andyD

He's disintegrated quickly if he's gone from scoring 10 goals from centerback to being benched for not being good enough inside the same season!

29 games in the championship this season, scoring 10 goals. Mid-table finish for a newly promoted side after flirting with the play-offs challenge for half the year. A very respectable performance by a team that he made a big contribution to. But I'm sure you're right.

Kelly O'Donnell - Mulgrew - McKenna - Robertson McTominay - Armstrong Forrest - McGinn - Fraser Burke Fancy Burke the most of the 3, even if it's purely got his pace and physicality. None of the three are prolific scorers. Give McGinn a shot in behind as he can still press, has an eye for goal and should be far enough from our own goal for it to be safe. Armstrong's one of our most consistent players, McTominay's nailed on. In terms of keeper.. I don't really trust Bain from what I've seen of him. Doesn't fill me with confidence. MArshall's had a hit and miss season. Shipped a lot of goals and Hull seem to be letting him go (dropped for the last few games with the manager talking about picking a side looking towards next season). So it's McLaughlin or Kelly. I don't think there's much in it, but Kelly is 8 years younger, so the better option if we're looking to the future.

Feels like a big squad to take a look at a few people. 4 keepers is obviously a "this shirt is up for grabs" O'Donnell and Palmer are the only real options for RB with Paterson injured. Robertson, Taylor are the only real options with Tierney and Douglas out. Bates is injured, so the centerbacks aren't crazy. Devlin played against Celtic earlier this month, so he's fit if not sharp. Center mids look very sensible, not sure we need 7, but wanting to take a look at an extra guy is fine. With the wide men, the only surprise is that it's Morgan and not Johnston, but ok. Strikers is the problem to me. Burke's off form. McNulty scored 1 goal since mid-march (8 games) and looked poor against the mighty San Marino. Brophy's scored 3 goal since xmas. By contrast Fletch has scored 8 since the new year. So his absence is odd. Harper hasn't scored enough imo, so fair enough. But, Rhodes hasn't had a bad year with 9 goals, despite being largely benched due to Pukki being unplayable all year. So there were other, imo better, options that we should have taken. Feels like we're going to really struggle to score.

I think that's why he said "hopes he develops".

Oh aye. Saw it was a facial injury and assumed he'd be back fairly quick, but turns out he's fractures a few bones. Cairney or Snodgrass seem likely shouts.

Expecting something like this? Bain, McLaughlin, Kelly O'Donnell, Palmer Robertson, Taylor Bates, McKenna, Souttar, Findlay Armstrong, McGinn, McGregor, McTominay, Turnbull, Christie Forrest, Fraser, Hastie, Johnston McBurnie, Fletcher

If the Clyde winger is the 4th best winger we have, then yes. Seems a bit unlikely that our 4th best winger would be in league two, but the principle stands. No one's saying for sure, but given that Scotland have used that for many years now, and Killie used 2 wide men, it seems very likely.

Does that work? We have, and likely will, play with 2 wide men. We need 2 starters and 2 back ups in case of injurieso r unforseen circumstance. So to my mind we need 4 wingers in the squad. So we have to pick the 4 best wingers we have (the definition of nobody better). It's that or play without wingers, but forrest and fraser are too good to play without them.

I guess for me, it's a question of which 4 players should be in the squad for the wide forward positions. Fraser and Forrest are givens. But for the other two spots there are not really any clear standouts. Either older players who haven't exactly shone when given opportunities. Guys who are coming back after injuries, who've barely played this year. Or young players who are in and out of sides at best, but have had a few good moments. I'd be fine with Morgan, Johnston or Hasite, given the options and the opponents.

Got no money to speak of afaik

Made sense to me. (even if it wasn't particularly classy)

Forrest - Not fit enough to play for Celtic atm according to Lennon. Fraser - The standout, cert to be in the squad. Burke - Has played up front for Celtic rather than wide. Not great form lately. Hastie - Been left out lately to protect him from 'Well fans. Got to have an outside chance of a call up tho. Russell - Mid-season in the US atm. Still performing well every week it seems. Probably call, tho it's along way. Phillips - Been back fit for over a month, but didnt get much game time in the 7 fixtures since then. Snodgrass - Plays central more than wide these days, but could still do a job out there. Johnston - Not played much this season, but there's an argument for tying him down with a cap. GMS - Played about half a dozen games since November. 13 mins since mid-Feb. Wouldn't risk him tbh. Morgan - Playing regularly at least, albeit at League One level. 1 goal, 2 assists in his last 6 starts. McKay - Seems to have become a 'last 10 minutes' player at Swansea. Middleton - Been dumped back into the youth team, only 30 mins of 1st team action since around xmas. So.. Forrest and Fraser kinda have to be in, even if Lennon seems to be angling for Forrest to miss out. I'd probably take Hastie and Johnston as the back ups. Youth and enthusiasm in reserve over steady players, but with no particular spark. Burke's still a possible call up front given our complete lack of options. Snoddy possible in the number 10 spot where Christie will likely operate. Will be an interesting squad, for sure.

