Portugal v Scotland

[Crùbag]

9 hours ago, BucksburnDandy said:

Cruel, but yet again, two dreadful defensive mistakes kill us. This week alone, mistakes by Gunn, McKenna, McLean, McGinn, Ralston, and Hanley have all contributed to goals against.

 

Two reasonable performances undone by mediocre errors. Not sure how we get out this rut.

Yeah, losing is the default now. Clarke too stubborn and conservative to change things.

[RandomGuy.]

9 hours ago, Jedi2 said:

At least there are signs of the likes of Doak, Conway, Morgan coming through.

Worth mentioning Morgan turns 28 in a few weeks.

[MarkoP]

10 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

It’s some belief system they have. It’s the poor attitude of fans thats the reason for the Scottish national football teams patchy to poor performance throughout its history. 

Nothing to do with poor facilities, poor identification and development of young talent, and lack of an effective pathway from youth to adult football.

Not what I said, mock away if you feel better for it.

Lack of self confidence is a significant contributor to how Scotland sees and portrays itself to the world. This has ramifications in how we deal with changing or progress our country. In sport as well as socio political matters. I’d argue your second paragraph has a lot to do with this mentality, it’s not a stand alone separate thing. There’s no convincing the downtrodden though.

Stevie Clarke for all his coaching acumen is firmly in the colonised mindset camp where Scotland and being Scottish is a built in disadvantage to any radical forward thinking, this manifests itself in his expectations for the team.

I doubt he has ever seriously considered that fact.

Half of Scots haven’t and stubbornly refuse to

Edited September 9 by MarkoP

[Scary Bear]

10 minutes ago, MarkoP said:

Not what I said, mock away if you feel better for it.

Lack of self confidence is a significant contributor to how Scotland sees and portrays itself to the world. This has ramifications in how we deal with changing or progress our country. In sport as well as socio political matters. I’d argue your second paragraph has a lot to do with this mentality, it’s not a stand alone separate thing. There’s no convincing the downtrodden though.

Stevie Clarke for all his coaching acumen is firmly in the colonised mindset camp where Scotland and being Scottish is a built in disadvantage to any radical forward thinking, this manifests itself in his expectations for the team.

I doubt he has ever seriously considered that fact.

Half of Scots haven’t and stubbornly refuse to

It was actually @Thumper and @Unleash The Nade that was aimed at.

The fans level of confidence in the national team has been guided by performances on the pitch by the national team over a number of years.

If any of us had ever seen a Scotland A team reach a tournament and progress through it, then we’d likely have a healthier and more positive attitude to the national team.

If we regularly took the lead away to teams like Portugal and held on for the win, I think we’d have a very different level of confidence when it came to the national team. Even if we were on a run of results our confidence levels would be much higher, because that’s what we do. We build ourselves up, then reach a tournament, then get a shock. 

It’s fair to say that the standard Scottish manager is - at press conferences at least - a fairly dour, stubborn, grumpy looking man who doesn’t really get you all pumped up for the games. Maybe that is a purely Scottish thing. They don’t like to boast or self-promote and they do seem to accept mediocrity. People talk about “a result” - result being code for draw or win - rather than “a win”. 

I still think better facilities and coaching at an early stage and better talent identification and development are the key. That’s a lot easier to do than try and solve a perceived or real national psychology issue.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

Thinking about this in the cold light of day, and given my age and recall of Scotland players and teams of the past, it seems that at a point possibly around the early 1990's the team and the player pool firstly slowly ground to a halt then went into relative reverse as almost every other international nation continued to progress.  We are now moving backwards at pace.

The reasons for this are reasonably straightforward to identify but the solutions are apparently devilishly complex.  We can lambast Stevie Clarke,.Grant Hanley, Angus Gunn and whoever but these guys are honestly going about their business whilst merely representing the symptoms rather than the cause of the malaise.

Meanwhile back to a Premier league card this weekend, with a native-born player average of 29%, dropping to 11% in Glasgow.

