dezmondo

I'm gutted after these 2 results. Never again will we have a better chance to win a World Cup qualifying group and achieve automatic qualification for a tournament we haven't qualified for in 24 years! By no means am I saying we should have a divine right to beat the likes of Austria and Denmark, but it's a great opportunity without any of Europe's big boys in our group. Instead of getting off to a flyer we've already blown it. Winning the group is now pie in the sky stuff, and getting 2nd looks unlikely. On current form I wouldn't be confident of picking up any wins on the road. I'm usually an eternal optimist when it comes to Scotland but if I'm honest we're not a great side. Most teams we play against are technically better than us and look far more comfortable on the ball. People keep mentioning progress but I'm not seeing it. We're now 5 games without a win. If you dig deeper you'll see in the last 32 matches we've won 12, most of these wins being against dross aside from a couple of stuffy 1-0 wins against Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The play off penalty shoot out wins have papered over the cracks. I'm still not convinced we're that much better now than we were under Mcleish. One thing that's really annoyed me is not taking those last 2 matches in the nation's league seriously enough, we could have pretty much already secured a WC play off spot. That's almost unforgivable for me. As for the Euros, I think we'll be lucky to get any points but we can always hope. But apart from all that, I'm f*cking peachy 😂

The table after 3 games is completely irrelevant. The bottom line is that we've had 2 relatively poor results, poor in terms of it already now makes it very difficult to finish in the top 2

With all the away games being midweek i can't justify the time off work for every match so I've booked Austria for me and my son, and Moldova for me and 3 mates. Moldova cost was much cheaper than i thought, flights and 2 nights accommodation for £290. I swore I'd never return to Moldova after 2004 but i can't resist 😂. Let's hope fans are allowed back in by then 🤞

We'll likely be the 3rd best league B winner. Not a disaster, we'd probably have taken that once the group was drawn. We likely only need one of the other 2 winners to finish in the top 2 of their world cup qualifying group. I'd fancy those odds......but yeah, we need to beat Israel first!

Northern Ireland beating Austria. That could offset oyr result today in terms of the play off.

It's not as bad as you seem to think. We don't need everything to go our way. It looks highly likely we will need either Austria or Wales (just one of them) to finish in the top 2 of their world cup qualifying group. Without seeing the groups I'd still guess the odds are in our favour for that to happen.

Surely we still have a very good chance of a play off via this route assuming we beat Israel on Wednesday. As it stands the 4 group A winners are Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany. It's fair to assume they or whoever wins their groups will finish in the top 2 positions of their WC qualifying group. In the nations league B, it now looks like Russia's group winner won't hit 13 points so only the other 2 group winners will potentially finish above us, which look like Wales and Austria or Norway. So, as long as one of those group winners (Wales or Austria/Norway) finish in the top 2 of their group then we will be fine. I get it's difficult to predict without the World Cup qualifying draw, I'm just making the point that it still looks good for us.

Ok, i now see it's to do with overall nations league ranking. What exactly determines this then? If its points etc, does this include group C winners. I'm confused 🤔😂

Why does it matter how many points we get in this group in relation to getting a world cup play off? I thought it was for the highest ranked nations league group winners, so why would our group points matter? Obviously winning these 2 matches will boost our ranking but there's plenty of football to be played between now and the end of the actual world cup group qualifiers. I get the impression I must be missing something 🤔

Few of my mates booked flights but i generally avoid flying to London. Train so much more hassle free and enjoyable, certainly if you're not travelling from the north of Scotland anyway. Can't wait already!

I'm unsure if there's been another thread on it but can't see anything. Wondering if anyone is in the know as to how many tickets will be allocated to the STC for each match? I can see that 32% of tickets are allocated to the fans of each tie, meaning 16% each. For the Hampden ties that equates to around 8000 tickets for us, and for the Wembley match, around 14000 tickets. Does this seem right? Are the UEFA 'follow my team' tickets included in this above total and therefor there will actually be less tickets made available to the STC?

Does Clarke realise that winning this nations league group gives us a very good chance of a play off for the World Cup? Why he would experiment given this or why anyone would think its OK to experiment in these past 2 matches is beyond me.

