Match thread

[Caledonian Craig]

That would be a wake not a party.

[Auld_Reekie]

Good to see different opinions are still welcome on here.  

But aye, hands up, probably being over-pessimistic - just think we made it harder than it needed to be. Playing against 10 men for an hour or so though would have liked to have seen a more attacking change in tactics but that's why Im sitting in an office and not a dugout.

 

[the_fadiator]

9 hours ago, Auld_Reekie said:

Thought we were average. Tactics were poor. Substitutions were like for like. I'm not going to pat myself on the back for beating a team down to ten men for an hour or so. Aye probably just edged it over the 90 minutes but lacked any kind of class. I'll take it but it was terrible fare.

C'mon, Martin for Forrest & Anya for Tierney ain't 'like for like'. Not the substitutions I wanted, but credit where it's due for changing things and getting the goal.

[Lion Rampant]

13 minutes ago, Auld_Reekie said:

Good to see different opinions are still welcome on here.  

But aye, hands up, probably being over-pessimistic - just think we made it harder than it needed to be. Playing against 10 men for an hour or so though would have liked to have seen a more attacking change in tactics but that's why Im sitting in an office and not a dugout.

 

I understand where you're coming from, but I also see why Strachan didn't change too much too soon.

We were still creating chances and playing reasonably well, had he went more attacking sooner in the game we could have left ourselves too open at the back which would have played into their hands to a certain extent.

I thought he managed the game really well.

[KirkieRobRoy]

I'm not a Strachan fan but I thought that was as good a performance as I've seen for a while - great saves by the Slov keeper and two woodwork hits before the late winner. You can't say it wasn't exciting and the buzz in the ground after the goal was terrific.

In the cold light of day, we're a poor team in a poor group but we're now second to another poor team and have it in our hands to clinch second (if not, necessarily, a play-off place). Can't really grumble, can we?

Thought the Slov fans were great - noisy, colourful, joined in the singing, applauded the pipe baun at the start, everything the England away fans weren't.

[they've_been_suckered]

What a night that was. Never do things the easy way, Slovakia are a decent side - even with 10 they looked dangerous. 

I was raging at the changes Strachan made and thought a lot of players didn’t get pass marks. Happily wrong though, the scenes at the end were fantastic and deserved. 

Praying for a result on Sunday now. Their home record looks daunting. 

[JasMc1973]

https://streamable.com/y9yho

[borojock]

58 minutes ago, KirkieRobRoy said:

I'm not a Strachan fan but I thought that was as good a performance as I've seen for a while - great saves by the Slov keeper and two woodwork hits before the late winner. You can't say it wasn't exciting and the buzz in the ground after the goal was terrific.

In the cold light of day, we're a poor team in a poor group but we're now second to another poor team and have it in our hands to clinch second (if not, necessarily, a play-off place). Can't really grumble, can we?

Thought the Slov fans were great - noisy, colourful, joined in the singing, applauded the pipe baun at the start, everything the England away fans weren't.

Somebody please get this man a happy pill

In the last 5 competitive games we have won 4 and drew 1, unbeaten. So close to beating England which would have made it 5 wins out of 5. In those 5 games we have only conceded 2 goals with 4 clean sheets and scored 9. We have a host of new young players coming through. We are looking assured in games and players are playing with passion. 

If there was a time to be optimistic then its now. Sure we may draw or lose against Slovenia but even if we do we are significantly progressing in the right direction 

[KirkieRobRoy]

14 minutes ago, borojock said:

Somebody please get this man a happy pill

Nothing I've said, old boy, is in any way negative. What you say about our recent record is true, and I said as much in my first para. Would you really argue that ours is a strong group? We're an ordinary team competing well with other ordinary teams - hardly a crime to point that out.

 

16 minutes ago, borojock said:

If there was a time to be optimistic then its now. Sure we may draw or lose against Slovenia but even if we do we are significantly progressing in the right direction 

Point out where I'm not optimistic.

 

Are you one of those annoying fellows who take people to task for not looking happy enough? Calm down, laddie.

[borojock]

31 minutes ago, KirkieRobRoy said:

Nothing I've said, old boy, is in any way negative. What you say about our recent record is true, and I said as much in my first para. Would you really argue that ours is a strong group? We're an ordinary team competing well with other ordinary teams - hardly a crime to point that out.

 

Point out where I'm not optimistic.

