ScotlandFanMuir

I can confirm that I, ScotlandFanMuir am one of the rare breed who goes on tour with Scotland and also supports Rangers. I made it to a mere 8 games last campaign, failing to stump up the funds for Poland and Georgia away. Anyway. If I were hurled vicious abuse from fellow Tartan Army members - oh, I can imagine them now. 'Yes' wallpapers on their iPhones. St Andrews cross tattooed on the ankle. Nicki Sturgeon on the brain. If they were to approach me, foaming at the mouth, shouting - 'YOU, YA ORANGE, NO VOTING, SEVCO SUPPORTING, QUEEN LOVING, ZOMBIE , GTF' - I must admit, I'd have to look him/her in the eye, tip my vodka towards them and say, cheers. This thread is ridiculous. But funny.

That's good to know, cheers.

Hard to gauge at the moment. According to the current away points table there's only 24000 members. I'm sure one of the latest SFA emails indicates it's closer to 28000 now? Obviously it's just a guessing game to know if they're renewals (with away points) or new members. On a separate note, I contacted the SFA a couple of weeks ago via email to ask if Slovakia away points would be added and Nigeria points taken away before England sale and they confirmed that this would be the case.

They play in Trnava against us too.

Think the game being in Trnava could be a good thing for us. The atmosphere was absolutely terrible in their game against England yesterday, they couldn't sell it out against the best team in the group and little to no singing was heard from the home end for 90 minutes. I think in Bratislava they create a better atmosphere. If they draw their next game in Slovenia while we're putting 5 past Lithuania (ha) then it'd be a great start for us.

I liked how we still looked hungry to score more, even after 4 and 5.

The results in the group were nice to us for a change. The ref gave us some baffling decisions in our favour. Some LUCK. Strange feeling. But I'll take it!

Can't see where the spark to score a goal is going to come from, so I'm going for 0-0. Strachan to start as many central midfielders as he can in his midfield 4/5. Hope I'm wrong...

Regardless of the result or tonight in general. Does anyone think Ricky Sbragia is the man to take the National U21 side forward? I don't.

Ah, lovely. Even the young guns have all the hallmarks of an aged Scotland side. After that game we'd be moaning about the referee. That definitely happens most Scotland games. Concede a poor goal? That happened too. Waste 2 or 3 guilt edge chances? Yep. Lack the quality and cutting edge to create even more? You bet. BUZZING for Sunday.

The 2 CBs are still difficult for us aren't they? Most people are going for Hanley and Martin, they're probably our best 2 unfortunately. Russell Martin hasn't kicked a ball this season and Grant Hanley played 90 minutes on the 5th of August but nothing after that - worrying. That paves the way for 35 year old Gordon Greer who has started every game for whipping boys Blackburn - a man who Strachan seems to favour at times. Berra is also playing regularly with Ipswich. I predict Hanley will start with either Greer or Berra.

For anyone wondering or remotely interested, you'll lose your Nigeria point (if you got one) before the England game. The reason I queried this with the SFA is because there's only 4 weeks between Slovakia away and England away and I wasn't sure if the Slovakia point would be added and the 10th last away game (Nigeria) would be taken off. A valid question I thought, seeing as the Malta tickets went on sale over 4 weeks before that particular game. But it seems the Nigeria points will be taken off and Slovakia points added as the SFA confirmed today. Given the Slovakia game is the 11th of October, I'd be surprised if Wembley tickets go on sale before Monday 17th October.

The campaign was failure to qualify, but as I have stated, up 1 game is what has ultimately cost us. It isn't abject failure or indeed embarrassing in my opinion. For me, abject failure is the Dutch finishing fourth, Celtic not winning the league - or even the sheep fanciers not getting past Kairat Almaty. We were 4th seeds who finished 4th. No one is trying to dress this up as some sort of success, we just aren't as depressed about it all as you moaning faced s.