I think you might be 8 years and 3 more competitions out

Come on! You've not answered my question. Why does the referee give him a yellow card? Is it a yellow card offence to be off balance? 🤔 By the way, it's Morelos, and if he is a known thug then that makes Scott Brown a serial killer 😂

You've not answered my question. Why does the referee give him a yellow card? Is it a yellow card offence to be off balance? 🤔

So can anyone enlighten me as to what the rules are regarding the Griffiths yellow card. How can a stamp be a yellow card? 🤔 Not to mention the fact he knows exactly what he's doing. McCoist spot on in that Morelos would have been off for that.

can't see many folk going as in 1500+ given the logistics. I could be completely wrong though lol

So who's taking a gamble on flights? 🙈

Are the dates definitely 26th and 31st or are they any of the dates in between. Surely all play offs are not getting played on the same day

I predict Israel at home and a home final draw. If we are drawn away for the final I think I'll gamble on £100 return flights to Oslo.

He should be our captain in my eyes. The first thing you expect from a captain is to turn up and play and be willing to run through a brick wall for team or country, that sadly is not the case with Robertson. I have it on good authority that Robertson isn't fully committed. Something along the lines of 'he hates it, can't be bothered with all the captain stuff". Apologies, I'm not trying to take away from the OP and I can assure you I I don't post unverified nonsense or try to pretend I'm in the know when I'm not. It's just what I've heard second hand from a very trusted friend.

Absolutely agree. There's nobody at all and I think it makes a massive difference. Whether it's a strong personality or somebody who is vocal there's just nobody. We also miss not having a few units/bullies in our team. Every other team I see has a few but we don't really have anyone, maybe a few with potential. Again, i think it makes a difference, not only to the actual performance of the team but also mentally.

Now you're being silly. That was nowhere near our strongest team!

I think it's now fair to say that both previous managers weren't quite as bad as a lot of folk thought. Strachan I personally thought his time was up as he had his chance and failed. Now I'm beginning to think I was wrong. There's no way we would be any worse off than we are now, and most likely we would be in a better position with the advantage of continuity. We were performing better than we are now, we had a fair bit of momentum and Strachan himself admitted he had seen the err of his ways in the middle of his tenure - by overthinking and complicating his lineups. McLeish I said at the time and I stand by it, he simply wasn't as bad as most people thought or would have you believe. Bottom line - if McLeish had been in charge last night, this board and social media etc would have been going into meltdown today! The guy got pillered from day one and wasn't given a fair crack in my opinion. He had 6 competitive matches in charges and won 4. Israel away wasn't as bad as everyone thought and was a typical albeit not acceptable loss that most Scotland managers have suffered. Kazakhstan was a disaster, so essentially he was bagged for one bad loss - despite having a group of players not turning up (I know the players not turning up is an issue itself that doesn't reflect well on the manager). I'm not saying he definitely shouldn't have been sacked but it would maybe have helped if he got the support and patience that Clarke appears to be getting. My point simply is I don't think we're currently any better off. I'm not convinced that team last night would have fared any better against Kazakhstan away - despite Clarke having a better pool of players to choose from. I'm in no way against Clarke and will support him and hope he does well. I just think think the players continue to get off lightly with their abject performances, the grass isn't always greener on the other side when it comes to our managers, and our problems run far deeper than just our choice of manager.

Did nobody else notice that from about the 15 min mark for 10 minutes or so that the Russians were constantly hitting the deck and staying down on a couple of occasions. It totally upset our rhythm and didn't recover from it. We are really missing a few characters in the team. Obviously a dominant centre half, but an imposing midfielder who can drive the team on and pull the strings...hopefully Mctominay or Mcginn will grow into this role with experience. We also badly need creativity, every time we get into the final third we pass it sideways..... Christie looked good when he came on. We are in a real bad place at the moment. We look worse than average and don't have much that really improves on our starting line up tonight. When was the last time we lost a qualifier at home against a team who isn't one of the 'elite'? The attendances are depressing and will only get worse. Terrible terrible time to be a Scotland fan.