he went full parcel of rogues right there 😯

I think Clarke will have had a good boost in terms of player perception. Manager of the year and finishing 3rd with Killie are good, positive things that demand a bit of respect. He's coming in on a high, unlike McLeish who seemed a bit like he was here because he couldn't get a job anywhere else. Clarke's here because he wants to be and he's earned it. Hopefully the players will recognise that and it'll help him in getting performances out of them.

good find! To be fair, it's been a decent 7 years and he'd had 9 games as a manager when I rote that, and now he's had nearly 200. West Brom's best finish in about 40 years. Reading's first cup semi-final in 90 years. Kilmarnock into Europe. He's not really done badly anywhere in those 7 years. The Reading sacking seemed political. And while West Brom's hadn't had a lot of wins spanning the end of one season and the start of the next, they were 16th when he went, having drawn with Chelsea and Arsenal and beaten Man Utd at Old Trafford. Hardly a disaster. So it's reassuring that he's been consistently good.

are you not merciful

Think this is worth watching: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p079fdcs This is part of why I'd never boo anyone in a Scotland shirt. But maybe it should give us all pause next time we're minded to berate any player.

This is something I'd disagree on. It's something I've heard a lot in club football too. "They aren't telling me what they're doing" as if that's a problem. It's not. No manager or chariman or board should ever be telling you what they're doing. They'd be remiss if they did. We've had as much info as we should. Chief executive Ian Maxwell has been drawing up a shortlist. At the beginning of May that shortlist was submitted to the board. They've deciding on whether to make a permanent or interim appointment. They intend to announce a decision in the next week. What more do you expect to know tbh? Note: I'm not defending the SFA board, they're clowns and seem to just make mistake after mistake, when they even make the effort to act. But the 'lack of information' is most certainly not a problem.

I'd like to see him have the opportunity to test himself at that level tho. Often people rise to a challenge.

I'd rather have a Robertson at 100% tho, even if that means giving the captaincy to someone who's maybe a bit green.

Don't know if i'm alone, but I've felt like his performances for Scotland have been less good since he's had the armband. As if trying to pay attention to captainy things has taken focus off his own duties somewhat. For other options.. McKenna's worn the armband for Aberdeen on occasion. Souttar's captained Hearts regularly. McGregor's captained Celtic a couple of times in Brown's absence. I like the idea of Armstrong, given how consistent he is, good example for the rest. Personally I'd probably go with McKenna for now. He's pretty much a nailed on starter and seems like he wouldn't be overburdened by it.

That it's the players players of the year award. It pretty much just means that McGinn is mates with everyone, which is good. But.. not an objective assessment of his contribution or quality relative to the rest of the squad.

I haven't got it in for the guy, but.. As had been said, he wont players player of the year, which is really just who's best liked in the dressing room most of the time. You're suggesting he's better than Armstrong, which i just don't see. Generally in a Scotland shirt, Armstrong is one of our better performers, even on the days when everyone's having a nightmare. Meanwhile, McGinn has rarely shone and instead made glaring errors in several games, and generally doesn't take care of the ball very well (something he's also shown at Villa a number of times this season, that I've seen). It's also worth bearing in mind that Armstrong's looked decent at Premier League level and made a difference in games for Southampton, despite niggles meaning he's been in and out of the side. Cairney looked better in the Championship before coming up than McGinn has this season and he's all but disappeared in the Premier League. So make of that what you will. Would regular top performers in the Championship, like Fleck and Bannan, cut it in the Premier League? Doubt it, and I've not seen anything from McGinn to suggest he's ready for that step up yet. I might be in the minority, but I think Villa going up could be the worst thing to happen for McGinn. Of Villa's midfield 3, Grealish and Hourihane are the better players. And I can't envision Villa not strengthening midfield if they're promoted, which leaves McGinn sat on the bench for most of next year. Another season playing every week in the Championship is probably the best thing for him right now imo.

So looking around Europe.. La Liga permits up to three non-EU players per team. Bundesliga 1 and 2 do not have a maximum foreign player limit, but instead a minimum "local" player limit. At least 8 players must have played for the club in three seasons each before turning 25, and at least 4 further players must have done the same at any German club. Ligue 1 has a limit of four non-EU players per club. Due to the EU we can't limit the number of non-Scottish players at the club, and just limiting non-EU players seems a bit pointless given that it's not easy to get work permits for them in the UK and the rules are fairly easily bent anyway.. e.g. Suarez and Coutinho have EU citizenship thru their other halfs, so don't count as 'foreign'. I actually quite like the German rule tho. Incentivises clubs to either invest in their own youth development. Sure, you could bring in a load of young Croatian players, but for most Scottish clubs, I'm not sure that's practical. Each clubs essentially needs 12 players who have been in the league from a relatively young age. Scottish Prem budgets mean that you're not going to be able to have 12 token players in the squad.