Scotland squad

[LA-Don]

We’ve probably got the best talent we’ve had in a very long time - McTom, Tierney, Robertson, Gilmour, Armstrong, McLean,  Fraser, Adams, McGinn, Cooper, Fleck are all premiership players. Add Christie, mcgregor, turnbull, McKenna, Forrest……Hanley looked surprisingly solid in the euros, even our Gallagher has been solid when selected.

The problem i see is that we’ve been a long ball national team and not one single one of these players plays long ball at club level. I think Souness got it spot on criticizing the tactics, I think we are capable of better than we showed. We don’t need the big target man, I think we have the skill capable of more. I don’t dislike Clarke but he has to take a look at the talent available and how they play.

[RicoS321]

13 hours ago, LA-Don said:

We’ve probably got the best talent we’ve had in a very long time - McTom, Tierney, Robertson, Gilmour, Armstrong, McLean,  Fraser, Adams, McGinn, Cooper, Fleck are all premiership players. Add Christie, mcgregor, turnbull, McKenna, Forrest……Hanley looked surprisingly solid in the euros, even our Gallagher has been solid when selected.

The problem i see is that we’ve been a long ball national team and not one single one of these players plays long ball at club level. I think Souness got it spot on criticizing the tactics, I think we are capable of better than we showed. We don’t need the big target man, I think we have the skill capable of more. I don’t dislike Clarke but he has to take a look at the talent available and how they play.

Like most teams, Scotland rarely setup to play long ball, that's simply a function of being a worse team than your opponent, being pressured and then having to go long. Had we played with nisbet instead of Dykes, we'd still have seen the same volume of long balls, just we'd have seen the ball coming back at us quicker. We didn't play long ball against England because we had a more balanced midfield with Gilmour there rather than Armstrong, so even with Dykes up front we could keep the ball in to feet and utilise the long ball when under pressure. In reality it's very difficult for a manager to prevent the long ball when his team is under pressure and I can guarantee that Clarke wasn't asking his players to play long ball as a tactic. We had a midfield three that was playing in a straight line for most of the game, all doing similar things at the same time (as happened against Czech Republic), inviting pressure on to us as soon as we got possession. Clarke should have recognised this earlier than he did and should have fixed it. To be honest, he should be using the metric of the number of times that we're forced to go long as an indicator that his tactics were failing and acted much sooner to change it. Belgium went long to Lukaku on numerous occasions last night as Portugal got more and more possession, similarly the Czechs with Schik against the Dutch, it's just a function of ability versus pressure rather than a coaching decision. 

[HaarDon]

Not so sure Rico.

We play long balls because one thing Dykes can do is knock em down.hes very good at it. But we can knock balls down all day. They still rarely lead to goals for us.

With Nisbet at least getting a chance I think he would get on the end of crosses and loose balls way better than Dykes or Adams did.

We won't know though cos Clarke sticks by those 2 far too much.

I'm actually a big fan of Fraser(as a player) and wudve liked to have seen him more involved.

[RicoS321]

17 minutes ago, HaarDon said:

Not so sure Rico.

We play long balls because one thing Dykes can do is knock em down.hes very good at it. But we can knock balls down all day. They still rarely lead to goals for us.

With Nisbet at least getting a chance I think he would get on the end of crosses and loose balls way better than Dykes or Adams did.

We won't know though cos Clarke sticks by those 2 far too much.

I'm actually a big fan of Fraser(as a player) and wudve liked to have seen him more involved.

Judging by the England game, and our WC qualification games, that's not a tactic though. We don't play long balls as instructed, we end up doing it out of necessity because the opposition pressures us into doing it. That's all I'm saying. We would have done exactly the same had the only change been Nisbet (I don't think he's nearly at the level required yet) for Dykes.

I get the impression that Fraser wasn't fully fit, Clarke seems to like him and I think he'd have featured more. Overall, I just think that we needed a better version of Dykes to be honest. I understood why Clarke picked him though as he was the best of a bad bunch.

[HaarDon]

Yeah agreed Rico.

I'm not sure what the striker solution is now that Griffiths looks an uncertainty.

Any ideas anyone?? 

I mean I can't think of any striker who is doin that shit atm.

 

[RicoS321]

22 minutes ago, HaarDon said:

Yeah agreed Rico.

I'm not sure what the striker solution is now that Griffiths looks an uncertainty.

Any ideas anyone?? 

I mean I can't think of any striker who is doin that shit atm.