 

Are you one of those annoying fellows who take people to task for not looking happy enough? Calm down, laddie.

fair point 

[Parklife]

Torturous 90 minutes but some elation when the goal went in. 

Bizarre substitutions throughout, I thought. Cannot believe neither McGinn nor McGregor got on. Looked like we were crying out for someone who’d run at their opponent and try and create something. Fletcher, bannan, McArthur and Morrison were happy just to play in front of the Slovenia defence. While I think he made the wrong changes, we got the win so I guess that shows what I know! 

If either of the two off the bar had went in, then I think we would’ve won with a degree of comfort. 

Cant wait for Sunday now. It’ll be a tall order but  think we’re definitely capable.  

[Morrisandmoo]

36 minutes ago, Parklife said:

Torturous 90 minutes but some elation when the goal went in. 

Bizarre substitutions throughout, I thought. Cannot believe neither McGinn nor McGregor got on. Looked like we were crying out for someone who’d run at their opponent and try and create something. Fletcher, bannan, McArthur and Morrison were happy just to play in front of the Slovenia defence. While I think he made the wrong changes, we got the win so I guess that shows what I know! 

If either of the two off the bar had went in, then I think we would’ve won with a degree of comfort. 

Cant wait for Sunday now. It’ll be a tall order but  think we’re definitely capable.  

Yes, vs Slovenia on Sunday we do need to go with a more attacking midfield. 

Fairly hopefuly we will on the basis - (1) when we kept the same squad vs Malta we looked tired and hope Strachan will have learned from that (2) there is much less to fear vs Slovenia in terms of attacking threat, although they are solid

[Morrisandmoo]

Tierney definitely had an off day (by his standards). But don’t want to knock him because he is awesome in lots of ways.

I though Robertson and Phillips linked up really well in the first half and dominated the left side of the park. Phillips performance dropped in the second half. 

Well done Chris Martin. Outstanding contribution. Griffiths, almost three in a row from the exact same position. Ridiculous. Also getting the ball through to anya while being clattered over in the closing minutes - fantastic effort. Gordon...some dodgy decision making but ultimately kept a clean sheet. I though Bannan has some good touches and made decent runs.

The fact we have kept our powder dry with McGinn and Mcgregor is a positive...hopefully.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Morrisandmoo

[McFootSoldier]

Excellent result and deserved.  However it was frustrating.

Parklife touched on it above, attacking was a bit one dimensional.  Also seemed that we had 4 at the back when we were attacking but 3 at the back when we were defending.  They were a decent team though so trying to keep on the positives.  

Roll on Sunday !

 

[gkm_vancouver]

Whilst we are still some way off the finished article and getting the best out of our limited resource pool there are a lot of positives about the team now. We are now more difficult to beat and our defence/midfield are generally more solid - taking into account Mulgrew is a League 1 player now. Our confidence level has got better also and we are better at the patient game and recovering from a  goal down. We had a tremendous amount of attacking opportunities last night and perhaps one criticism was the quality of the final ball - thought the tactics in final delivery were poor based on the fact that the Slovs had 8 players over 6ft and we had Lee Griffiths. Most of Lee Griffiths corners were not that good apart from the second ball in to Berra and even Robertson's delivery was not up to his very high standard. Phillips was unuusally ineffiective also but perhpas that was down to Slovakia's tactics to play for the draw. Against a better team in a play-off that delivery would need to get better to qualify. However, hopefully the confidence from winning last night will improve things again in the next few games.

[mccaughey85]

Ppl have short memories, I remember watching games where Scotland couldn't string to passes together, the team last night dominated possession and created chances, kept on going til the end and pulled off an important win under huge pressure when in the past years they would have bottled it in spectacular fashion. Was it not for the keeper we would have won that 3-0, also didn't give them a sniff at goal. We have won four of our last five games and drawn with England. Considering the players we have at our disposal we are turning into a strong unit who try and play as a team and who link up well. Anyone who doesn't recognize the progress we have made needs to have a reality check, Slovakia are a strong team relatively speaking and a victory over them in a high stakes game is something we should celebrate.

[ShedTA]

great result in the end and should have been more. thought all the players did well but strachen got the midfield wrong. three players all too similar sitting too deep and not enough creativity. everything we did came down the wings and we missed Armstrong badly I thought. having said that cant criticise any of them for effort.