Edited September 9 by O'Kelly Isley III

[ahemps]

One of my concerns is that we never make subs until about 80 minutes when in this modern day of 5 subs every other side is making use of these. Portugal had made 4 subs before our enforced sub of McLean (we did make 2 at that time). It is difficult for a sub to get in to a game and giving 1 or 2 subs 10 minutes and the other 2-3 just a few minutes means they are probably not up to the speed of the game. Meanwhile our opponent has made 4 or 5 subs much earlier and there players are getting into the game and are fresh going in to the last period of the game.

I am not saying this is the reason but conceding late goals consistently shows there is an issue. Fatigue or lack of concentration etc. can explain the mistakes being made.

[accies1874]

6 minutes ago, ahemps said:

One of my concerns is that we never make subs until about 80 minutes when in this modern day of 5 subs every other side is making use of these. Portugal had made 4 subs before our enforced sub of McLean (we did make 2 at that time). It is difficult for a sub to get in to a game and giving 1 or 2 subs 10 minutes and the other 2-3 just a few minutes means they are probably not up to the speed of the game. Meanwhile our opponent has made 4 or 5 subs much earlier and there players are getting into the game and are fresh going in to the last period of the game.

I am not saying this is the reason but conceding late goals consistently shows there is an issue. Fatigue or lack of concentration etc. can explain the mistakes being made.

If you look at some of our best performances in the past few years (England at Wembley, Denmark, Ukraine* and Spain at home) then our first non-enforced subs were made at around 75 minutes - the same as last night. We kept a clean sheet in all of them. 

Of course, you can say that each game requires different approaches, which I obviously agree with and there's definitely a chance that the timing of the subs cost us at least of these late goals, but I think we're all just searching for answers that we probably won't be able to find.

*Patterson had to come on the 25th minute in this game through injury

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

1 hour ago, MarkoP said:

Not what I said, mock away if you feel better for it.

Lack of self confidence is a significant contributor to how Scotland sees and portrays itself to the world. This has ramifications in how we deal with changing or progress our country. In sport as well as socio political matters. I’d argue your second paragraph has a lot to do with this mentality, it’s not a stand alone separate thing. There’s no convincing the downtrodden though.

Stevie Clarke for all his coaching acumen is firmly in the colonised mindset camp where Scotland and being Scottish is a built in disadvantage to any radical forward thinking, this manifests itself in his expectations for the team.

I doubt he has ever seriously considered that fact.

Half of Scots haven’t and stubbornly refuse to

So only people who support Scottish independence can succeed in life?

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

2 hours ago, kennie makevin said:

So we can just 'think' ourselves better footballers ? Good stuff  

Yeah coz that’s what folk are saying

1 hour ago, Scary Bear said:

It’s some belief system they have. It’s the poor attitude of fans thats the reason for the Scottish national football teams patchy to poor performance throughout its history. 

Nothing to do with poor facilities, poor identification and development of young talent, and lack of an effective pathway from youth to adult football.

Genuinely don’t think anyone is arguing with that mate. Think the point you are missing is that acceptance/tolerance of pretty consistent failure, is not the attitude of change and without change it will ever be thus. A wee bit of anger and protest goes a long way sometimes. 

[kennie makevin]

1 hour ago, MarkoP said:

Not what I said, mock away if you feel better for it.

Lack of self confidence is a significant contributor to how Scotland sees and portrays itself to the world. This has ramifications in how we deal with changing or progress our country. In sport as well as socio political matters. I’d argue your second paragraph has a lot to do with this mentality, it’s not a stand alone separate thing. There’s no convincing the downtrodden though.

 

Stevie Clarke for all his coaching acumen is firmly in the colonised mindset camp where Scotland and being Scottish is a built in disadvantage to any radical forward thinking, this manifests itself in his expectations for the team.

I doubt he has ever seriously considered that fact.

