gaz7

think its a straight shootout between him and christie for mcgregor position due to injury but both give different options. Christie in his new bournemouth role will be beside gilmour sitting in front of our 3 defenders with mctominay and mcginn in front of them behind striker. Ferguson would be behind striker with mcginn and mctominay behind him and gilmour behind them. Will depend on who we play. Thats where I feel both ferguson and christie are now both best suited but both are flexible. Mcgregor is a big part of this current team but this season he has been poor for celtic and these friendlies depending on what happens will give clarke sleepless nights I feel with the players that come in desperate for a starting spot. Midfield now can cope with a couple of injuries but i obviously dont want any. The full back positions as everyone says is whats worrying just now. Hope Patterson has a storming couple of games for us in these friendlies or someone comes in from nowhere as hickey is definitely a mibby at this stage. I remember the 98 world cup when our best player and captain mcallister got injured and missed it. Theres no doubt we would have been stronger with him in team other than darren jackson.

Hickey is a great fit for the tierney role. He's played as a wing back for us and conventional full back every week for brentford . Is taller than tierney and also imo now better defender than tierney. Natural progression for him and this option is only one that will still give us an attacking option. He's also been part of team for a while now so will be well versed on what tierneys role was. It also gives us more attacking threat on right via patterson. Would obviously have liked tierney to play but not as big a loss as some feel

Yep im with you the crowd on saturday were poor and down to i feel as others say we expect to beat likes of cyprus again, game was flat, 2pm ko meant not a lot of socialising before, lots of families due to sat afternoon etc etc. Another one that hasnt been mentioned is that now within spfl games I feel that if there is no relevant "young team/ultras" at the games then the rest just sit quietly. Most games imo rely on the young team with their flares,drum , banners and songs etc to get the atmosphere going and if they arent there then the rest of us dont do very much. Hope tonight is different and similar to in recent past denmark/israel etc as theres no doubt it spurs our boys on.

I think we have a great chance tonight and I know my heart might be ruling my head but this Spain are no world beaters and certainly not on a par with France or England. They dont have a team full of madrid or barca players anymore and Im sure robertson,tierney,mcginn,mctominay mcgregor will feel they are as good as any of their players. The rest of ours need to have big games and the biggest could be hanley keeping morata quiet and big Dykes ragdolling their centrebacks. There have been some great results in the pishing rain over the years and this could be another as I think Spain at this moment in time are trading on past glories and I hope I am proved correct at 10pm this evening. Enjoy the game everyone.

No doubt a worry however on the flip side they lose to Spain then they play away to Georgia on tuesday which is Georgia 1st game so they will definitely be up for it and lose that also it would mean them going into the game with us in June under severe pressure especially if we have 4 or even 6 points. 1st 2 games are crucial and Im actually getting more confident of something good happening. A good performance and victory on Saturday will give everyone confidence to go into Spain game which hopefully will be one of those special evenings

Clarke tried something different tonight with the formation 1st half that didn't work . He had mctominay and mcginn wide of armstrong in 3 behind dykes with gilmour behind them all on his own. 2nd half when we went to 4231 we again looked gd and robertson in front of tierney worked. Both of them have to play. Team going forward I would like to see. Gordon Hickey hendry mckenna tierney Mctominay macgregor Patterson mcginn robertson Dykes/adams That's imo all our best players on pitch and against pot a teams we have added defensive awareness with robertson and patterson.

Never saw game but saw plenty of others with gemmill in charge so I can imagine. What I have noticed on this thread though is a majority saying its not about results it's all about development etc etc. Imo that is a load of rubbish. A winning mentality if it would ever exist in our underage teams would transfer to when they get to main team and would also I'm sure cut out the likes of hickey not wanting to play for under age teams. Boys want to win all the time and our it's all about developing players is certainly not the main attitude of the top teams who play their top players all the time and treat underage groups with the respect they deserve. Our u21 team looking at squad does not have 1 regular starter 1st pick at club football. I know there are welsh .graham. and others that are in about teams but they are not 1st picks.

Doing well looks combative and getting about the pitch. Connor barron his sidekick in cm is best on pitch

Yes that's correct also as we never had much to feed off but I know for certain the dynamics of the crowd was different to Israel game. That was full of young team everywhere and I also know a lot of those same young team couldn't get tickets for play off game. Its all ifs buts and mibbys I only hope we have learned from it and most importantly clarke has. We can dominate midfield as shown previously and if we do the results have generally been gd.

