andyD

wow.. it tookme till this to realised you were having a laugh.

Assuming you're right... which is by no means certain given that he played the full 90 in two games in the final month of the season, including after the playoffs were not longer possible... then it makes sense not to play for us, doesn't it? Wednesday's season finished over a month ago. If he were to play in these two games he'd have to be in full match training for an additional 5-6 weeks. Given they'll probably return for pre-season in early July, that's more than half the off season for Championship clubs. If you've got a niggling injury that you need to get rid off, then you often need a period of rest. He wouldn't get that if he played in these fixtures. So makes 100% sense for him to rest for this double header and be full fit for the next season and full fit for the three double headers before the end of the year. Every player and manager has to make a judgement call when it comes to injuries. Is it worth risking them? Is only 80% of that player enough? Are we better off letting them get 100% for the more important games? We're likely to beat Cyprus and lose to Belgium with or without Fletch. But if playing him meant he carried this apparent injury into next season and so was still only a 70 minute player when the Russia games come around then that's bad for us, not to mention bad for him as the longer he goes without sorting his injury the more likely he is to do something worse. So why on earth, assuming your assumption is right, would you advocate binning him, for looking after his own body and sacrificing 2 games to be 100% for the next 6? It seems an utterly silly thing to say to me, but please help me understand your thinking.

Who's said he doesn't want to play for Scotland? It's likely that he's been carrying an injury (god knows the entire rest of the Wednesday squad has been) and he needs a full summer to try and sort that out. His game's never been about pace, so he could maybe go for another 2-3 years, and wants to sort it out to make that happen. Point is we don't know. So saying 'bin him for turning his back on us' is ridiculous, cos no one knows it that's what happened. If he's refused a call or retired, I imagine the manager would have mentioned it. Don't even know why this is worthy of debate.

No problem with people celebrating their success. If he was on the top deck of a bus round town with his teammates, cool. I'm talking about a specific moment where he was stoney-faced "we won the league, nay big deal", as if he was the greatest player to ever set foot on a pitch. Which is funny considering he played played any part in Norwich's promotion, spending less than 15 games with of minutes on the pitch. Part of me is now looking forward to seeing him get pumped 7-0 by Man City next season. Maybe it's just his sense of humour, tho I don't think I've ever seen the man crack a smile. Watched a few interviews with him since to try and get a feel for him, but honestly can't say I've warmed to him at all. His favourite thing about being a footballer is.. "the lifestyle." f*** sake. Basically I started out thinking h was a fairly average footballer, and as i've found out more about him, I'm leaning towards him just being a prat. Broonie's a prat, but he's got some respect and will properly knuckle down when required. McLean.. remains to be seen what he is. Hopefully he finally shows something in a Scotland shirt should he get one on at some point, as his five caps to date have been pretty forgettable.

And why was that? I'm willing to put money on the fact that you don't know, but you're gonna guess.

For me that's always been the question mark over Tierney. He's got talent, no question. But he's very comfortable at Celtic. It's his club, he wins leagues. Occasionally gets to play a big team in Europe. I'm sure it feels like success. But in the grand scene of things, it's not. The Scottish title is not something any significant footballer aspires to achieve. So the question is, whether Tierney has the desire to push out of that comfort zone and make the step up to actually compete with the best. On a side note, I saw Kenny McLean acting like a big man who'd 'made it' because Norwich got promoted. What an embarrassment that is. Well done for getting out of the 2nd tier. But it's the 2nd tier.. and just being in the top tier isn't impressive. And if a player has that attitude, then I doubt they'll actually achieve anything and will likely end up like Huddersfield.

That's not fact based. That's just like.. your opinion maaan! I'd almost entirely disagree. For me, the centerbacks are the main issue, closely followed by with the defensive mids (McGregor and McGinn) doing the required work.

