mcnish

I think he's got an attitude and application problem that prevents him making the most of his talent. If he didn't though he wouldn't be playing for us, having sulked off when England under-21's wouldn't pick him and Levein took him out to Mcdonalds for dinner. I don't think we gain a lot by picking these types anyway, there's Scottish options just as good or more effective.

They were just as pish with Burke in (he was the worst player on the pitch v England) I tend to agree its a weak age group though. Lewis Morgan the only one who looks to have international potential though I suppose Souttar will get plenty of caps purely due to the lack of alternatives coming through. I can't see anything in Mcburnie to suggest he will go on to much.

Hardly, Celtic are far weaker than Man U and they could get away with picking pretty much anybody alongside their normal starting line up in the SPL and they'd still win regardless. Mctominay doesn't want to play for Scotland so its a moot point, but there's nothing to gain by calling up another average championship player in a position we already have strength in depth.

Except he's already started against Benfica in the champions league. Scottishness hasn't been a criteria for a call-up since the pre Berti Vogts era.

Ask yourself this, would Fleck ever get in the Man U starting lineup?

He was fit enough to play 51 games, and managed only 8 goals. You can make all the excuses for him you like, he was left out mainly for not performing well enough not just for injuries. It would be a joke to pick him for international football on the back of such mediocre performances in the championship.

This is one of Luxembourg's diddy teams as well.........just as well they weren't up against one of the Lux National league giants!

well either 2 age groups below ours , national under-20 reserve squads or obscure third world nations with no traditions of playing football competitively for the most part from what I observed

Gotta admit Taylor and Wilson did look pretty useful.......those league 2 club scouts will have been salivating in the stands! Apart from that Ralston and Hardie were decent enough , Burke showed ability but fairly erratic....... rest of the team pretty piss poor.

Following the commentary on the tournament website via google translator sounds like Hardie got a worrying injury at the end 77 Hardie (SCO / 9) is alone with Phelipe (BRA / 1) but loses his head on his face

Burke was tearing it up for Forest at the start of the season; Iacovitti on the other hand played exactly 2 games in which they conceded six goals and then got dropped and farmed out on loan to league 2 where Mansfield decided he wasn't good enough for them and sent him back to Forest reserves for the rest of the season. So if the above comment is in fact accurate it suggests Forest fans have slightly less understanding of football than even Craig Levein!

Reminded me of the wrestling scene from Borat : - 'Eat my assssssshole!'

Just like all our other caucasians I guess

Aberdeen and their fans would be the only entity on this planet that would rank alongside rats in terms of making me intensely nauseous and repulsed at the very thought of their existence and have put me off attending Scotland matches altogether in recent years having long ago hijacked the TA (alright maybe Levein had a hand in that also). Aberdeen fans that is, not rats if you want to draw a distinction. Never liked Hibs either, maybe because they remind me too much of Celtic (and no I'm not a Rangers fan) albeit a very low grade third worldish equivalent.

Are the SFA mischievious for trying to poach Dembele then according to that logic (if you could call it that)? Burke trained with England under-16 years before he threw his lot in with Scotland you know. The fact is we gain a hell of a lot more dual national than we lose, not that we gain anything much from the likes of Morrison and Bardsley.

Difference is though Iceland (and it was the same with Wales) had a generation of quality youngsters coming through to blood so it was a sensible strategy, we don't. The only young players ever likely to make an impact at senior level are Tierney, Robertson , Paterson and Burke, all of whom Strachan has put in the starting line up this campaign so you can't knock him for that. You might as well persevere with Fletcher, Brown (if he can be arssed) and Berra for the rest of this campaign whilst we have some faint hope of qualifying rather than throwing in the towel. Come the start of the next campaign I don't see our squad being any different, hopefully Morrison will have called it quits and Greer will be player manager of East stirling maybe and been replaced by Phillips and Souttar but otherwise we're stuck with what we've got really.