Yes I agree with all that you state and this is all the gains we never had. I honestly can't think of a positive for us other than being at hampden which should have been huge but wasn't. I know this wint look gd and ill prepare for some slagging here but imo there was too many people at the game who don't normally go to football games I.e mums .daughters granny's etc as well as all the old yins in the tartan army travel club who go on what they perceive to be an Urquhart tour.Same crowd that was at Israel game for instance and the atmosphere would have been totally bouncing. As I say just my opinion.

There was too much negative vibes everywhere for us I felt and they all add up. The sky cycling leader said small gains in elite sport is massive and they all add up and all we had were small losses with of top of my head. Souness. Bill leckie.Robertson drinking.mcginn in ibiza. Tierney injured. Patterson injured. Publicity about us singing their national anthem. Putting flags on their fans seats etc etc. It all added to our worst performance in a while and then clarke decided to go with 2 up top as he had done previously when also previously we had played our best football with a 3421 formation . I could go on but I am still pissed off with it now. We laid out the red carpet for them and it has shown we are not ready yet for being a top class football nation.

nedved was midfielder and dzeko was/is bosnian but i get where your coming from. The big reason i have no doubt is the andy robertson factor in this team as he is one of the leaders in the maybe best team in the world and knows it. He is also maybe best left back in the world and there is no way he is settling for 2nd best. Add to that tierney,mctominay who are big players at big clubs with gilmour macgregor,mcginn all thinking they are as good as the big players at big clubs then thats more half a team of top quality. The other 4 in the team likely know they arent the best and wont play for a really important big club but in the past we have had 9 or 10 of those. In the last 20 years (barren years) we have only had darren fletcher that was at the top of his game and the results show why. Now if we had a striker whos a main player for one of the big clubs then your right as added to what we have then it would no doubt propel us forward as everyone can see Bale has done that at Wales but he also has ramsay,2 at spurs and some others at big english clubs that has propelled them to where they are and have been last 6ish years

Great post and why I totally agree that mctominay at rcb is best option like clarke. If we have 3 "defenders" in our back line who are not as confident on ball then the park becomes smaller and all we do is punt it long play for 2nd balls etc which again is not how we play now. Gilmour and mcgregor and mcginn are all talented players who operate at their best on the ball and they can only do this through good build up play from our back line. Hanley hendry cooper back line would not be comfortable enough on ball getting it from keeper and if ukraine pressed them then problems would arise. As the old saying goes if you have the ball then the opposition cant score.

Think thats a bit harsh. He loses ball more than others maybe because he tries to go forward all the time. He had some good runs with the ball last night going on wee 20/30 yard runs .Was involved in mcginns goal also put one on a plate earlier for mcginn with a nice 1-2. had a shot that was ok well over after bursting through. I could go on and feel he is better than christie in that position at the moment. Fraser might be ok in there as well or even turnbull when back or lowry looks promising? Felt for Jack a bit last night as he was out of position slightly on left of midfield 2 presumably to help ferguson be in a more natural position. We missed gilmour and macgregor for their ability to keep ball and pass to their team mates. Austria have some good players and had nothing to lose last night and it showed with their attacking intent and all in I enjoyed the match although slightly disappointed to lose 2 late goals. We are continuing to progress and last night was again a lot of positives for me.

Halkett has never impressed me much whenever i have watched hearts which I admit is maybe only 4 or 5 times a season when we are playing them and even then he is not playing all time due to injury. He looks slow and clumsy but playing in the middle of a 3 defence is the easiest position in football. Declan Gallagher showed this with his performance against mitrovic and if its just a striker like that to watch and hes up against then maybe he will be ok. He surely cant be the answer but do we have any others? Ive saw mentioned the 2 at coventry and various other lower league players but hanley and cooper are miles out in front for that position and if both of them are not able to play for whatever reason then it could be grim. Ross Stewart certainly deserves his chance and whilst yes league 1 is not great standard it cant be any worse than our premiership outside glasgow 2. He looks determined and will run the channels and obviously has a nose for goal. I agreed with a ross county fan on here a couple of seasons ago that he had something about him anytime i watched him and heres hoping he can be get a promotion chasing championship team next year and keep doing what hes doing.