The point is that that is a single performance. If Robertson (why you picked him i dont know, but ok) went a dozen games with nothing coming of his apparent failings, while several goals were shipped due to our world class right back and even more due to central midfield not doing their defensive work, then would you not use that to draw a picture of what our weaknesses were, rather than 'well Robertson got beat a few times in that game'. Essentially what i'm labouring at is.. the fact show that we do not concede due to our right backs. That's just a fact. And I suspect, a lot of folk are down on O'Donnell and Palmer because they don't 'fancy' them, not because of anything they've particularly done wrong in matches. I'd like us to try and look more objectively at player performance, rather than just arbitrarily say "liverpool, faultless! kilmarnock, achillies heel!"

And that's cool. You're looking at one goal and one incident. And i guess manager can do that if he wants. BUt if you look at a dozen games and none of your goals conceded had anything to do with your right back, would you really be "well thats what we need to sort out ahead of anything else!" I think you've got the blinkers on.

You have no idea why he's not in the squad, but you want to make a judgement anyway. Making calls without sufficient information is a stupid thing to do. But you do you.

Great idea...

He was all season long. 44 games and almost 4000 minutes in goal for Hull this year. He was dropped for the last few (according to the manager) as he wasn't committed and so they had to look at what was best for the club. Hull fans not being fussed about him leaving should ring an alarm bell for anyone not still imagining that Marshall is the exciting prospect he was in his Celtic days. He's a very average goalkeeper these days, hence still being on the payroll of Hull, scrabbling at the bottom of the Championship for the last few years, and that a fair few Hull fans are perfectly happy to see the back of him should tell you everything you need to know. From what I've seen of him lately, his distribution is very, very poor and he's prone to the odd mistake. I'll be surprised if he plays. I'd have thought he was there to have a 'senior figure' among the relatively inexperienced crowd of keepers. Gordon would seem the perfect guy for that role, but Lennon seemed to be suggesting that he still had a niggle last i heard.

I think it's worth qualifying that.. He did well defensively. Going forward he was pretty much non-existent. There's a case to be made for him there.. e.g. against Belgium, where we're probably not going to be looking for our fullbacks to overload and spend as much time int he opposition half as our own, his defensive ability would be welcome and put to good use. However in the Cyprus game, he'd largely be a waste of a shirt. He basically has no right foot, can't cross off the open side when on the right and so doesn't offer on the overlap. For me there'd be a better argument for playing someone like Matt Phillips at right back in that game. He'd offer a better option going forward and would contribute significantly more than Tierney would. However, I'd go with the two we have. O'Donnell or Palmer. Whichever is in better shape and looks the better in training. I think O'Donnell is more likely simple because Palmer's season finished a month ago now. It's got to be hard to keep yourself match sharp without a game in a month.

Do you think a manager would weight 'mistakes resulting goals' lower than 'mistakes not resulting in goals'?

I think it's a fair measure when they're being accuse of being the team's achilles heel. If they were our one point of vulnerability then I think it's fair to assume that some evidence for that would exist in terms of goals against over the last dozen games. No such evidence exists. Are they the greatest right backs we've ever seen? Certainly not. But are they the vulnerability in our side that saw us struggle under McLeish? Certainly not. That was the point I was making, and the original maker of the point seems to have accepted the evidence. You seem to be arguing some other point with yourself. Have fun with that.

Aye, because Chelsea fans seem to be all consumed by domestic bragging rights. 😮 Arsenal probably would rather win the Champions League, as they've come to accept they'll never win the league again. Man Utd probably want to win the League because it would mean they'd returned to consistently producing quality which has been their downfall in recent years.

Think it depends. Man City would tell you they want to win the Champions League. Liverpool will tell you they want to win the League. All a matter of perspective.

That's like the European Army right? People been scared of it for 25 years, but no sign of it actually ever coming true.

Aye, ofc we want better if every position if we can get it. From my point of view, if you have to have one player who is 'weaker' than the others, then right back is probably where i'd want them. Wouldn't want a weak forward, as we need to win games to get anywhere and draws will kill us. Midfield we really need to compete. Keeper is vital. So of the defense, the right side is probably the best place to have a weaker player, given that generally there are less left footed players than right and so a lot of nations will have a weaker left winger than right winger (there's exceptions ofc). Anyway, I was only really calling you up on "our real achillies heel", which i thought was unfair given the stats.