Half of Scots haven’t and stubbornly refuse to

TBF I always thought Grant Hanley and Angus Gunn's 'colonised mindset' would end up costing us in this international break. 

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

Having read the last 20 odd pages just picking up on a couple of specific points. 

Someone said, “It feels like we are being punished for every mistake we make”. Whilst that might have been true in the Poland game, it CERTAINLY was not the case last night. We made countless errors last night that were not punished either through Portugal’s profligacy or Gunn’s excellent goalkeeping. If Portugal had matched Poland’s errors to goals ratio, the score would’ve been horrific last night.

 Secondly, someone else spoke about wishing Patterson would hurry back. Do some folk still believe he’s any better than Ralston?? In his most recent games for us he’s been terrible and he’s being kept out of the Everton team by a 73 year old Seamus Coleman and a left footed, 56 year old Ashley Young. I always find it amazing how a long term injury can turn a bang average player into the son of Cafu.

[Savage Henry]

10 hours ago, IAmNotAWindowCleaner said:

Were you born in Gibraltar on or before the 30th day of June 1925; or are you a child of a person born in Gibraltar on or before the 30th day of June 1925?

If you answer yes, that makes you eligible for the Scotland team in four years.  Otherwise you are too young. 

2 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

It’s some belief system they have. It’s the poor attitude of fans thats the reason for the Scottish national football teams patchy to poor performance throughout its history. 

Nothing to do with poor facilities, poor identification and development of young talent, and lack of an effective pathway from youth to adult football.

A look at the England U21 squad is depressing.  The players in that squad with Scottish connections would be nailed on starters for our full team.  

[gannonball]

5 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Having read the last 20 odd pages just picking up on a couple of specific points. 

Someone said, “It feels like we are being punished for every mistake we make”. Whilst that might have been true in the Poland game, it CERTAINLY was not the case last night. We made countless errors last night that were not punished either through Portugal’s profligacy or Gunn’s excellent goalkeeping. If Portugal had matched Poland’s errors to goals ratio, the score would’ve been horrific last night.

 Secondly, someone else spoke about wishing Patterson would hurry back. Do some folk still believe he’s any better than Ralston?? In his most recent games for us he’s been terrible and he’s being kept out of the Everton team by a 73 year old Seamus Coleman and a left footed, 56 year old Ashley Young. I always find it amazing how a long term injury can turn a bang average player into the son of Cafu.

In terms of individual errors his one against a team like Northern Ireland was worse than anything else we have seen since too.  In fairness he wasn't match fit but same could be said for Hanley/Ralston who were up against far better teams. 

He did look promising when he first broke through but really hasn't developed at all since joining Everton where his pathway to the first team couldn't be much easier for an EPL team.

[DukDukGoose]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Worth mentioning Morgan turns 28 in a few weeks.

The Scottish Jesse Lingard.

16 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Having read the last 20 odd pages just picking up on a couple of specific points. 

Someone said, “It feels like we are being punished for every mistake we make”. Whilst that might have been true in the Poland game, it CERTAINLY was not the case last night. We made countless errors last night that were not punished either through Portugal’s profligacy or Gunn’s excellent goalkeeping. If Portugal had matched Poland’s errors to goals ratio, the score would’ve been horrific last night.

 Secondly, someone else spoke about wishing Patterson would hurry back. Do some folk still believe he’s any better than Ralston?? In his most recent games for us he’s been terrible and he’s being kept out of the Everton team by a 73 year old Seamus Coleman and a left footed, 56 year old Ashley Young. I always find it amazing how a long term injury can turn a bang average player into the son of Cafu.

Patterson brought a different dynamic going forward though.

We could pin teams back because both him and Robertson could recover quickly and if they were caught then we had a back three who can shuffle across and pick up the slack.

He's absolutely a better footballer than Ralston. Probably not better defensively but he fit the system a lot more than Ralston.

[Michael W]

3 minutes ago, DukDukGoose said:

He's absolutely a better footballer than Ralston. Probably not better defensively but he fit the system a lot more than Ralston.

