Dalgety Bay TA

75 mins of first team football, in a low key cup game, since start of May is nowhere near enough to be considered for an international double header. He wasn’t fit enough to even be named on the bench last night. Don’t let that get in the way of your conspiracy theory though ehh?

Thank you! Some eejit earlier on this thread made a post stating "regardless of league". No idea who that was but for the OP to knock my suggestion of Fash Austin back means it can't possibly have been him.

Nathan Austin has 21 in 11 games. McGinn had nowhere near the same path. What "blue print" did McGinn have?

Was he good enough last season when he had scored 28 by the middle of December?

I wouldn't expect Rangers to condemn every OO march. Its, ultimately, not their responsibility. However an OO march which begins outside Ibrox is a clear attempt to tie it to Rangers simply due to the location it is beginning from. That, IMO, is the point where Rangers could make a statement saying they have no association with said march....because like it or not, the march organisers are trying to associate it with Rangers.

I've just started listening to these, listened to the Craig Beattie and now Peter Grant ones. The Grant one, as you would expect was very Celtic so may not appeal to everyone. However both of them had bits of Scotland interest. Beattie only briefly touched on his (short) Scotland career. The interesting comment for me was he was doing well for Celtic, scoring and in the Scotland squad when Smith was manager assisted by McCoist and Burns. He still hadn't made his debut and we were away, in a friendly, I think he said Switzerland (?). He was named as a sub and was warming up in the second half when he saw Smith, McCoist and Burns in discussions on the touchline. McCoist then gave him the nod to come back to the bench. Beattie was chuffed thinking he is getting his first Scotland appearance. He came back to the bench and McCoist said to him "Sorry, you are the only Old Firm player in the squad, there is an Old Firm game at the weekend, we can't risk putting you on and you getting an injury and then we would get accusations of bias towards one (Rangers) side". Staggering that they felt they had to manage the national side in that manner. Grant, for those who just want to listen to the Scotland part, is the last 14 minutes. Won't go into detail about it, its definitely worth a listen, but he gives the media a very very hard time over their approach and what he feels is an agenda towards Scotland national team as a whole. He also stated that there was a player who was offered a contract extension by his club if he gave up his Scotland career. He covers a bit about the call offs too. Overall both are a good listen IMO. Open Goal is the name of the podcast.

Who said that?!? 😁

Top right, wee drop down arrow next to your username. Hit that, about 5th one down, Ignored Users. You can add users to list from there.

But Jock too? McGovern's greatest moments as a player were 1979 & 1980 European Cup wins when Jock was the manager.

😂😂😂

Is that really true? Are we saying that none of WIllie Ormond, Ally McLeod or Jock Stein were aware that John McGovern was Scottish, when he was playing for Derby and Forest and on telly lifting European Cups? I find that very hard to believe.

A double European Cup winning captain wasn’t good enough to get a Scotland cap.

I’ve said it a few times but look at the make up of our 1982 squad and look what they achieved in the immediate years before and after 1982. Multiple European Cup winners for one. In that period we had a competitive Premier League. Majority of clubs had mostly Scots playing for them and our league was strong enough to see Aberdeen win a European trophy and Dundee Utd make a final and a European Cup semi final. Some, not all, of our better players went to England. They moved to top sides who were also excelling in European competition. Why? Because at that point English sides tended to pick from a very small market of players which was Scotland and other clubs within the English leagues. Very few clubs had European or further away players. There were the exception - Thijssen and Muhren at Ipswich, Villa and Ardiles at Spurs, a few others about but when the top clubs wanted to bring in players outside of England they came to Scotland. Nowadays English clubs are still the main buyers of Scottish players but their marketplace is worldwide. So in many cases the English clubs who are buying Scots are not the top sides, they are a few levels below that. Likewise with Scottish clubs themselves, sometimes they buy from within but a lot of the time non Scottish players arrive from outside of Scotland. We just don’t have the level of players we once had playing in successful sides either here or in England. We aren’t the only nation to face this - England & Italy are just two years examples who have less players playing for their top sides nowadays than they had in years gone by. They have both struggled internationally over the last 15 years as their eligible players start playing for teams who aren’t at the very top level. Meanwhile there are probably more Spanish and French players playing at the very top level club sides in the last 10 years or so than there ever has been.

You have lost me a fair bit with talk of double 6's and the likes. IMO if you are playing a 2 in a 4231 then one of them has to be a real defensive minded player. The other could be a passer but have some defensive ability. If you are playing a 433 then in most games one of the 3 has to be strong defensively. Bar games against likes of Gibraltar or San Marino. We have seen in the past that plenty of other teams above the absolute minnows have enough about them to make it nuts for us to think we are good enough not to give our back 4 some sort of protection. Thats the case which ever midfield set up we go far, we need someone to shield the defence. I am not sure if Jack would be the solution, I only gave him as an example as he is the only really defensively minded midfield player in the current squad. Again maybe we don't have any other options for that sort of role. The Lampard/Gerrard thing was purely on the basis of we are trying to get our all best midfield players on the pitch and expecting some of them to do jobs that they aren't used to doing rather than working out what is the best set up for the team and then picking the most suitable players to perform those roles.

