RicoS321

It's interesting, he's very good, but I'm not sure he's too good for the Scotland squad thread. He's definitely not at the level where he deserves his own thread yet, but maybe in a few years if he continues to develop. He's got a fantastic delivery and great vision, which in the past might have been enough for your own thread, but the game has changed a lot these days and I think you'd need to add pace and athleticism to really break through to the top level, where you might have your own thread, on top of being discussed in other more generic threads.

I recommend opening with a spin round in your chair, followed by a wink. Then pretend to shoot each interviewer with an imaginary gun.

You could sense the fear in the opposition as soon as Devlin took to the park. They'll credit Robertson with the goal, but it was Nicky that made the difference. Great victory like. We probably didn't deserve second place, but we didn't deserve to get relegated either, so well done. A really exciting game tonight with some excellent stuff on display. Doak going off nearly killed it, especially as he was replaced by Christie cutting inside. It totally changed the dynamic. Some ball from souttar for the goal too, and a peach of a header from Robertson, whose decision making had been poor all night. Gordon was solid, Souttar good, McLean and Gilmour were excellent and Doak and McGinn did well but both faded towards the end (with Doak subbed obviously). Ralston was okay again.

We're still playing well. Ralston tiring, so expect the game is poised for a Devlin winner off the bench.

That was a hell of an open game of fitba. Great stuff like. We're playing some fantastic football in attack. Think Clarke's been on the phone to Jimmy.

That's a fucking goal like.

I guess Ralston is just the safe bet as he's had a number of caps now. Wouldn't be surprised if we saw Devlin at some point, as Ralston hasn't played two whole games this season. Dykes is an understandable inclusion, Conway wasn't amazing. I'm very surprised at Hanley getting in on his wrong side ahead of McKenna. Maybe McKenna still getting back to fitness? He was a big upgrade in that second half, simply because he moved the ball forward more quickly. That's not necessarily a criticism of Hanley, who was fine defensively, just that when you're taking the ball on your wrong foot you often need an extra touch - something we can ill afford in a game we need to win (and preferably by two). I'd also maybe have gone for Christie in his club role, alongside Gilmour, but McLean has done quite well over the last few games, so fair enough. Thank fuck Gordon made it too.

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He's young and has had a couple of longish term injuries to date, and has only just started getting serious minutes at first team level this season. I think Middlesborough are taking his progress reasonably slowly too, so there might be pressure from them not to overdo it. I'm fairly certain he'll start though unless he's got any strains or tightness. Scotland are more important than some North of England losers.

Not to labour the point (okay, completely to labour the point, because I always do!), but the time to learn the lesson was on Friday night against ten men, and to instill it into the players at half time. This team are here for the taking, and when we get the first goal we need to keep pressing as hard as we can to get a second. To me, the sending off should have flicked a switch, and Clarke could have told his players at half time that winning by two was the best chance we'd get to finish second. Maybe he did, but changed his mind again because we scored so late, but it didn't appear to be the case. If interviewers in this country were a little better, it would be a really interesting chat with Clarke to get his thoughts on this. Specifically, what they knew going into the match, what they knew at half time (when playing against ten), and what they told the players as a result. Did they know the permutations? Did they look beyond finishing second or last and onto the world cup pots? I really enjoy the nations' league, but clearly world cup qualification is the pinnacle here. We might have lost or drawn to Croatia by pursuing a second, but that would still have meant that beating Poland by a two goal margin would have put us third, which is the same target we have to aim for tonight. It's difficult to overstate just how big a difference pot 1 to pot 3 makes in qualification, and that should be the sole focus of our nations' league campaign (to give us the ebst chance of qualifying for WC). Pot 2 is possible if Greece lose away to Finland (Norway or Romania unlikely to lose at home to Kazakhstan or Cyprus respectively), but really it's pot 1 or drop to 3, and that would have been fairly clear on Friday. I'd love to hear what Clarke thinks of this, and not just the usual "one game at a time" platitudes. Clearly it's important to look ahead in a league format with the pots the way they are, to ignore it would be stupid (and I don't think Clarke would). Maybe he views Pot 3 as better than Pot 1 because we still get a good Pot 2 team, and the team in Pot 1 usually beats everyone anyway, so we don't get the uncertainty of a decent Pot 3 team to worry about. That certainly worked in the last qualification, where swapping Spain for, say, Greece or someone would have probably worked out worse for us. I'd be intrigued to see the depth of thought they put into this, or if they just don't want to consider it.

I think so. They definitely can't be relied on to win by two, so we have to go all out against Poland and try and win by two or score three (if we win 3-2 and Croatia lose 1-0 then I think we go through, as we'd draw level on goals scored). Obviously we'll get more of an idea in play, and it'll be interesting to see Clarke's approach. For example, if we're winning 1-0 and Portugal and Croatia are drawing, will Clarke sit in for the victory so as not to risk third place, or will he go for a second goal and hope Portugal sneak a goal? I suspect he'll do the former. I think Clarke is an excellent manager, but he is fairly cautious.

Nice one, thanks. So winning against Poland will give us a chance to remain in group A at least. However, will that be enough to get us into pot 2 for the draw, or is it still the two pot drop from 1 to 3 if we don't finish second?

Aye, I noticed the BBC got it wrong, useless cunts. I should say that I wasn't trying to be overly critical of what was a very good win either, just when you said that it was a massive three points, I reckon that it might not be in the end. It still could be, of course, and here's hoping we at least do our bit against Poland. I don't know all the permutations in terms of finishing second or third, but it seems to be that if we beat Poland but miss out on goal difference, that could be the difference between first pot and ending up in pot three for the world cup draw? That's fairly massive if so, and we could be looking back at this result well beyond Monday.

I didn't mean we couldn't do it, just that it's unlikely. I think our best chance of finishing second is by scoring another goal in a half we'd totally dominated against ten men. Go into the Poland game not having to worry about goal difference would have been one less thing to worry about, and in international football you have to take the chance when it presents itself or you'll probably miss out. I think we'll need to win by two goals in Poland now, as I don't think we can rely on Portugal to do the business. I just think that we're good enough to scrape a win, but not win by two, mainly because we don't really score many goals. It just gives us one more route to glorious failure, and I could well see us winning by one and Portugal winning by one. We had the opportunity to take one more factor out of play, but we chose to hold rather than gamble. I reckon Jimmy T would have gone straight for the jugular had it been the Dons.

Aye, no bother. Unfortunately it's probably not a massive three points. Think we should have really been going all out for the second goal. Not being ahead in the head to head against Croatia pretty much rules out second place. Think this was our one opportunity to do it. Could see us beating Poland by a goal, but we're not going to be tanking them.