The other problem we have here, is that football is analysed to death now. Opponents have realised that Ralston is guff and they are actively targetting him, with resultant impact on the team. Patterson hasn't kicked on as we hoped he would, but he is a better choice than Ralston, who needs dropped for his own good. 

[Frankie S]

Having been at the game last night, and just catching up with the thread this morning, I’m surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews for Angus Gunn on here. I thought he had his best game for Scotland last night, and made a number of excellent saves to keep us in the match. A clear man of the match for me, and that seemed to be the feeling amongst quite a few of the fans near me. He’s not Manuel Neuer, we know this, and our options in the goalkeeping department aren’t great, but credit where it’s due, he played well last night.

Realistically, Portugal have outrageous quality in almost every position. From the team we were able to field last night, only McTominay, Robertson and possibly Gilmour get in that Portugal team, perhaps even squad. Unlike in Germany (the matches against Germany and Hungary in particular), we turned up last night, and we played with spirit, passion and some quality (McTominay and Gilmour were excellent again, as they were against Poland, and even our less heralded players put in a good shift), but we were ultimately beaten by a superior team.  If we’d come away with a point, as we looked like doing as the clock ticked down past 85 minutes, it would have been an outstanding result. Small margins. 

League A of the Nations League is a tough school. As we know, we’re probably not quite good enough to compete at that level consistently yet. Individual errors are costing us, and lack of individual quality is getting exposed, as you might expect with a team that only has a relatively small core of genuinely top class players. Nonetheless, I came away from Lisbon proud of the team’s efforts last night (as I was after the Poland game, which saw a much improved performance relative to the summer, albeit not a great result).

On the downside, our tendency to lose late goals is becoming an alarming habit, and the expectation is that we’ll concede late in every game now. We’re really missing the quality of Hickey (who is a huge miss IMO) and Tierney in defence, and we’re having to field players not quite at the required level. 

On the match day experience in Lisbon - it was a strange feeling for the Scotland fans to be kettled by riot police prior to and after the game, escorted into the stadium in small groups as the riot police kept the Portugal fans behind a cordon, and then made to wait for 30 minutes after the match before being allowed to leave (not that it made any difference, the stadium was still swarming with Portugal fans when we got out). As you might expect, there was never the slightest hint of trouble, and the Portugal and Scotland fans mixed freely and good-naturedly at all times. I guess the Portuguese police didn’t get the memo that the Tartan Army are a decent bunch.
 

 

Edited September 9 by Frankie S

[DukDukGoose]

3 minutes ago, Michael W said:

The other problem we have here, is that football is analysed to death now. Opponents have realised that Ralston is guff and they are actively targetting him, with resultant impact on the team. Patterson hasn't kicked on as we hoped he would, but he is a better choice than Ralston, who needs dropped for his own good. 

Yip, 100%.

I'm absolutely not advocating Nicky Devlin for Scotland, but I genuinely think he is better than Ralston.

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

12 minutes ago, DukDukGoose said:

Yip, 100%.

I'm absolutely not advocating Nicky Devlin for Scotland, but I genuinely think he is better than Ralston.

You can add Shaun Rooney to that list

[Lex]

Actually thought Gunn was our best player last night, a low bar granted. Yes he should have done better with the goal but made at least three fantastic saves after that, getting up to stop Felix heading it in from an inch out was world class. If it wasn't for him we'd have got a right pumping. 

[gannonball]

5 minutes ago, Lex said:

Actually thought Gunn was our best player last night, a low bar granted. Yes he should have done better with the goal but made at least three fantastic saves after that, getting up to stop Felix heading it in from an inch out was world class. If it wasn't for him we'd have got a right pumping. 

Yeah was a hoachy goal for a number of reasons but other than that he was brilliant I thought. Hes also decent with the ball at his feet which no other keeper can do other than Kelly but he doesn't seem to know hes allowed to use his hands.