BraveheartGordon

I think the poster made an intelligent point about why McKay should start ahead of Anya who is a counter attacking player. McKay plays against 11 man defences with a counter attacking threat every week, he's in the squad and if he's suited to a qualifier then it's this one. Would be happy to see Forrest start too though, just don't want to see Anya in a match that won't suit him.

I disagree with the formation bit, Strachan virtually plays 4-4-2 on the ball (one as a sort of shadow striker). along with Griffiths, Fletcher, Naismith and Martin, Snodgrass often played as a second striker before his injury. you could argue its 5 striking options in the squad and Strachan will probably start 2 of them.

Maybe Barrie McKay impressed him during his last call-up? Talented young player, hardly a shock anyway. I'm no fan of Greer and Hutton either but the alternatives are either hugely inexperienced going into a qualifying game, or even more questionable in terms of physical or technical ability. McCormick is still finding his feet at Villa and not had the greatest start, can see why he picked the other 4 strikers ahead of him (maybe apart from Chris Martin)

They've already signed 19 year old Jordan Rossiter, Matt Crooks and Josh Windass this summer ? They were obviously lacking a bit of experience to guide said young players, hardly a change of philosophy to bring in 2-3 30 plus year olds to do that.

But the new nations league format coming up could easily see both participating in shoot-outs in the near future for all we know.

There's a difference between something taught as ''gospel'' in universities and the conclusion that the scientific community accepts because of overwhelming evidence. There are limited studies which were found with gaping holes in the rationale and were disproved by other studies.

Because they need to cover so much distance to get to school, transport goods etc. its primarily cultural. The altitude of the country plays a big part in this too.

Sorry to burst people's bubble, but there is no connection between ethnicity and physical performance. I studied it at university last year and the only academic studies claiming any sort of link had a poor sample size or rationale. There is no difference between a pale skinned scotsman and someone with dark skin in terms of running ability population wide. Jamaicans aren't born great sprinters, they have exceptional sprinting programs. Skin colour is also controversial in itself with Brazillians recognizing over 80 ethnicities as opposed to ''black'' and ''white'', the Brazillians actually don't think the US has had a ''black'' president yet. Its all nonsense imagined by the western world. Anthropogenics is a different kettle of fish though.

It's a good thing...because I wouldn't want to see England win a game of tiddlywinks never mind football. I don't care about potential backlashes, Iceland have a far weaker team than England but they wanted it more, and well done to them for that. If the England jerseys aren't enough to motivate the Scotland players then nothing will.

What absolute nonsense that is, as someone who's undertaken a good number of the licenses now, I've never once heard anything except technique being prioritized. Is it just too hard for you to admit that actually we aren't weaker than many of the teams who did qualify, but we conceded too many goals from set-plays and crosses and conceded the first goal too often (especially away from home). I've also never heard of SFA coaches prioritizing height of young players or at any pro-youth club that I've witnessed. I hear these nonsensical ramblings all too often, which is especially confusing as we don't have a particularly tall national team, we have a large number of smaller technical players who you are actually describing.

With 20 minutes left of the campaign we were 5-0 up in Gibralter knowing we had no hope after the Poland draw on the Thursday.

My frustration is down to him picking his old faces rather than in-form players. Teams that qualified like Northern Ireland and Wales would bite your hand off for central strikers like Jordan Rhodes and Leigh Griffiths.

He's arrogant because he wants the same treatment for themselves and hibs as the other euro clubs got? Especially when pre-season fitness schedules and break times would already have been set with doctors and Strachan wouldn't even bother to give him or Stubbs a phone call. If this is arrogant then what would you call Strachan for withdrawing all Celtic players for the Kirin cup squads in 2006 to play in meaningless testimonial games? If he did withdraw them (and its a big if) considering he actually only spoke about having conversations with both doctors, Strachan would be the last man to have any sort of moral high ground on the issue.

Was Steven Fletcher's transfer to Sunderland not 12 million?

