DaveyDenoon

That was a penalty Daft tackle to make

No, very soft indeed The foul on Rogic was probably closer to a yellow

Confirmed that Puel was NOT aboard the chopper, but the owner was.

No question he turned out to be a disaster. We’ll never know what might’ve happened without the hostility he suffered from day one. I still maintain Levein was worse, but it’s a fairly close run thing. I too was delighted when he was appointed. Without doubt he was let down by the media, his employers and some players. He didn’t help himself either mind. Gutted it turned out the way it did.

Correct. He was fighting a losing battle from the day he was appointed. The media wanted him out because his appointment made them look as stupid as they actually are and the guy never really had a chance. He was in a poor position with them from the off, no small thanks due to the SFA and the way they handled his appointment. Yet again the SFA are in amongst the bother. As it turned out, his time in charge was particularly poor but I do wonder how things might’ve turned out if he’d had the backing of the media. The constant sniping must’ve had some sort of impact on him doing his job.

Just home from the game and I have to say Callum Patterson was immense up front today. Needs to at least be included in the squad for the final two matches.

Utter nonsense. There are plenty young or youngish managers in international football. Didier Deschamps has done not too bad as well as Southgate, Giggs and plenty others. I never said Smith was a bad manager, so am not passing judgement on him so don’t need “credentials” thanks all the same. And it’s not exactly a view that bucks the trend to suggest McLeish is a serial failure since he walked away from Scotland so again I don’t really need “credentials” to point that out. But if I did then my “credentials” are a) In over 40 years of watching Scotland we are currently as bad a shambles as I have ever experienced, b) I have eyes and c) my eyes work. Anybody interested in the Scotland job had little opportunity to apply as the SFA embarrassingly ran after Michael O’Neill like a lovesick teenager then they invited Smith then when he said no, finally McLeish for talks. There was no application process worth talking about and no self respecting decent manager is going to go after a job in those circumstances. McLeish was desperate for a job and the SFA has been turned down flat by their first two targets. As a rule the tartan army have no history of wanting managers sacked after one bad result so that’s also utter nonsense. But on this one occasion a significant section of us do want McLeish gone. For very good reason - he’s a shite manager and we have little hope of qualifying with him at the helm. If we get rid now we increase our chances right away.

Aye, although many of the matches mentioned above had us feeling gutted/low/angry for various reasons, in many of them it was factors other than the performance that had us feeling that way. Decisions, importance, context, what might’ve been, etc, etc. Last Thursday, however, for me ranks as the absolute low point in terms of performance alone. It wasn’t utterly shambolic. In over 40 years watching Scotland I cannot recall such an abysmal shambles as the Israel game and you rightly point out that McGregor was the difference between a fortunate 2-1 defeat and a thoroughly deserved hiding. The Israelis must be spewing that they only managed a 2-1 win. That may yet prove to be the difference in winning the group.

I didn’t want Smith anywhere near the job. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes. But if I had to I’d reluctantly have had Smith in ahead of McLeish. But why were either of these two dinosaurs even considered? Smith has been out of the game management-wise for donkeys years and McLeish has been nothing short of an abject failure in every job he’s been near since he walked out on us. They are both yesterday’s men and in McLeish’s case an appallingly terrible manager in addition. That either, never mind both, of them were even considered for the job speaks volumes about the SFA. I doubt McLeish was truly in favour of the Peru/Mexico trip but he’ll have said he was all in favour of it during the interview as he was so desperate for a job he’d have agreed to anything. We need fresh blood in the role now and someone with a proven track record at elite level. Instead of drawing up a list of those they think they might like to appoint and limiting it to who they’d think might be interested, why not invite applications and see who really is interested? We might all be surprised... I will support the team 100% whilst they’re on the park and I will still hope and pray McLeish proves me and all his doubters wrong. I will celebrate wildly and eat as much humble pie as I can find if he does. But I will not back him now as I know deep down he will not. And I suspect most of the TA know pretty much the same in their heart of hearts. The man is a failure as a manager, has been for over ten years solid and there are zero signs to even suggest that this has the remotest chance of changing any time soon. We should get rid now.

He knew it was Tuesday,but couldn’t add five days.