I agree with majority that hickey is maybe starting to believe his own hype as are a few on here. Yes he is the highest minutes teenager in a top league but he is also miles behind tierney and robertson. If he cant be arsed he cant be arsed but that is quite typical of a lot of players who think they are better than what they are by turning up for internationals when they feel like it. The real top players always show up non stop and that is one of the reasons they are top players. Ronaldo,messi, mbappe, lewandowski even here bale,ramsay,robertson . I have said on another thread why oh why is livramento not called up? He is from what I have seen miles in front of hickey and he is scottish. Quite simple but it doesnt get talked about enough as he was born in England. He can play for us and he even namechecked us and I am sure all would agree he is best available in that position just now easily. Him and Ralston for RWB slot for me as hickey and ramsay are just mibbys and patterson has not played enough and odonnell has been poor for motherwell.

Yes I get where your coming from and sense in what your saying. But and a big but is all your opinion is based on is mostly to do with england and Portugal being better at football. We don't know how he feels regardinghis heritage i.e he might have loads of football supporting scottish cousins that are in his ear for all we know. As I said if clarke doesn't call him up then he either doesn't want to commit or may e wants more time if he doesn't go to other 2.

Can anyone tell me a reason why livramento would not get a call up? His mum is scottish! Hes arguably the best eligible rb we have imo . Our options just now are really only ralston as patterson and odonnell not playing for their teams. If he doesn't get called up then he's obviously not wanting to commit I'd imagine as no other reason

Surely we have to ask him. He stated that he was eligible and then there's been nothing more about it. I read earlier that oriley from celtic is going to be called into Denmark squad after just this week saying he's eligible through his mum. The more good players to choose from only helps and I can't understand why we wouldn't pick him

No surprise that the performance schools are creating more players. Quite simply the boys are playing football every day. Society has changed now and boys don't play football every day up the park. Most train with their boys club 1 or 2 hours a week and that's it. I would love it if every secondary school in Scotland had a similar set up with the school team the pinnacle. There are some great boys clubs around but also some really poor and I would say majority of boys teams are influenced by parents. If the schools were more involved then not only would the boys be playing more there would be less interference. Get them playing every day 5 a sides 7 a sides coaching etc all with qualified coaches and our playing pool would also increase drastically. Nothing else unites our country or feel good factor like Scotland at a big tournament.

The diamond midfield that you mention is a great option and certainly one that we should play against the very top teams if we get the chance to play them again.e.g france Brazil etc. Gilmour at bottom with mcginn at top and McGregor and mctominay license to go box to box. Clarke has went with 4 midfielders but in a box formation with 2 at the base in gilmour and McGregor and mcinnes and Armstrong/christie supporting dykes/Adam's. Also if 2 strikers he had 2 at base and if he always wants 2 at the base then I dont think mctominay puts out gilmour or McGregor . In that formation I like him at rcb as his ability on ball is better suite to that role imo. As someone else said it's been a very long time since we imagined a man utd player wouldn't be a guaranteed starter and whilst I feel he should be the discussion on it shows how strong we are getting.

I'll hold my hands up and admit I was wrong on steve clarke. After the Russia and Belgium games in 2019 I was so fed up as we were miles off them and couldnt see when we were going to even get close to qualifying. Now we look like a solid team and clarke gets all the credit. Hes stuck with same formation even though some pundits and fans were saying we need to sometimes change it up and that has been massive for familiarity. Any player that comes into team will know what his job is and its showing. Plus the gold dust effect of robertson mcginn and a few others makes other teams wary of us. Getting to a world cup again will be magical. I was there in 98 in Paris and the whole country at that time was just stopped. Great times and clarke is bringing them back.

I've just read this on bbc sport regards wales game tonight so here's hoping rules get changed. See below.......... . The players that are not booked against Belarus but are booked against Belgium will be banned for the play-off semi-final in March, played over one leg - but it is believed Uefa's member associations are lobbying for that rule to be changed.

Come on you cant believe that. There was no doubt loads of players everywhere were in same situation and no others were mentioned to do what he done.

Exactly we have a habit of bumming up other players. Robertson is best left back in world over last few years. Playing in arguably best team in world. Theres a reason hes in that team and also one of leaders in it.