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To stay or go?


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3 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

Keep Strachan because the next guy could be worse......................worse than what, not qualifying?

This. He's had 2 attempts and failed twice to get a play off minimum. I could forgive a manager for missing out once but twice is to much.

On top of that I question if the team has really improved. We are at the exact same level as we were at the Euros. Capable of some good performances and goals against teams of a similar level but massively let down by a poorly organised defense which throw away winning positions. Lack of urgency and cutting edge against some of the lower teams with a defense that can't be depended on at that level either.

My hope is we make the decision quick on who replaces him so they can play maximum number of friendlies in November, March and June to find any players that can step up.

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In the previous 5 games we had played on the front foot and created more chances than the opposition.  Rather than looking at if we score a last minute winner, here are the attempts and goal attempts from these games as they give an accurate picture of who dominated the game.

v Svn (h)  16-9 on target  to slovenia's 4-1

v Eng (h)   8-3  to littleeng's 16-9

v Ltu (a)    23-7 to ltu's 8-3

v Mlt (h)    25-10 to mlt's 5-1

v Svk (h)   22-7 to svk's 9-2

v Svn(a)  before the 85th min  9-2 to svn's 19-8  -  we had 3 on target after the 85th min, oh when we started playing and trying to score.

 

Why change what had been working, I can accept if we don't win the game but we were the better side as we at least had a bit of gallus and gave it a go.

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15 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

 Its almost like he refuses to pick the form players because that would be agreeing with the fans and journalists.  Why does he have to be so pigheaded.

Agree. It's utterly infuriating. 

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8 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

In the previous 5 games we had played on the front foot and created more chances than the opposition.  Rather than looking at if we score a last minute winner, here are the attempts and goal attempts from these games as they give an accurate picture of who dominated the game.

v Svn (h)  16-9 on target  to slovenia's 4-1

v Eng (h)   8-3  to littleeng's 16-9

v Ltu (a)    23-7 to ltu's 8-3

v Mlt (h)    25-10 to mlt's 5-1

v Svk (h)   22-7 to svk's 9-2

v Svn(a)  before the 85th min  9-2 to svn's 19-8  -  we had 3 on target after the 85th min, oh when we started playing and trying to score.

 

Why change what had been working, I can accept if we don't win the game but we were the better side as we at least had a bit of gallus and gave it a go.

I have come to conclusion GS is a bit thick. Mark McGhee is just there to make him feel 'smart'. He just thinks himself into making stupid decision or worse becomes paralyzed unable to react or adjust when confronted with his master-plan going up in smoke.I'bet he thought he was a tactical genius springing the 4-4-2 on the players a few hours before kick off.

This is why I think he has got to go. You never going to be able to fix this problem and he will do it time and time again... it is who he is. Very stubborn as well but really just the same issue.

I know a guy who asked Alex Fergusson what he thought of Strachan as a manager and the reply was "Talks a good game". Pretty accurate looking back (and he does not even talk a good game anymore).

Edited by thplinth
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36 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

In the previous 5 games we had played on the front foot and created more chances than the opposition.  Rather than looking at if we score a last minute winner, here are the attempts and goal attempts from these games as they give an accurate picture of who dominated the game.

v Svn (h)  16-9 on target  to slovenia's 4-1

v Eng (h)   8-3  to littleeng's 16-9

v Ltu (a)    23-7 to ltu's 8-3

v Mlt (h)    25-10 to mlt's 5-1

v Svk (h)   22-7 to svk's 9-2

v Svn(a)  before the 85th min  9-2 to svn's 19-8  -  we had 3 on target after the 85th min, oh when we started playing and trying to score.

 

Why change what had been working, I can accept if we don't win the game but we were the better side as we at least had a bit of gallus and gave it a go.

So vs Slovenia and England we got two points we didn't deserve? 

Vs Slovenia at home we played well and thoroughly deserved to win. Vs Slovakia at home is a bit of an anomaly due to them having a man sent off so early. We were also pretty fortunate with the manner of the late og (however perhaps unlucky with the two shots off the bar). 

I'm ignoring the games vs Lithuania and Malta. They are minnows who a failure to defeat home and away is always going to lead to us failing to qualify. 

It's also bizarre that you're looking at half a campaign. What about the utterly abject performances vs Lithuania at Hampden and in Bratislava? Lets look at the campaign as a whole. We conceded 1.5 times the number of goals of any side that finished in the top 2 (our 12 vs a high of 8). Indeed in our group Slovakia only conceded 7 goals. 

I heard someone the other day trying to claim the Strachan cant be held responsible for failure to defend set plays. WTF?!?! It's his fecking job to organise a defence and drill them so they know their roles in these situations. It's his job not to announce to his side 6 hours before a huge game that their switching their system. It's his job to manage every aspect of the team on the field. If he can't or wont do that, then he's not doing his job and can get to feck. 