Yes, you are right and this is HUGELY important Two wins will likely see us as Hampden for the playoff semi. A draw in Albania coupled with a win over Israel and we’d probably be away for the semi. If we are to even hope to win the playoff semi then a home tie is an absolute must. Although I don’t fancy our chances much with McLeish in charge, a home tie and we could just about do it. If we can find some kind of form between now and the playoff I’d quite fancy us at a packed out Hampden at home to Serbia or Romania for example. Over there? No chance. Not a chance in hell. It’s that clear in my mind and we all know our habit of failing to win crunch away games. I really hope McLeish realises this and goes for the win accordingly.

I think a crap commentator is the least of our worries right now

I’m no more an expert than you are. I’d prefer not to, thanks.

Agree. McLeish has to go. He is totally incapable and way out of his depth. The only time I ever want to see him in the Hampden dugout again is if he gets the Queen’s Park job. That’s about his limit - at a real push. Apologies to all spiders fans...

And if they’d wanted more they’d have got more. Could be double this easily. We were never this poor under Strachan. Not even close.

What worries me is that Portugal haven’t even got into first gear from neutral. If they were anywhere close to half interested in this match I shudder to think what the score would be.

I guess it’s an interesting debate but in reality whether Georgia are better than Israel or not is kinda not the point. Or whether it was our worst performance ever - according to bbc poll it was but that proves little. For me the point is that we were so bad and so shambolic on Thursday that it’s very clear McLeish almost certainly can not and will not lead us to the euros in 2020 - even if we do win our NL group. We won’t win the playoff with him in charge and unless we’re exceptionally lucky with the draw (and even then we’ll be up against it) we can forget top two in the qualifying proper. For that reason, the number of competitive games he has had in charge is pretty much irrelevant. Comparatively speaking that’s no less than Stubbs had at St Mirren but they recognised their error and fixed it. He needs to go now. Before it is too late and a very realistic qualifying opportunity is wasted.

Having watched both Georgia and Israel it seems clear to me that Georgia, particularly at home, are a better side than Israel. According to the rankings we are much better than Israel. We’re certainly not, on Thursday’s showing at least. Both Germany (whilst world champions) and Ireland made heavy weather of beating Georgia in the euro qualifiers both home and away, and Ireland dropped points over there in the World Cup qualifiers. Both those sides would’ve beaten Israel comfortably.

This is a complete red herring of an argument and we really need to stop using it. For almost every one of us on this board we work because we need the income. If offered a massive pay rise with another company yes of course most of us would take it. Football is different. Football managers have riches beyond our wildest dreams. A massive pay rise would significantly change the lives of most of us in a positive way. Not so for McLeish so to compare his walking out for a higher paid job to one of us doing the same is like comparing apples with kebabs.

Indeed We were honking in the first half against Albania and slightly better second half. If Albania weren’t even more honking than us (some say the worst visitors at Hampden in decades and it’s hard to argue) then we’d have struggled to win. Any half decent team would have beaten us that night. I can’t see them being anywhere near as bad at home next month meaning we need to be far better than we were last time we played them. Given what I’ve seen over the past twelve months I don't think McLeish is capable of getting anywhere near the level of performance we are likely to need out of the players. We’ll be doing very well to get a draw over there as things stand.

Sorry this just isn’t the case We started ok v Georgia and looked quite positive, but went downhill after they scored. It was a poor performance certainly wasn’t the shambling embarrassing pathetic display we saw on Thursday. And Israel are considerably worse than Georgia were then.

Georgia 2015 was nowhere near as bad. We actually started ok and played well enough for the first half hour or so, and there was at least some kind of discernible plan although ultimately we performed and executed it badly. But it wasn’t an all out shambles. The context of the game also made it more disappointing and obviously carried heavier consequences but the raw performance/shambles was nowhere near as bad as Thursday.

Yup there’s another good reason 😂😂

Was my number one choice too. I’d have him tomorrow. And for those saying he did a poor job at West Ham, in actual fact statistically he was their best ever premier league manager. And towards the end of his tenure West Ham’s problems ran way deeper than whoever was manager.

It really was. It was as dire as you could fear seeing. A poor, even terrible, performance is one thing but Thursday was beyond that. It was a group of lads sent out with no shape, no credible plan and no clue what they were meant to be doing. In addition to that, when it was obvious that whatever half-arsed attempt at a plan wasn’t working (after about 5 minutes) there was no attempt to change it, in fact he actually said he thought it was working ffs. Thursday would've been embarrassing for a pub league side. For an international side it was excruciating and simply unacceptable. I will repeat, Thursday was easily the worst performance most Scotland fans will EVER have seen .