick either.   He's faster than Porteous but a bit behind Hanley and Hendry statistically.

Hanley is slow in the head though

[Craigieboy]

I think changes on Sunday 

[No_Problemo]

18 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I'm not massively bothered by our centre halves ability on the ball though, particularly in a flat four. In a five there's an argument that at least one of them should be able to play out from the back but Tierney and Hendry both do so. If Hanley's playing he doesn't need to do anything more than keep it simple, defend strongly and ideally get on the end of an attacking set piece. He did that absolutely fine for 95 minutes last night. I'm not excusing the horrendous error for the goal. It's criminal. If he's dropped for it so be it, he can have no complaints. The idea that he should be permanently cast aside for it though, particularly for the equally error prone Porteous, seems daft to me though.

I'm not sure what the relevance of the Clarke / McKenna point is? Has he? Against good sides? Regardless of whether he has or hasn't, McKenna will still be our slowest defender (he's possibly quicker than Souttar but Souttar's clearly not favoured and likely wouldn't be in the squad if we had Hendry and Tierney available).

Why would you not want defenders in a four that can play the ball out? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Particularly when Ralston is the right back and McKenna is the other centre half. 

I’m not in the permanently cast aside camp tbf, just don’t think he offers enough on the ball to be a starter if it’s beside McKenna. 

He did it against Ukraine, and it suggests he isn’t slow. 

[Unleash The Nade]

37 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

My attitude is that we were 2-0 down and at least we had enough about us to get ourselves back to a position at 2-2 where we weren’t losing. No one likes losing. Football is all about winning. Personally, I have no time for draws, but I like a team to have the fight in it to come back into a game they’ve made a poor start to.

Croatia are a small nation who have reached two World Cup Semi-finals and a World Cup Final in recent times. Any Scotland fan would bite your hand off for that sort of history. Scotland are a small nation who have done f**k all worth talking about on the international scene for their entire history.

Paint it any way you like .

Your original post was still defeatist and accepting failure 

[Central Belt Caley]

I think my issue with last night is that Ralston put in 3 stinkers at the euros and still started. If he’d fired Max Johnston in and he’d had a shocker I could accept that as he’d have realised Ralston’s not upto it and tried something different. 
 

Persisting with folk just because they play for certain teams is hurting us. 
 

I’d like to see 2 of Morgan/Doak/Gauld start on Sunday on the wings. Drop Christie in beside Gilmour and Mcginn and Mclean can have a seat on the bench 

[Gaz]

Actually fizzing at last night.

Better team all over but lack of a goalscorer is severely hindering us.

Grant Hanley is no Costacurta but he is vastly experienced and should know better than to dive in. Particular in the 98th minute.

We could easily get humped by Portugal and Croatia, that point last night could have been crucial.

[shivute]

To be fair to Ralston I think he deserved a chance to show what he could do at RB rather than an unfamiliar RWB he was asked to play at the euros.

[Gaz]

1 minute ago, shivute said:

To be fair to Ralston I think he deserved a chance to show what he could do at RB rather than an unfamiliar RWB he was asked to play at the euros.

It'll be a moot point in a couple of years time anyway when Keelan Adams is in there.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

44 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

I was a big fan of Hanley and would always defend him in debates with my mates over team selections when he first played for us. The longer his Scotland career has gone on I've noticed him making a lot of silly decisions, either through not being switched on enough or just plain daft choices. They don't always lead to goals or chances, but he no longer inspires me with any confidence. He looked a broken man at full time and at 32 you really can't be selling your team down the river with mistakes like that. Porteous will make mistakes as well, no doubt about it, but he's going to be our centre half for the best part of the next decade unless we unearth two or three in the next 5 years.

Hanley has always looked and played like Big Boab from River City with a Scotland strip on.

[Brechin City FC]

I thought we played very well last night for 90+ minutes, barring the 3 individual brainfarts that cost us goals.  It's almost impressive just how often mistakes in a Scotland shirt lead to goals (Granted two of them were penalties last night).

I've seen a lot of posts suggesting Clarke got the team wrong, and that the likes of Ralston, McLean and Hanley should be 'nowhere near the team' - without offering any actual alternatives.  I think given the players available, he got it spot on.  Ralston played very well, penalty incident aside.  McLean alongside Gilmour gave McTominay the freedom to get forward (and he was the best player on the park by a country mile because of this).  He was also unfortunate with the handball for the disallowed goal.  Hanley made the mistake at the end but nobody is telling me if that was McKenna/Porteous/Souttar/Hendry they would be surprised either, and Hanley was one of our better players at the Euros.

The negatives were glaring - we are prone to individual errors and have a lack of depth outside our best XI. The positives for me completely outweigh this - The new system worked and allowed our best players the freedom to do their thing.

I'm sure there will be changes for the Portugal game, but they won't be knee-jerk decisions on single incidents from last night.

[Frankie S]

Thought we played well last night, (a huge improvement from the insipid displays in Germany - which makes the Hungary game in particular all the more frustrating in retrospect), but three individual errors cost us. McLean and Ralston aren’t good enough to be starters, but in Ralston’s case it’s needs must, and other than his rash lunge to give away the penalty, he did quite well. Admittedly, when it’s a game-changing error like that, it’s a huge caveat. Not sure we have any better options at the moment though. Hickey, who I thought was outstanding in qualifying, and is one of our small core of genuine quality players, is a huge miss.

