COLT NY

Patterson played well for us against Moldova, but with the amount of game time he's been getting at Rangers he really shouldn't be getting selected for the squad in front of Calvin Ramsey.

A few notes on today's performance.. Great first half from Adams... We're still limited in the postition, but he showed a point of difference to anyone else we have available upfront, winning the ball back and attacking with purpose. Gilmour is an exceptional player. If he was Dutch he'd be worth $80 million and wouldn't be playing for Norwich (okay, he'd probably be playing for Ajax). Does anyone in world football play like John McGinn? He seems to have unique talents and physique. Great to see his brother get a cap in such a pivotal game. SOD... Great guy, and has never let Scotland down. Good for him. But how long until we see Calvin Ramsey in a Scotland shirt?

I think Austria might be the nation most similar to us in footballing terms. Good historical pedigree but flattered to deceive over the past couple of decades. Also in the shadow of a big brother nation where most of the best players go to play out their careers if they're good enough. I'm still not sure I like them though.

I definitely can't see Austria winning in Denmark. and it might not even make a difference if they do. I get ESPN coverage here in New York, and I was massively impressed by the atmosphere in that stadium in Copenhagen (they do a fly around before the game). Completely full, right on the pitch and clearly everyone there to party expecting to see a Denmark victory. Not the biggest, but maybe the best home stadium in Europe?

Best thing about that article was seeing the players enjoying themselves so much in the "can you get past Stephen O'Donnell?" drill.

Right! We lost 3-0 to Kazakhstan with the last manager! We were also routinely trounced by teams like Belgium and Russia. Now we're talking about sacking the next guy if he drops points in Denmark and Austria. Le's get some consistency in the coaching, see if Clarke can build a mentality, learn from his mistakes, and get to changing things mid-game. Let's not throw away a good coach who wants the job without any viable better replacememt.

Maybe the SFA is wise to the fact that if we beat Denmark and Austria it will cost a hell of a lot more to tie him down to a new contract, and if they lose they don't have many better options than a guy who at least got us to a real competition?

Is there a squad size limit? I'd have just included them on top. If there was a limit I'd have been inclined to pick one over Armstrong. I like him as a player, but I feel he's had a lot of chances at international level now and never quite done enough.

I'm a bit disappointed that Lewis Morgan hasn't got a call up here. Both him and Ryan Gauld deserve it. I can't believe that people are suggesting that Scott Wright should get a call up ahead of them at this stage.

If Patterson's worth $10 million playing in the Rangers reserve team, how much must Calvin Ramsey be at by now?

You're missing that your cherry picking statistics to make a point. Of those 9 games 3 of them have been in the Euro Finals, and 2 of them were playoff games that got us there. There's improvement to be had, but if you had told me that Clarke would get us to the Euro 2020 Finals when he arrived, I would have bitten your hand off for it regardless of the amount of times we don't beat Israel beforehand.

Totally agree. Instead of picking anyone closeby who's going some time to spare (it's happened before), he's gone with experienced international coaches that bring something substantial to the table. The other thing that I'm delighted to hear Clarke emphasise on the MacPhee appointment is that in bringing in the dead ball coaching specialist at Aston Villa he's keen to improve an area that has been sorely lacking for the Scotland team lately. Our corners and free kicks were pathetic in the Euros. Against the better teams we need to be dangerous from the set piece. That's what Iceland and Northern Ireland's success was built on.

McLaughlin doesn’t get a game and should be 5th choice at best. Marshall might also not have played for a while, but he’s had a much better career of the two. I think I’d like to see Zander given the shirt at this point. Marshall and Gordon have been great for us, but we do need to develop the next generation. If Gordon’s on form consistently for Hearts though, he’ll be hard to ignore.

Yeah this is Euro 2020 after all

This is torture. I didn’t think 2020 could get any worse.