[ShedTA]

3 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Ppl have short memories, I remember watching games where Scotland couldn't string to passes together, the team last night dominated possession and created chances, kept on going til the end and pulled off an important win under huge pressure when in the past years they would have bottled it in spectacular fashion. Was it not for the keeper we would have won that 3-0, also didn't give them a sniff at goal. We have won four of our last five games and drawn with England. Considering the players we have at our disposal we are turning into a strong unit who try and play as a team and who link up well. Anyone who doesn't recognize the progress we have made needs to have a reality check, Slovakia are a strong team relatively speaking and a victory over them in a high stakes game is something we should celebrate.

agree with this. this is so much better than watching us struggle to beat far inferior footballing nations. we at least appear to know what we are trying to do now.

[andyD]

Main thoughts..

Bannan was fairly quiet. We played him deeper, with Morrison ahead, which doesn't really suit Bannan. He's quite limited back there, much better when he's free to commit forwards more and take people on with less fear of giving it away. Worked hard, offered for the ball and kept it well tho.

Fletcher.. better than expected, but also completely failed to be anywhere near Hamsik the entire match. You'd think of everyone in the side, he'd be the one who was most responsible for nullifying Hamsik's threat and yet he seemed to be 20 yards away all the time.

Tierney/Anya.. Was the right change. The same problem we have with Tierney at right back showed again. He can't go down the right. He's solid defensively, but limits us a lot going forward. He couldn't have made the run and cross that Anya did, and taking away that overlapping fullback really does limit us in attack. Tierney did well over the piece, but I am looking forward to Paterson getting back fit.

Chris Martin..got to say well done to the fella. Came on and made a difference. The shot off the bar, the lovely back heel to put Morrison in, winning the freekick for Griff and ultimately forcing Skrtel to put it into the net. Did really well and showed more than I think we've ever thought he had from his previous performances. Maybe this is what he does in training, and hence why he gets a call. Hope he carries on playing like this.

If not for their keeper playing the game of his life then we'd have been comfortably out of sight. We didn't miss Brown and Armstrong as much as I thought we would, and we have a real shot at making the playoffs now. Looking forward to Sunday!

 

[andyD]

8 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Ppl have short memories, I remember watching games where Scotland couldn't string to passes together, the team last night dominated possession and created chances, kept on going til the end and pulled off an important win under huge pressure when in the past years they would have bottled it in spectacular fashion.

Absolutely.

[Mee]

I loved seeing the guy get sent off for diving. In the box it should be a straight red as it can have such an impact on a game.

 

Brilliant performance, brilliant result. Sunday is going to be a stressful nightmare but I can't wait and am very jealous of the folk going over.

One more to go

[ErsatzThistle]

Can't believe the eejits on twitter saying Mak should not have been sent off "because he got straight back up and didn't stay down" 

I see the Slovak manager is complaining about luggage being delayed at the airport and insinuating a conspiracy FFS

And going on his comments to the papers, Martin Škrtel is one very sore loser. 

[mccaughey85]

24 minutes ago, Mee said:

I loved seeing the guy get sent off for diving. In the box it should be a straight red as it can have such an impact on a game.

 

Brilliant performance, brilliant result. Sunday is going to be a stressful nightmare but I can't wait and am very jealous of the folk going over.

One more to go

It's about time we got some luck, the guy dived plain and simple. The ref was strong enough to make right decision on it. It was however a huge bit of luck that he got booked a few minutes before when the ref was handing out bookings when they were taking a free kick.

[Texas Pete]

14 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Can't believe the eejits on twitter saying Mak should not have been sent off "because he got straight back up and didn't stay down" 

I see the Slovak manager is complaining about luggage being delayed at the airport and insinuating a conspiracy FFS

And going on his comments to the papers, Martin Škrtel is one very sore loser. 

Their manager is an idiot. 

If he thinks his team lost because their luggage was delayed at Glasgow airport then he wants to have a word with his players and tell them to man up and not let the fact they weren’t able to change into a clean pair of drawers for an hour affect them so much. 

Slovakia lost because we outplayed them, one of their players got himself stupidly sent off and one of their defenders scored an OG. 

[Mee]

14 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

It's about time we got some luck, the guy dived plain and simple. The ref was strong enough to make right decision on it. It was however a huge bit of luck that he got booked a few minutes before when the ref was handing out bookings when they were taking a free kick.

The guy that got sent off got his first yellow for halfing Forrest. He wasn't one of the 2 at the free kick