If he was 100% committed then presumably he would not have chosen to play for England and not waited for his career to bomb before showing a half hearted interest in playing for us. I'm pretty sure the home nations have an agreement not to pick players that have already played a full international for another British team and its not right anyway, it would just cheapen the jersey further (if it could look any cheaper than last night's girlish apparel)

False comparison. Kosovans were perfectly content being part of Yugoslavia, its only when Serbia attempted to usurp other parts of Yugoslavia as part of their own greater Serbian empire that they fought for independence. Same as if England decided at any point to try and absorb Scotland in to itself we'd all be backing the scottish equivalent of the KLA.

The sprightliest midget we've had in midfield since Gordon Strachan himself on current form.

Or just making an effort to back my arguments with fact, logic and objective intellectual analysis as as opposed to just spouting s***e or presenting my own simplistic, biased and self-satisfying opinions as gospel truth , in the true TA spirit.

I'm not picking faults with him playing for Scotland, I'd pick him, I'm just disputing the idea we should believe we are his first choice and that he has always identified as scottish and desired to play for us. As for Kosovo they've only existed in Uefa 5 minutes so the comparison is irrelevant.

Happy to oblige Unless he meant by that he would have a better chance of winning the world cup with Scotland which I tend to doubt. Anyway if he was fully commited to Scotland from the start and we were always his first choice he wouldn't have waited to under-19 level to declare for us. Its not like the SFA would have been unaware of him given their passion for scouring every lowly english club for granny links or that they were reticent to pick a player raised in England or that he's a late developer; he always seems to have been a top prospect at Forest. There's no explanation for him not having represented us at under-16 and under-17 level other than he was waiting for other options to materialise whatever his current stance is on the subject or what his old man says. File under Dominic Matteo.

Burke has lived almost his whole life in England, brought up in an entirely english household (his parents having seperated and been moved down with his mother to England when an infant) he's learnt the game entirely in England, only commited to Scotland at under-19 level having been ignored by England before then (and no I cannot swallow that he wasn't considered good enough for the Scotland youth teams) and he is quoted as giving his reason for declaring for Scotland that it was his best chance of getting international football (read easiest). That doesn't mean he's not entitled to play for us or that I wouldn't pick him but can we please not delude ourselves as to how he got here.

If you follow Scottish under-age level football at all you will know that the SFA will readily pick any english footballer with a scottish granny from league 1 upwards at all opportunities, believe me they're not picky and the standard is not high. Of course they knew he was eligible and would have wanted him from age 15 onwards at least. Its impossible to believe that they could not have known Burke (yet somehow knew all about Iacovitti's scottish grandparents) was qualified and even more impossible to believe they did not consider him worth calling up given he was a stand out player for Nottingham forest youth teams and on the fringes of the english set up (he didn't emerge from obscurity like Anya) or would not consider him for selection due to his England connections. The only plausible reason for him not to be selected at younger age groups would be that he was simply not interested. He won't come out and say as much now obviously but any intelligent person can make this logical deduction. What realistic alternative explanation is there? I've no argument over his right to play for either Scotland or England - he's the very definition of a dual national - its his motivation for picking us I am dubious about. He has admitted himself he has chosen to play for Scotland in the end because its the easiest chance to get the opportunity to play international football, having after all never been given a chance with England (though he did accept and attend a call up to their under-16 preliminary squad) I understand some people are not bothered about us being a back up choice of convenience to England and I can understand that viewpoint given the limited talent at our disposal and I accept his reasoning. I just want to make the point that all indications suggest we are not his number one preference despite the normal empty platitudes over their pride in playing for Scotland which they all come out with.

He's only represented Scotland at any level from this season, that's hardly a few years. He has never played for us at under-16, under-17 or under-18 level. Why do you think that was? Did he not know being born in Scotland entitled them to represent us? Did the SFA not know he was qualified despite his English born team mate in his year group captaining the team or was he not considered good enough to cut it as one of the best 20 odd scottish qualified players born in 1987? Or was it possibly answer D was he holding out for England attention having been looked at by them in their Victory shield preliminary squad 4 years back and then got fed up being overlooked subsequently by the England youth squads? Excuse me for not being naive and gullible enough to ignore the obvious. Ok so now playing for us is what he wants to do, same as it is now what James Morrison wants to do but its delusional to imagine either of them considered Scotland their first choice.