 

Probably isn't one. I think that we maybe just have to accept that it's an area where we struggle, which is often the case at international level. In my mind, Clarke is as good as anyone at working out players' limitations and getting the best out of them based on simple instructions, and I think that if he saw a better option than Dykes (he did in Adams) then he'd have no issue playing them. We're just unfortunate that at this point in time we don't have a striker, but to be honest I'm struggling to remember the last international class striker we had in the Dykes mould (Ferguson and Durie probably). Guys as good as McFadden would really have struggled at tournament level up front on their own, so it's not a small undertaking to find a striker good enough (so I can see why Clarke would play two).

[Jute]

Scotland U21 team announced for upcoming qualifier against Turkey. Not one Dons player in the squad.

Brian Kinnear Rangers PS
Ross Sinclair St Johnstone 
Cieran Slicker Manchester City
Harrison Ashby West Ham United
Tom Clayton Liverpool 
Josh Doig Hibernian
Lewis Mayo Partick Thistle + PS
Adam Montgomery Celtic PS
Stephen Welsh Celtic
Scott Banks Crystal Palace PS
Jack Burroughs Ross County ++ 
Lewis Fiorini Lincoln City +++
Scott High Huddersfield Town
Stephen Kelly Rangers PS
Josh McPake Morecambe + PS
Ben Williamson Livingston +
Daniel Mackay Hibernian
Dapo Mebude AFC Wimbledon ++++ PS
Glenn Middleton St Johnstone +
Zak Rudden Partick Thistle PS
Jack Stretton Derby County
Ewan Urain Athletic Club Bilbao

[Madbadteacher]

Good! Means none of ours pick up unnecessary injuries!

[BigAl]

With a few notable exceptions I haven't a clue who most of these guys are ?

Thought young Ramsay might have been a contender 

[RicoS321]

33 minutes ago, BigAl said:

With a few notable exceptions I haven't a clue who most of these guys are ?

Thought young Ramsay might have been a contender 

Gemmill said he thought that he might not start, so while he was still eligible for the u19s he was better off there. Seems reasonable, it's not like he's had 6 minutes on the pitch for the Huns or anything.

[BigAl]

Lewis Ferguson gets his first call up to the senior squad

Thats the asking price just doubled now that he is in exulted company like £5m Patterson

[BigAl]

Steve Clark signs a contract extension to manage Scotland through to 2024 Euro Championships.

Not sure I get the timing of this to be honest.

We have a few World Cup qualifiers coming up. Surely this should have been held back until after then to assess how things are going ?

[Jute]

[baggy89]

When is the rat going to be fixed, so we can stop pandering to the huns and get a right-back that actually plays club football (and the best young right back in Scotland) involved?

Also when is Fergusons transfer going to be announced?

[RicoS321]

Well done Ferguson, he's going to be a great player. Good of Clarke to throw him and up his value for us after - he was clearly embarrassed by the Ramsay decision for the u21s. I'd take £7M plus a 40% sell on for Ferguson. 

[baggy89]

10 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Well done Ferguson, he's going to be a great player. Good of Clarke to throw him and up his value for us after - he was clearly embarrassed by the Ramsay decision for the u21s. I'd take £7M plus a 40% sell on for Ferguson. 

I think the huns calculate player values at around £1 million per first team game played (once they've had a NT call up). Guess that means Ferguson is now worth around £130 million?

[RicoS321]

23 minutes ago, baggy89 said:

I think the huns calculate player values at around £1 million per first team game played (once they've had a NT call up). Guess that means Ferguson is now worth around £130 million?

An interesting hypothetical conundrum that raises:

If we sold the Huns Ferguson for £7M and they subsequently sold him for £130M, with us getting 40% (£59M total) and them getting £78M, would be happy or disgusted?

[BigAl]

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

An interesting hypothetical conundrum that raises:

If we sold the Huns Ferguson for £7M and they subsequently sold him for £130M, with us getting 40% (£59M total) and them getting £78M, would be happy or disgusted?

Disgusted  that we only took £7 million off them in the first instance 

[baggy89]

5 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

An interesting hypothetical conundrum that raises:

If we sold the Huns Ferguson for £7M and they subsequently sold him for £130M, with us getting 40% (£59M total) and them getting £78M, would be happy or disgusted?

 

3 hours ago, BigAl said:

Disgusted  that we only took £7 million off them in the first instance 

Disgusted we sold him to the huns at all. 
Also concerned about the economy due to the clear hyper-inflation. 

[Jute]

Team for Denmark game tonight.

 

Guessing Tierney to right back?

[manc_don]

Looks like it

[Jute]

It’s actually Robertson. 2-0 down already. This could be 5 or 6. Cutting through us at will.

[Dad]

Ah no

[manc_don]

Well, Scotland are truly pish. Good goals but they cut through very easily. 

[BigAl]

It's all McKenna's fault.

Might have only been 50% responsible if O'Donnell was on the park