"Aye but, we had loads of shots vs Malta and Slovakia's 10 men" won't get us to the World Cup or Euros. 

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44 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

here are the attempts and goal attempts from these games as they give an accurate picture of who dominated the game.

v Svn(a)  before the 85th min  9-2 to svn's 19-8  -  we had 3 on target after the 85th min, oh when we started playing and trying to score.

But they miss the context of no one in the group having scored in Slovenia for the entire campaign.
So clearly it's not easy to go do that as two objectively better teams than us tried and failed. We went there and scored twice.

Much as people moan, the 442 worked first half, we went in at the break 1-0 up and fairly steady.

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4 minutes ago, andyD said:

But they miss the context of no one in the group having scored in Slovenia for the entire campaign.
So clearly it's not easy to go do that as two objectively better teams than us tried and failed. We went there and scored twice.

Much as people moan, the 442 worked first half, we went in at the break 1-0 up and fairly steady.

I was delighted we were 1-0 up at halftime but we were 2nd best for the 1st time in 6 games.  Hoped wgs would change it at beginning of 2nd half to go for the win rather than hoping they wouldn't score.  Is it wrong of me to want Scotland to play on the front foot and not like Rep.Ireland (the ugliest team in international football).  How about something completely different......Zedenek Zeman for manager!   Lets try and win games 7-5, at least everybody around International football would talk about us.

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Was it even a 442, Martin n dropped deep quite a lot, it looked like there was s big gap between him and Griffiths at times. And Martin lacks the basic ability to do that. 

It was an utterly idiotic decision to play that midfield / formation in that game 

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2 minutes ago, kumnio said:

Was it even a 442, Martin n dropped deep quite a lot, it looked like there was s big gap between him and Griffiths at times. And Martin lacks the basic ability to do that. 

It was an utterly idiotic decision to play that midfield / formation in that game 

Correct Kev :lol: - absolutely mental :ok: 

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59 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

Its almost like he refuses to pick the form players because that would be agreeing with the fans and journalists. 

So, setting aside the fact that the first half went exactly to plan and the game turned on two moments of absolute failure by Darren Fletcher..

I assume you're talking about McGregor and McGinn.. With the implicit suggestion that we bring one in to play the Armstrong role. The problem is that in that midfield, you're probably dropping Bannan as we was the most forward minded of the 3. I thought he was clearly the best midfielder we had on the night, but even replacing him, that still leaves you with the slow, tired, unreliable pairing of McArthur and Fletcher.

McGinn and McGregor's games are both pretty forward minded, and our 'defensive' two still struggled to cope with the likes of Ilicic when he started playing behind the front 2. Would either of them been better at shutting out Ilicic or been better at winning the header infront of Bazjak (bearing in mind Fletcher's 3 inches taller than both of them).

I understand people's frustrations, but we can only work with the tools we've got. Fletcher and McArthur were the most experienced available players to play the shielding roles in midfield. If we go back thru the lineup thread from before the game, I think the vast majority put them in the middle.

I think what that match shows is that for the next campaign we need to re-examine our central midfield. If we are going to play with 2 defensively minded midfielders, then Fletcher and McArthur cannot be those players. Brown is the obvious first pick if he's available, but we need to look elsewhere at the likes of McDonald and Shinnie, and maybe even Liam Bridcutt.

Will that happen under Strachan? I don't know. And maybe that fuels your point. But honestly, I don't see how throwing McGregor or McGinn in would have made a massive difference. Our failings were defensive, and neither of them excel in that respect.

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Watching it on a crappy internet feed on some dodgy site showing sky sports even I could see they were getting on top and were going to score if it carried on...  Someone said rabbit in the headlights and that is kind of how it looks. You are sitting there saying 'why don't you change something' over and over until it is too late. McLeish was really very good at this and Strachan is rotten in comparison,i.e.  the in game tactical adjustments if things are not working.

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5 minutes ago, andyD said:

So, setting aside the fact that the first half went exactly to plan and the game turned on two moments of absolute failure by Darren Fletcher..

I assume you're talking about McGregor and McGinn.. With the implicit suggestion that we bring one in to play the Armstrong role. The problem is that in that midfield, you're probably dropping Bannan as we was the most forward minded of the 3. I thought he was clearly the best midfielder we had on the night, but even replacing him, that still leaves you with the slow, tired, unreliable pairing of McArthur and Fletcher.

McGinn and McGregor's games are both pretty forward minded, and our 'defensive' two still struggled to cope with the likes of Ilicic when he started playing behind the front 2. Would either of them been better at shutting out Ilicic or been better at winning the header infront of Bazjak (bearing in mind Fletcher's 3 inches taller than both of them).

