Texas Pete

Name one other country with a population of less than 40 million that have won the World Cup. I’ll save you some time, there isn’t one. Uruguay are really the exception to the rule. Having a bigger population doesn’t necessarily mean you will automatically have better players. What it does mean is there will likely be more money to spend on coaching and facilities which will lead to better players. The top clubs in Europe all come from countries with large populations. That’s because that’s where the money is. They nurture the best players. Sure, every now and again a smaller country, like Belgium, Denmark or Croatia will do very well at a tournament or will have a rich vein of players to choose from but it is quite rare. Belgium were shite 15 years ago and will probably be shite again in 15 years. Germany, Brazil and Spain will always be good at football.

Absolutely. I will back the manager until we are in a position where we don’t have a playoff for Euro 2020. If we get to the playoffs, and in particular if we are at home in the first playoff tie, McLeish will have done his job albeit with one terrible result/performance in Haifa. If we don’t get a playoff from this group then McLeish will have failed and should be sacked. People are calling for the guy to be sacked now but his win percentage in competitive games this time is still 50%. Let’s see what it is on 20th November at 9:35pm before writing him off. He was given the job and he should be given the chance to do it. He should not be sacked because some people, a lot of whom know next to hee haw about football, assume that he will definitely fail.

Depends on who our pot 1 team is I suppose. The four League A group winners will all be in a group of 5 so if we are drawn into one of their groups we will be in a group of 5. There will be one more group of 5 and 5 groups of 6 so it’s really a 50/50 chance of getting a group of 5 or a group of 6. I hope we’re in a group of 6 though. That will save us playing shitey friendlies in June. Being the pot 4 team in a group of 5 would suck balls as well. I’m hoping we’re the pot 3 team in a group of 6.

I’m surprised more people haven’t mentioned this game. It happened at a time when we were still disappointed with second place and losing in Prague put an end to our chances of winning the group. If we had won I’m sure we’d have cut the deficit to 4 points with 4 games to go but it went to 10 points. Game over. I’m still not sure how we got second in that group after drawing with Lithuania and the Faroes. The Czechs pumping everyone probably helped.

Exactly. I’d rather have a playoff than not have one going into the qualifiers, even if it is away from home.

Albania away should, in theory, be easier than going to some of the other countries in League C that are likely to win their groups. Mind you I thought that about Israel and they gave us a right going over.

The playoffs are not in June 2019. How could they have the playoffs in the middle of the qualifiers ffs? If we are in a group of 6 we will have qualifying matches in June 2019. Also, if we qualified in June 2019 we would still have 4-6 qualifiers to play depending on how many teams were in our group. What would be the point in playing those matches? The playoffs are in March 2020 and will only involve teams that don’t qualify through the qualifying groups next year. Romania are third in their group with one counting fixture to play. They are Unlikely to win their group. Finland also look more likely to top Greece’s group. Nobody is guaranteed to beat anyone in international football any more so I’m not sure what you’re basing these teams definitely beating us on. We are all in League C for a reason - we are all of a similar standard.

I wouldn’t say there’s no chance of us winning on Finland or Serbia or wherever but it would be far less likely than us beating that type of team at home. The playoffs aren’t for another 18 months or so so there could be the unusual situation of some teams on the playoffs not being in good form. We could also be a lot better than we are now. A home tie would give us an excellent chance though. Albania seem to be weakest team in the section so as long as we get our act together there’s no reason we can’t beat them over there.

Never going to happen. Lots of people wanted Strachan sacked after the Georgia game but he was given another campaign. If we get relegated the SFA might not even sack him (although they should).

Is it also a coincidence that around 83% of Scotland fans are bellends? 😂 Unless the SFA have a replacement signed up and ready to go then they can’t sack him now. Look how long it took to get a replacement for Strachan. I don’t really fancy going in to the double header next month with Grant and McFadden in charge. Abysmal appointment or not, the SFA are not going to sack a manager after two competitive games when one of them was a victory. We were still top of group C1 after all teams had played twice and unless he totally fucks up the next two games we will probably still win the group.

A classic 4-4-2 should be avoided like the plague but there’s nothing wrong with a 4-5-1 or a 4-4-1-1 or whatever you want to call it. You shouldn’t be playing with wing backs if you don’t have any good wing backs. It’s really not rocket science.

You’re only playing one player out of position I suppose if you play Tierney at LB and Robertson in front of him. One is better than two surely? Some fullbacks don’t adapt well to playing as a wing back as it’s more demanding physically and mentally. You are moving from the back to the front constantly and there’s no breathing space. It would probably be easier for Robertson to adapt to being a winger as he would only need to track back now and again instead of every time the opposition have the ball. Having said that, he’s not a winger and is the better of our left backs so I would prefer him at LB and for Tierney to be accommodated elsewhere if possible. As others have said through, maybe both players will adapt to the system but there is zero time to experiment now. We need two good performances next month.