I can’t understand Clarke’s resistance to moving Christie back to partner Gilmour in the middle, as he’s playing a similar role quite effectively for his club these days, and Christie doesn’t really offer much in terms of a threat farther forward any more (if he ever did). He’s a better footballer than McLean though, so I’d try him further back.

Our centre half options are limited, and Hanley’s usually one of the better ones, but his rash challenge at the end was as brainless as Ralston’s in the first half.

I wouldn’t blame Gunn for the first goal - it was right in the corner, in off the post, and took a wicked bounce up off the surface. He might have saved the second penalty, but the fault lay with McGinn and Hanley there.

I don’t love any of our options up front, but Dykes gives the team a better shape than the others. I’ve never been remotely convinced that Shankland is the answer. Tend to agree with Skyline Drifter that he looked off the pace after coming on last night, but I’ve thought that almost every time I’ve seen him for Scotland.

On the positive side, the Napoli new recruits, McTominay and Gilmour were both superb. We’re lucky to have these two. We looked weaker in midfield as soon as Clarke took Gilmour off. McTominay remains our primary goal threat, but glad to see Gilmour getting his first competitive senior goal (I was in Lille when he scored against France in the friendly match).

Doak has certainly got something - raw pace and a bit of the ‘X factor’ that we’ve been missing going forward for so long. Wish he would get his head up more, but he did well in the build up to McTominay’s goal. I’m not sure I’d start him yet, but he looks like a good option as an impact sub. Thought Gauld looked good when he came on. I’d consider starting him in the role Christie occupied last night, dropping McLean and moving Christie back beside Gilmour.

Can’t see us getting anything out of Portugal away - just hoping for a decent performance, but we’ll need to cut out the individual errors to avoid a morale-sapping heavy defeat.

Edited September 6 by Frankie S

[BB_Bino]

2 minutes ago, Frankie S said:

Thought we played well last night, (a huge improvement from the insipid displays in Germany - which makes the Hungary game in particular all the more frustrating in retrospect), but three individual errors cost us. McLean and Ralston aren’t good enough to be starters, but in Ralston’s case it’s need must, and other than his rash lunge to give away the penalty, he did quite well. Admittedly, when it’s a game-changing error like that, it’s a huge caveat. Not sure we have any better options at the moment though. Hickey, who I thought was outstanding in qualifying, and is one of our small core of genuine quality players, is a huge miss.

I can’t understand Clarke’s resistance to moving Christie back to partner Gilmour in the middle, as he’s playing a similar role quite effectively for his club these days, and Christie doesn’t really offer much in terms of a threat farther forward any more (if he ever did). He’s a better footballer than McLean though, so I’d try him further back.

Our centre half options are limited, and Hanley’s usually one of the better ones, but his rash challenge at the end was as brainless as Ralston’s in the first half.

I wouldn’t blame Gunn for the first goal - it was right in the corner, in off the post, and took a wicked bounce up off the surface. He might have saved the second penalty, but the fault lay with McGinn and Hanley there.

I don’t love any of our options up front, but Dykes gives the team a better shape than the others. I’ve never been remotely convinced that Shankland is the answer. Tend to agree with Skyline Drifter that he looked off the pace after coming on last night, but I’ve thought that almost every time I’ve seen him for Scotland.

On the positive side, the Napoli new recruits, McTominay and Gilmour were both superb. We’re lucky to have these two. We looked weaker in midfield as soon as Clarke took Gilmour off. McTominay remains our primary goal threat, but glad to see Gilmour getting his first competitive senior goal (I was in Lille when he scored against France in the friendly match).

Doak has certainly got something - raw pace and a bit of the ‘X factor’ that we’ve been missing going forward for so long. Wish he would get his head up more, but he did well in the build up to McTominay’s goal. I’m not sure I’d start him yet, but he looks like a good option as an impact sub. Thought Gauld looked good when he came on. I’d consider starting him in the role Christie occupied last night, dropping McLean and moving Christie back beside Gilmour.

Can’t see us getting anything out of Portugal away, but just hoping for a decent performance, but we’ll need to cut out the individual errors to avoid a morale-sapping heavy defeat.

Just had to delete my post, that I had been typing away for about 10 mins, because you’ve said it @Frankie S.

spot on

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I've said before that 90% of Robertson's crosses are looking for Mo Salah at the back post. I'm not sure how long he needs to play for Scotland to realise Mo Salah won't be there.

At least we had a wide back post player late on last night. However, Ben Doak is unlikely to get on the end of crosses.

Aye, I'm surprised that doesn't get mentioned more - either we need someone to run to the far post, or he needs to play the ball in to where his teammates always are. So many wasted attacks, and it's incredible that this hasn't been sorted.

2 minutes ago, Brechin City FC said:

I've seen a lot of posts suggesting Clarke got the team wrong, and that the likes of Ralston, McLean and Hanley should be 'nowhere near the team' - without offering any actual alternatives.

Welcome to the Tartan Army subforum. Folk have this odd idea that, if your best players aren't good enough, there must be better ones just kicking their heels somewhere and the manager is too lazy to look for them.

[Richey Edwards]

Scotland have won the same number of football matches in 2024 as San Marino.