I understand people's frustrations, but we can only work with the tools we've got. Fletcher and McArthur were the most experienced available players to play the shielding roles in midfield. If we go back thru the lineup thread from before the game, I think the vast majority put them in the middle.

I think what that match shows is that for the next campaign we need to re-examine our central midfield. If we are going to play with 2 defensively minded midfielders, then Fletcher and McArthur cannot be those players. Brown is the obvious first pick if he's available, but we need to look elsewhere at the likes of McDonald and Shinnie, and maybe even Liam Bridcutt.

Will that happen under Strachan? I don't know. And maybe that fuels your point. But honestly, I don't see how throwing McGregor or McGinn in would have made a massive difference. Our failings were defensive, and neither of them excel in that respect.

Yeah good point, mcgregor and mcginn may not have made any difference.  But why change the tactics, we were using brown as the shielding midfielder with armstrong alongside but he was able to release to support griffiths because of brown.  Could we not have used mcginn instead of fletcher to create a bit more attacking momentum.  I think my biggest problem with the slovenia game was there was no attempt to go and win the game, just hope luck would fall our way.

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The statement about genetics is really a shining example of GS's very limited thinking power. That's it's genetics. Nothing we could actually do anything about of course or any mistakes we made...noooo genetics. He is one of these guys who thinks himself as smarter than us all while at the same time being dumber than most. It is fatal combination at times.

With his genetics remark what he essentially said was "We did not qualify because we are sub-humans". It is the most defeatist attitude and view imaginable. :lol:

Edited by thplinth
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12 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

I was delighted we were 1-0 up at halftime but we were 2nd best for the 1st time in 6 games.  Hoped wgs would change it at beginning of 2nd half to go for the win rather than hoping they wouldn't score.  Is it wrong of me to want Scotland to play on the front foot and not like Rep.Ireland (the ugliest team in international football).  How about something completely different......Zedenek Zeman for manager!   Lets try and win games 7-5, at least everybody around International football would talk about us.

It's not wrong to want us to play on the front foot, but I think it's easy to dismiss the context of the game with hindsight. No one had even scored there, let alone won. In the first half, the two best chances fell to us. Griffith who got the goal, and Martin who shot tamely at the near post. They had very little at the other end. Sure, our play wasn't stellar, but Slovenia were working really hard and they're not mugs. Like I said, no one had even scored there and we should really have been 2-0 up.

Strachan did then go to change it in the 2nd half, switching to the 4231 that we've been more regularly playing, but right as he does that, Darren Fletcher's two bouts of lunacy hand them a goal. Of course we'd always want to win pretty, but when you can't win pretty, just make sure you win.. and until Fletcher's calamities that's what we were doing.

I honestly think that once the teams went on the pitch, Strachan didn't get much wrong. The 442 worked, even if it wasn't spectacular, it limited them and got us the lead. The change to 4231 made sense, strengthening the midfield and giving more protection after they'd gone with almost a front 3. His subs to try and get us a goal back did get us a goal back. He did make 2 mistakes that day, one was picking McArthur and Fletcher (who I said plenty about before the game) and the other was using the word genetics. But as far as the match went, he got it right. As a manager you can't stop your Champions League winning captain, from doing something utterly stupid.

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3 minutes ago, andyD said:

It's not wrong to want us to play on the front foot, but I think it's easy to dismiss the context of the game with hindsight. No one had even scored there, let alone won. In the first half, the two best chances fell to us. Griffith who got the goal, and Martin who shot tamely at the near post. They had very little at the other end. Sure, our play wasn't stellar, but Slovenia were working really hard and they're not mugs. Like I said, no one had even scored there and we should really have been 2-0 up.

Strachan did then go to change it in the 2nd half, switching to the 4231 that we've been more regularly playing, but right as he does that, Darren Fletcher's two bouts of lunacy hand them a goal. Of course we'd always want to win pretty, but when you can't win pretty, just make sure you win.. and until Fletcher's calamities that's what we were doing.

I honestly think that once the teams went on the pitch, Strachan didn't get much wrong. The 442 worked, even if it wasn't spectacular, it limited them and got us the lead. The change to 4231 made sense, strengthening the midfield and giving more protection after they'd gone with almost a front 3. His subs to try and get us a goal back did get us a goal back. He did make 2 mistakes that day, one was picking McArthur and Fletcher (who I said plenty about before the game) and the other was using the word genetics. But as far as the match went, he got it right. As a manager you can't stop your Champions League winning captain, from doing something utterly stupid.

Shame though, thought we were going to do it with the momentum we had.  Also just been looking back at previous campaigns, had forgotten how bad the 2014wc q had been.  Ug, 2pts after 6 games!  At least when we scored against Slovakia and littleeng I had that 1998 feeling again.  Bring on the nations cup

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5 minutes ago, andyD said:

But as far as the match went, he got it right.