It's certainly debatable whether better facilities make a better player. It's probably likely that a player's mentality will allow them to succeed or fail whichever situation they are in. Ronaldo and Messi were at top clubs from their early teens, De Bruyne left Genk at 21, Lewandovski was playing in the Polish 3rd division until he was almost 20. The only real take away I'd make from this discussion is that Murray Park has been a colossal failure. It hasn't produced Rangers first team players, and hasn't really produced anyone that's gone on to greater things other than a kid who left at the first chance he got when he was 14. I'm not a Rangers fan, but I would like to see that situation turn around so that we can see more Scottish talent being developed in Scotland.

I'm not a huge fan of VAR as it seems t be implemented mainly to rule out goals for fractional offsides. Maybe instead of that they should use it when the ref is suspicious that someone dived. The current situation doesn't work. If the ref thinks someone dived he's still unlikely to book him because he's not 100% sure. I'd like this to be applied all over the park with a yellow going to anyone shown to be diving on the playback. That would quickly make players think twice beforehand. If anyone's seen any Copa America games, the diving's reached pandemic levels over there and the referees just continually encourage it with their officiating. Something needs to be done. I feel bad for Denmark, Sterling did exactly the same thing near the end against us and I'd have been furious if they'd have won against us because refs can't stand up to known cheats.

I disagree with that... It's good for us because if they can do it there's no reason for us not to aspire to do the same. By the way, France's defending in the last 10 minutes of normal time in that game was honking. If any of our boys had done anything similar this board would be in meltdown.

I'm surprised McTominay is being singled out. He was played out of position in two of the games, and didn't do a lot wrong. We need to start using him in midfield if we want to see the best of him. For me the biggest disappointment was the inability to take changes (open play and set piece). We just don't have the quality in attack that's needed at this level. There must be a reason why those players aren't being developed. Could you imagine how good our team would be right now if Harper, Gauld, Feruz and Burke had all fulfilled the potential they showed at 16/17 in full? Maybe assume that Liepzig converted Burke into a speedy and skillful right back to get them all in the eleven....

I remain a big fan of Steve Clarke. He's brought us a long way considering we were losing 3-0 to Kazakhstan and making Russia look like Brazil earlier in the tournament. That said, today's performance was shocking and how he didn't see it needed to be changed before the game was away from us I'll never know. I also can't believe how poor our corners and free kicks were throughout the tournament and even in the pre-tournament friendlies. Why set plays in dead ball attacking situations weren't developed is hard to fathom. We completely wasted about 95% of these chances without coming remotely close to looking like scoring. I'd be really disappointed if he left though. I think he's got the makings of a good team, and if he learns from the clear errors that were made in this tournament he can be a very good manager for us.

What makes you think Robertson will retire in 2 years? He's only 27 and should have 5 years left in him I'd think. He clearly loves playing for Scotland. What's Christie done to be singled out? I thought he was underused in the tournament. His 45 minutes was better than any half that Dykes put in. Why can't we produce any strikers? It looked like every team in the Euros had at least one guy up top that would improve our team significantly. I think our best chance of qualifying for the WC is managing to surprise Denmark. If we can somehow wrestle top spot from Denmark (1 Win, 1 Draw) and Austria (1 Draw).. Austria v Denmark (Draw) then we avoid a seeded playoff against a team likely to be ranked well above us. You were right the first time around. We have a -4 goal difference.

Turnbull wasn't up to pace in the game against Holland. He gave the ball away 2 out of every 3 times he got it. He's one for the future, but there's no way Clarke's starting him against Croatia. Like others have mentioned, I think Hendy will come in at the back and McT will shift to the middle, with Fraser to come on fairly early if we're still chasing a goal. Croatia need a win as well, so it could be quite an open game. I think that plays into our hands as we can break well with this formation that Clarke has implemented.

McGinn’s booking was a bit of a joke. Unless I missed something, it seemed he got a yellow for asking for a foul when Mings stopped Dykes from running in on goall by tackling his face.

Time for Southgate to bring out his brollly

Terrible marking from Dykes there