I saw someone mention a complete overhaul from the SFA is the first step in 'fixing' this - I'd probably agree. Invest in grass roots. We need to start investing in our Youth. Only then when we're producing better younger players we will be able to ACTUALLY play them in Scottish football. It's a bit of a disease in our game, we'll take Celtic for example. I'd like to know how much money they spend on their Youth set up, to then spend millions on top of that to bring in the likes of GMS, Armstrong, Ciftci, their new £4million defender etc. The dominant club (cue the sheep-appreciators) in our league and the only one regularly playing in Europe are hardly bringing through 1 young Scottish player a year through their ranks. If James Forrest is the best they can do then I can see why they bring others in, but my point is - until they start spending £4million on developing better talent than bringing in a foreign defender then I feel we'll forever be stuck in this rut. I feel other Scottish clubs are now looking to their Youth set up and bringing more players through, instead of signing that 32 year work horse that the manager knows can 'do a job'. There's knock on effects all over the place. We stop qualifying for European competition at club level and we've then less money in our game, lower coefficient and harder to qualify. Start investing more in the young guns again and stop selling deep fried pizzas and we might produce better players again, actually play them and actually qualify for these tournaments. 11 players playing decent fitba in the SPFL isn't enough to qualify for the Euros for me. We need at 2/3 teams playing European fitba at club level with Scottish youngsters at the heart of each side. We're a long way away from that though.

Don't take me home, Please don't take me home, A just don't wanna go home... A wanna stay here, And drink all yer beer, A just don't wanna go home! Song of the night!

Abject failure? Embarrassment? Disagree completely. We managed to win 1 game against our rivals for qualification, thanks - you're correct. We also didn't lose any. (apart from Germany if we're counting them as rivals) Drawing the other 3 games isn't qualification material but it certainly isn't an abject failure or an embarrassment. Small margins, but we just weren't good enough.

Demand what? That we're ruthless and win all of our games? Aye, lets try that and see if it makes James Forrest go by a player. Next time we play Germany we'll just tell the boys to be ruthless and that'll settle it. Braw. I'll book Russia.

Ok, sorry. It wasn't a mistake. We were just really shite away in Georgia and Strachan got it all wrong that night setting us up to be happy with a draw. But my point is, match for match, it's really the only game I feel we really ####ed up. A win in Georgia and we'd be sitting tonight feeling pretty decent. You'll argue with me that the draw in Ireland was a 'mistake', but I'm not having any of that. We've got to be realistic boys, we're not world beaters. Ireland may or may not be gash but a draw felt like the right result and at the time we were happy with that. The 94th minute equaliser on Thursday was as lucky a goal you'll ever see. Hard to take not seeing the game out but the luck hasn't sat with us this campaign. Small margins, but at the end of the day, a win in Georgia would've seen us satisfied at this point. What I'm saying is, I'm allowing Strachan that mistake and backing him to keep going. I think we had a reasonably good campaign apart from the terror in Tblisi. Listen, I'm not accepting failure, far from it. I just think there's been an over reaction since Thursday. I was hurting, contemplated not travelling to Faro but now the trip is over I'm fully backing our manager. He gave it a go against the Germans. He took us to Poland where we actually had more possession. More possession FFS! Those were our hardest games - and while 1 point isn't qualification material, I can't remember not feeling too hurt in terms of my teams performance after either of those 3 games. What I'm hoping for the next campaign now is he takes this experience into consideration and plans on how to change things so we win in Lithuania or Slovenia - or perhaps take points off England too. In Strachan we trust.

Aye, dropped the music as soon as a separate sing song started. Fair play to the guy!

Pipers was the place to be last night after the game. Absolutely superb.

I felt sorry for anyone having to travel to/from Aberdeen in that traffic. UNTIL you suggested that I was an idiot. Which I'm quite hurt by. So you sir, you can go yourself. Enjoy the drive.

I was reliably informed that the extra traffic was due to One Direction being on at the Hydro. Ironically, I wish I'd went there instead of Hampden too.

A very Scottish problem. We have Ritchie, Morrison (suspended), Naismith and Maloney as you say capable of playing that number 10 role. Unfortunately it seems that's a position we never truly fill, we push some of our more create players out wide - hence they never bring their true club form to International level.

So it's Thursday afternoon, you've just heard Maloney is starting on the right and you've to choose who starts on the left as Anya isn't 100%. Matt Ritchie or James Forrest? Ritchie for me.

Ffs! You couldn't make that up. He'll be starting on Thursday. At least that'll boost his confidence and I'll shout on anyone who pulls on the dark blue.