I'm not sure it's as bad as you make out. We aren't shipping goals because of the right back. Looking at the Khazak game.. 1st goal - Shinnie steps up to play his man offside, but Bates is still deeper and plays him on. Nothing to do with Palmer. 2nd goal - No pressure in midfield from McGregor means the guy has all day to slot the pass inside Shinnie who's wrong-footed. Nothing to do with Palmer. 3rd goal - McKenna just doesn't win the header. Simple as. Could Palmer and McGinn have closed the guy down quicker.. maybe, i guess. But he crosses from very deep. Israel (home).. 1.. Long ranger from Kayal, McGregor not fussed to close him down. 2.. Another long ranger, again McGregor.. out of position, gets beat and then lets him go. Portugal.. 1st.. Robertson lets his man get infront of him, trying to shield it to let it run across him, when he should be dealing with it instead. Should O'Donnell have stopped the cross? You can say so, but we were doubled up on Bruma for a reason, he'd been a nightmare up to that point. Maybe if McGinn had bothered to run the 5 yard to be the 2nd man on Bruma then O'Donnell could have gone out. But he didn't, so.. 2nd.. Was all-round chaos in defense. Portugal free-kick. We have 4 men doing nothing in the middle and Portugal have 3 men at the back post lining up to knock it in. O'Donnell's the only guy competing with them, so would be very harsh to blame him, given that he's dealing with his own man and two more than other defenders have let go. 3rd.. Hendry gives it away in midfield, and they counter quickly for Bruma to finish well. O'Donnell stranded up the pitch by Hendry giving it away. Israel (away).. 1.. Russell lets his man go. Robertson should do better picking him up but i think tried to play offside. 2.. Cross from just outside the area with no pressure from Robertson or Russell. Tierney slices it into his own net. Belgium.. we played with a back 3, but let's assume Fraser is teh right back. 1.. McGinn falls asleep and hands them the ball on the edge of our area. 2.. Fraser's tracking Carrasco, who slips it to Hazard who should have been picked up by McDonald. Fraser tries to get there, but can't. 3.. Horrific pass from Mulgrew sets up a clinical counter. 4.. Ryan Jack made to look a fool holding onto the ball too long and they again counter quickly and clinically. Mexico.. cross from their right, not dealt with in the middle. Hendry, McGeough, McLean all failing to pick men up. Peru.. 1.. Mulgrew has it handled, but lunacy from Archer results in a pen. 2.. O'Donnell correctly positioned to block the cross. Mulgrew or McGinn have to step onto the free man, but both just ball watch. Costa Rica.. 1.. Paterson's marking Colindres. Cairney lets Oviedo run away from him for no reason, and Hanley and McKenna are both marking nothing in the middle, so the striker is free to knock it in. So what was the last goal that was due to the right back? Cos none of the last 18 were due to the right back. Seems to me that our defensive problems are mainly to do with workrate and organisation of the central defenders and central midfield. I get that Palmer and O'Donnell aren't popular, exciting big names.. But Robertson and Tierney have been responsible for more goals against since Strachan left. While it'd be nice to have someone with the quality of Fredricks, right back certainly isn't the problem in terms of us keeping a clean sheet for the last few years.

Interviewer: "So what's next for this team?" Robertson: "Beer"

Well, the first sentance is straight up wrong. The rest is probably accurate. Well done for skipping a potentially interesting discussion tho.

He's a weird one. He's certainly not a dreadful clogger for his club. He's actually a decent passer of the ball and would often be the guy to start moves. He's a bit like Bannan in that he looks great at his club, but for some reason when he's pulled on the international shirt has looked like a different (far less good) player. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to see McDonald or Bannan again.. especially given we have other quality options in that area of the pitch, but both have been good for years at club level. Makes me wonder if the change of manager might see us get more out of these two, not that we are likely to see them in a squad any time soon. Basically just saying dont write anyone off, if there's a big difference between how they play for their club an dhow they've played for us in the past. Forrest is evidence of that.

No.. no it's not.

bit sad, but.. yeah I wish we had someone really staking a claim, but we've go what we've got.