What I think people are missing here is that Slovenia and Slovakia have aging squads and less than fantastic performances in France may even force Slovakia to change their manager. They will probably both be in transition phases during the campaign and having to try out new players and systems. This is why I think we may finish 2nd and get a possible play-off, not because we'll have an exciting new team, but because we're settled and Strachan knows what he'll get from us. I think Strachan may be thinking along the same lines.

Your clearly one of the folk I hear moaning about the guy everytime he touches the ball but wouldn't moan at McKay if he scored an own goal. Wilson has been a solid cog and performed exceptionally well ever since the Hibs game in December.

Lee Wallace was unplayable on Saturday, he's been excellent all season, the lower division argument doesn't hold much water unless you tar McGinn with the same brush. Are cooper or Greer much better than Wilson? (who people still forget is a young defender).

I don't care what league a player plays in if he can contribute to our success, seeing players at Hamilton and Kilmarnock taking Northern Ireland to the Euros is a good example of this. Personally I think Lee Wallace is an outstanding player, he was unplayable on Saturday, the other one for me who could add something is Danny Wilson, he's been a scapegoat of the Rangers support but has been excellent recently in my opinion, and we've not got many central defenders. Michael O'halloran is also a dangerous player.

This rarely happens now within CAS, coaching has improved dramatically at most clubs in the last 10 years, especially since everyone watched the 09 Barca team. Have you seen the Belgian side now? they're absolutely huge, they're athletes who were trained to be footballers, I'm saying its the way to go or anything, you'll just struggle to find someone in their squad under 6 foot.

I'd hate to think what kind of hateful derogatary words you would have to use to describe Steven Fletcher's form if Rhodes form has been atrocious....

Scotland fans are perpetually either blinded by optimism or negativity, we're either onto something special or we're absolutely awful with no chance of doing anything. The reality is somewhere in between, The group is tricky. Malta have been competitive recently with 2 narrow defeats to Italy during the last campaign. Lithuania look as poor as they've done in years with 2 unimpressive wins over San Marino masking a poor campaign. Slovenia are in need of a re-building job, they're relying on the old guard like Novakovic and look devoid of something fresh in the final 3rd, they've got an aging squad and could do with a skake up. Slovakia have Hamisik...but also an average age of over 30, and will I suspect be in a transition period during the qualifying campaign, they have a difficult group at the euro's and could face a public outcry for youthful change unless they pull up trees and do something crazy. England are extremely athletic and have an excellent track record of winning their group. All in all I suspect that Malta and Lithuania will make up the bottom 2, and England are big favourites for the group....but Slovenia and Slovakia could well be teams in transition and our settled squad and management team gives us a fighting chance of second (doesn't guarantee us a play-off). The reality for me is that we're not going to be flying through the group to the WC, but we will also keep ourselves in the reckoning for the top 2 to the conclusion of the group.

I wont bother arguing with you because you've ovbiously got a fixed mindset and not a growth one, but after 2 and a half seasons you've decided he's never gonna be able to defend? Really? on the plus side with patience like that you could probably run the academy of an EPL club.

Bale was actually turned into a left winger because Assou-ekotto was keeping him out of left-back, oh....and Bale had the pace to gas the best right-back in the world before he moved there too. Robertson should be given time to master his own position before exploring other options, if we start shifting him about it won't do his confidence any good at this stage. I just hate this ''I've seen him numerous times and he's hopeless at defending'' when the guys only 21, most people would have said Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't shoot at 21. More than anything the role of a full-back (and that of a winger) has changed so much now, the demands on a winger are more often than not now to play as more of an inside forward (usually opposite footed too) to drag your full-back in and be a goal threat/link up with central players whilst a full-back has to provide width, be a ball carrier and have excellent delivery. Robertson has most of the attributes of the type of full-back which will dominate over the next 10 years, we just need to be patient and I'm sure he'll become stronger defensively too as he gets more and more gametime under his belt and more and more coaching.

I'm talking about Robertson... Macy said Robertson isn't a defender and you suggested playing him out of position on the left wing because he hasn't mastered the defensive side of the game yet.

Or maybe we just take a growth mindset and give him some time to develop the defensive side of his game considering he's only 21 and only played at a professional club for 2 and a half years, rather than taking a classic Scottish football approach by deciding he'll never master his position at 21.