We are a team who, in a lot of games, are going to be under pressure for fair bits of the game. IMO McTominay isn't the defensive player you need in there. Neither is Armstrong. Neither was Kenny McLean last night. Our midfield, supposedly our strongest area, well no supposedly, it is, is suffering from trying to fit all the players in there and not actually looking at the balance of who is there. McTominay is a good player IMO, will get better, can pass a ball, gets about the park, actually has a shot on him. But because he is a big lad people assume he is the defensive option. We need someone like a Scott Brown, who could break up the oppositions play. Closest we have to it in the current squad is probably Ryan Jack. Is he a better footballer than say McGregor or McLean or McTominay? Probably not. But would be do the solid defensive midfield role better than them? Probably yes. At the moment we are going down the England route of sticking Gerrard and Lampard in centre of the park because they are both great players. Who's going to defend though? And for us, who will be under pressure, we need at least one defensive, solid player in that midfield. By all means play a passer like McTominay or McGregor or McLean beside him but don't play the both of them and leave out the defensive player we need to protect our already shaky back four.

Yep, the bottom line is there is no one who isn't involved or who has been involved which would have made a significant difference. Griffiths would have been lost against that Belgium defence last night. Tierney might have improved us a bit defensively over the two games but we were still well beaten in both no matter what the Russia scoreline says. The others, well I know you are just coming up with some possibles but as you say, wouldn't make the significant difference to the side that we need made. A few numpties on FB saying "throw in the U21's". That's mental. I don't even know half of them and they are even further away from being options for us. Its a very long tunnel and there isn't any light at the end of it unfortunately.

Andy Robertson does very well in a specific, attacking, role for a Liverpool side who dominates a lot of games and where he is surrounded by top quality players. I have a Liverpool supporting mate who will point as and when Robertson makes defensive mistakes for Liverpool. On the odd occasion they cost goals, on others, due to those around about him, they don't. Robertson will never reproduce his Liverpool style of play in a Scotland shirt unless we are playing the weakest of nations. He doesn't have the same quality around about him, he won't get to attack in the same manner and his team as a whole won't dominate in the way Liverpool can dominate a game. He's a very good player in the role he plays for Liverpool. Bar the actual position he plays, that's where the similarities end for Scotland. I actually think Tierney is stronger defensively than him. McGregor is similar. He looks sharp and inventive playing in a Celtic side that dominates most games domestically. He doesn't get the same time on the ball or options playing against a Russia or Belgium. He will try his best in all games, sometimes it looks great for Celtic, sometimes he looks what he is ,which is a pretty good SPL player, for Scotland. You could possibly label both "flat track bullies". That is probably harsh on Robertson who is part of a very successful side who have won a lot of big games but maybe not so harsh on McGregor. At the end of the day our "big" players aren't actually that "big" in the overall top level of football.

These two points are spot on and probably the most depressing off all. There is no obvious replacements who you think would make a difference who weren't included. We always want what we don't have, your point about Cooper emphasises that, but even the players we are thinking might be an improvement on what we already have aren't. We are in a sorry state.

I would actually take Stockdale at RB right now, no matter what age he is.

But its back to the point that Robertson probably performs well because he has VVD inside him and not Liam Cooper, he has the option to pass to Wijnaldum or Mane rather than McBurnie. He's also playing for a team who, in the main, dominates their domestic games. Apart from the lowest ranked sides he will never have that scenario when playing for Scotland. The same questions were being asked when Dalglish was winning European Cups for an outstanding Liverpool side but "never really did it" for Scotland. We do have some good players playing a decent level but, week in week out, they aren't playing in sides with Charlie Mulgrew or SOD. Additionally the likes of McGregor and Forrest look good at times for Celtic but they aren't playing against the levels of the Russian national side week in week out. If they were they wouldn't stand out like they do at times.

It probably is but I am sure they would have also gained some good ranking points for their performances at their WC?

I don’t think they froze, I just think that Russia actually woke up and started to get into the game. Even before the goal we were doing well and getting at them/getting a few corners but they still looked sharp at times. Once they got the wake up call of the goal they upped their performance and pinned us back. Sometimes you just aren’t good enough to counter that. Re desire , I would doubt any player playing professional football at international level doesn’t have the desire to succeed and win. It’s why they are there in the first place, the elite of their nation. It’s just that some of our players have better options beside them at club level hence there performances there look better. Additionally some of them won’t be playing against the same level of quality that the Russian national team has week in week out. Our base problem is that 3 out of our 4 defenders are not international quality. It’s been that way for a long time. With a good level of defender you will always have a chance. Without it you will always struggle. The one who is quality is also probably best known for his attacking displays at Liverpool, quite often against teams they dominate. If he does make mistakes or is caught out of position, as he can be from time to time, he has the qualities of likes of VVD or Fabinho to cover for him. The other main problem we have is that when we are under pressure we don’t have a forward who can take in and hold balls to relieve the pressure on us. Combine a below average defence with no attacking relief and you can see why we lose games.

You have heard the saying about judging books by their covers my man?!

Someone on here a wee while ago had him down as "your typical Ned", off the park. No evidence to back it up whatsoever bar one picture in the media of him pished about 7/8 years ago. Another person who couldn't differentiate between the on field and off field personalities being different things.

Think the person has been quickly identified. There were pics doing the rounds on social media of the lads Facebook profile. From what I read on Twitter last night Rangers have also been made aware who is is and have banned him from life. The couple of Twitter threads I read it was 100% condemnation from Rangers supporters, no ifs no buts.