Jeeeeesus fecking Christ. 

Strachan picked a system that had us over run. He changed it too late. He failed to have a team organised enough to defend set plays. He subbed Martin just as we conceded. He waited too long to make a change afetr it went 2-1. 

He's the manager. Every single thing is his responsibility. 

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2 minutes ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

Shame though, thought we were going to do it with the momentum we had.  Also just been looking back at previous campaigns, had forgotten how bad the 2014wc q had been.  Ug, 2pts after 6 games!  At least when we scored against Slovakia and littleeng I had that 1998 feeling again.  Bring on the nations cup

Aye, gutted we didn't make it given all the 'impossibles' that we achieved along the way.
We shouldn't have beaten Slovenia in back in March.
We should have got thumped by England again.
Lithuania should have tripped us up at their place.
Slovakia were too good for us to beat.
No one had scored in Slovenia, let alone won.

We did a lot. And once the hurt of not qualifying fades (sometime after the tournament ends i imagine) then we do have reason to look back and feel optimistic about our future, whoever the manager is. We can have a bit of belief that we can succeed when we look back at this campaign.

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7 minutes ago, Parklife said:

Jeeeeesus fecking Christ. 

Strachan picked a system that had us over run. He changed it too late. He failed to have a team organised enough to defend set plays. He subbed Martin just as we conceded. He waited too long to make a change afetr it went 2-1. 

He's the manager. Every single thing is his responsibility. 

or..

he picked a system that did what no other side had done.
he picked a system that had us the all important lead at the break.
he reacted within a handful of them changing their system and changed our system.
the team was organised for the first freekick. fletcher just didn't do what he was supposed to do. that's not on strachan, that's on fletcher. was strachan unreasonable to expect fletch to mark at a freekick? no.
subbing martin was kind of required to switch to 4231, subbing griff would have been insane.

did he wait too long after it went 2-1.. i guess that's a debate that can be had. he waited a full 5 minutes to change it after they scored, during which time fletch skied it over the bar from 6 yards. i'm not sure that's "too long"..

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10 minutes ago, slasher said:

You can stop your Champions league Captain doing something stupid......by not picking him! ?

I agree. I made plenty of posts before the match saying he should be in the side for exactly the reasons he went on to show.

But what I said was that once the side was picked (and most of the fans wanted fletch in the side), Strachan didn't get much wrong in the 90 minutes.

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Stay, Just.

Strachan has just led us to our joint best run of competitive results since the last time we qualified for a tournament. The other time featured Latvia and twice v San Marino. 

 

Oh and our second best run since then was under none other than Strachan in the last campaign.

 

Changing manager would be a step backwards imho unless we suddenly have £1M’s to attract the biggest names.

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14 minutes ago, andyD said:

or..

he picked a system that did what no other side had done.

You need to stop talking as if scoring away in Slovenia is the mark of a managerial genius :lol: 

14 minutes ago, andyD said:

he picked a system that had us the all important lead at the break.

An undeserved lead but yes, we had the lead

14 minutes ago, andyD said:

he reacted within a handful of them changing their system and changed our system.

AFTER we'd lost the lead i.e. too late

14 minutes ago, andyD said:


the team was organised for the first freekick.

It wasn't, did you not see their boy stooping to head home from 6 yards out? 

14 minutes ago, andyD said:

fletcher just didn't do what he was supposed to do. that's not on strachan, that's on fletcher. was strachan unreasonable to expect fletch to mark at a freekick? no.

Depends how much they'd worked on defended set pieces tbh. 

14 minutes ago, andyD said:

subbing martin was kind of required to switch to 4231, subbing griff would have been insane.

Putting Griffiths wide right, letting him cut in on his left foot, with Martin through the middle would've been more sensible. Or Switching to a diamond in midfield and hooking Phillips would've been also. What Strachan chose to do changed nothing and we continued to be outplayed and lost another goal. 

14 minutes ago, andyD said:

did he wait too long after it went 2-1.. i guess that's a debate that can be had. he waited a full 5 minutes to change it after they scored,

They scored in 72, he made the changes in 79 and 80. He wasted almost half the time we had left dilly-dallying. 

14 minutes ago, andyD said:

 i'm not sure that's "too long"..

How'd it work out in the end? We must've won, surely. Strachan done everything right, remember. :rolleyes: 

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The overriding feeling coming out of Hampden on Thursday night was that we would need to energise the midfield for Sunday. Strachan chose not to do so. Instead, as he has done consistently he stuck to his 'tried and tested'.  The same tried and tested bunch who are out of form, not playing at their clubs or are just plain not up to it at this level any more.

That's why he has to go, and remember he only picked the likes of Griffiths, Armstrong and McGregor when they became virtually impossible to ignore.

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