Didn’t you see him calling players over to the touch line to talk to them throughout the game? Maybe it wasn’t clear on TV but he was tinkering. Whatever he did wasn’t enough obviously and he should have made a more decisive change earlier but he wasn’t just sitting with his thumb up his arse.

Same game as you. If you are 0-1 up at half time you are in the game. The better team on the night won and we can have no complaints about the result but we weren’t exactly under siege until the second half when Israel could have easily scored 4 or 5.

I didn’t say we would win our next two matches. If we do though we will have an excellent chance of qualifying. In order to win our next two games, McLeish will certainly need to learn from his mistakes from Haifa. Whilst it is possible for a poor performance to make another team look better, Israel played very well on Thursday. We should still have done much better against them and McLeish should have reacted far sooner. I’m sure McLeish gets feedback from his employers and his assistants and if he still makes the same mistakes against Albania and Israel then he should be sacked.

We don’t need to beat Albania. A draw, or even a narrow defeat, would do as long as we beat Israel but winning both games would probably give us a home tie in the first playoff tie which would be a huge advantage.

If we finish second and still scrape a playoff we will probably be playing a league A or B team away from home which would give us a very slim chance of even reaching the playoff final.

Ritchie should be nowhere near the squad. He’d only pull out anyway.

Since we’ve never achieved anything at a major finals I wouldn’t expect that to change much if we do qualify. You do appear to be discounting 2 pretty important issues though. Firstly, qualifying for the Euros is now easier than ever. We have an excellent chance of qualifying if we can win our next two games. If we don’t win our next two but still scrape a playoff we would still have a half decent chance. If we do manage to qualify then we will have either two games at Hampden and a trip to Wembley to play England or 3 games at Hampden. We haven’t lost a competitive game at Hampden since Germany beat us in 2015. We would have an excellent chance of getting out of our group, which would be seen as a major success for us. In all of those unbeaten games at Hampden I’m pretty sure we played a back 4 in all of them. I am not defending the manager or players over what happened in Haifa but Israel played a lot better than a team ranked 94th in the world. They are famously bad travelers and Israel is not an easy place to go and play football. I expect a much easier game against them at home, just as I’m expecting a harder game against Albania away than we got at Hampden.

That’s the spirit. Let’s not try to qualify because we won’t do very well when we get there. Do you go to Scotland games or are you an armchair fan? Not that I think supporters are any better than armchair fans but I would be interested to know. Most supporters, particularly ones that travel would give their right haw maw for us to get to a major finals again, regardless of how we would do when we get there. You also have no idea how we would do. We could get into the knock out stages as that isn’t very difficult in the Euros these days. We would also have at least 2 games at home.

He was but both of those friendlies were more or less forced on us by UEFA. I suppose we could have tried harder to find more suitable opponents but how much influence would McLeish have had? Minimal I would bet.

McLeish has to shoulder a lot of the blame but the players should be able to adapt to a system. I agree that Tierney and Robertson were played out of position and both shouldn’t have been. Obviously if he wants to play both then one of them will be. Almost every player on Thursday was poor and didn’t do what was asked of them. McLeish should have recognised this and done something about it earlier than he did. You can’t sack a manager for one bad competitive game though. He has to be given time. Winning our Nations League group would be job done in terms of the Nations League, not in general. As you’ve said yourself, the target is qualification and we still have a decent chance of doing this. As I mentioned earlier, as long as we win our Nations League group, McLeish should be given the qualifying campaign as well. If we go to Albania and get our arses handed to us again and then end up not winning the group then I will be the first to call for him to go.

Friendlies are the time to experiment. Not important Nations League matches. If we had played a 4-5-1 against Israel we would have had a more solid midfield and wouldn’t have had 2 players out of position. I’m not saying we wouldn’t still have lost for certain but we would have had a better chance. We should be letting Robertson do what he has been doing for Liverpool for the last year. That’s what he’s excellent at. McLeish didn’t really have an option to play 3 at the back last night. Souttar and Tierney had both withdrawn.

Exactly. One of or CBs in the back 3 isn’t even a CB. Tierney is average at CB at best and shouldn’t be playing there.

Yes, as long as all League A teams and 8 League B teams qualify through the groups next year. A good second place would probably get us into the playoffs but we would likely be playing a league A or B team away from home in the first playoff tie. We are currently ranked 5th in League C so if we win at least one more game and finish 2nd we will probably scrape a playoff.