norsefox
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Posts posted by norsefox
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6 minutes ago, weekevie04 said:
Very impressive stuff from the u21s. That defense looked very good and in total control of the game. Morgan, Mallan, Souttar, I might as well name the whole team as everyone played very well.
We actually look very slick, suave, and even skillful. When you look at our squad, there is a lot of experience in there and many are playing regular football too.
A thoroughly deserved win from the lads. Next up England at Middlesborough (did I hear the commentator say?) hopefully get a decent group of Scots there, and here's hoping we can go there and get a positive result.
In recent years against England, a positive result would be <5-0. Definitely looks like a better squad we have this time around.
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1 minute ago, macy37 said:
Same team announced. That doesn't happen often!
Unexpected but clearly shows a desire to take it seriously
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15 minutes ago, jamboman said:
If Scott Brown plays it will be a terrible decision from WGS. We need him against slovakia.
Brown should have picked up a booked along with griffiths on friday. Giving strachan no chance to mess things up. We beat malta 5-1 without these 2 players. I think we can win today without them
Game would be a good one for someone like ryan christie or macgregor to play but thats a whole different story
Of course we need Brown against Slovakia, but we also need to win tonight.
No point resting everyone if it ends up 0-0 and the Slovakia game becomes pointless anyway.
I don't envy Strachan tonight as it could easily go wrong no matter what he does.
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32 minutes ago, Reevesy said:
Yes and with a bit of luck England will take a few off Slovakia and make the goal swing even higher. They're 7 goals better off at the moment so a 6-0 for us and 2-0 England would be nice
Assuming we also beat Slovakia (by a minimum of one), we'd be +4 over them. Don't honestly think it would be enough.
I'd sign up for it right now though.
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10 minutes ago, fringo said:
According to FIFA - Malta 190 , Lux 136
Bit of a shock from France though.
Luxembourg are a better team, though capable of drawing 0-0 with France or losing 5-0 to a very poor Holland.
We could lose this game or we could win 5-0. It's not a sure thing, but failing to win would be up there with the worst results in our history.
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27 minutes ago, Tartan Chris said:
Actually the GD could yet be retrievable....bit of a long shot but say a 4 nil win on Monday (I know but did score a few goals in Malta) and Slovaks lose by 3 at Wembley (not impossible as England keep plenty of clean sheets at Wembley) and it's level. Then beat them by 2-0 at Hampden and it's suddenly a +4 advantage going into the last game but you get the feeling they'd beat Malta by a few so still risky to play for a draw last game.
Just shows you bar some bonkers scorelines 7 points isn't going to be enough.
We need to treat GD as irrelevant now - unless we can get a 7+ goal swing AND Slovakia lose to england.
We're on 11 points and Slovakia are on 15. Assuming we beat Malta and Slovakia don't beat England (as no one has done since 2000) we'll be on 14 points v Slovakia's 15 or 16.
Given Slovakia's last game is v Malta, we have to beat them to overtake. Takes us to 17 v their 15/16.
Sure we could draw against Slovenia and we'd both tie on 18, but we'd end up third (short of a huge swing in GD) and Slovakia would end up out as the worst placed second team.
If we want to make the playoffs, we need to win all 3. Nothing else now matters
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2 minutes ago, Alan said:
When people say "needs a restructure" its such an empty remark. No detail. Nothing positive. A recurring theme when talking about football in Scotland.
We like discussions and papers but refuse take advice from anyone who has actually achieved something - "what the hell do the Dutch* know?"
*replace Dutch with German, Belgian, Icelandic etc as appropriate
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1 hour ago, robbo cop said:
Gordon
Tierney Robertson
Martin Mulgrew
Brown
Ritchie Armstrong Bannan Snodgrass
Griffith
Brave formation. Gordon at striker is a bit of a risk imo.
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33 minutes ago, bdgsct said:
Correct the bottom teams don't count, I'd left that off to avoid complicating an already confusing picture.
Montenegro would need 5 points from there 3 remaining 'live' games to leave Scotland's ar$e out the window.
Home to Romania where they would be favourites
Home to Denmark where they would be favourites against a team which will probably be out of the equation by then
Then a tricky away game against a Poland team with nothing to play for as they will be through by then.
5 points not too difficult to foresee.
Don't forget Scotland would need a draw between Slovakia and Slovenia tonight and wins for England against both even to have a chance of finishing second if they draw tonight..........MUST WIN!
Wins for England is hardly a forlorn hope! They haven't lost at home since 2000 in a competitive match.
If we win all four games, it needs an unlikely set of results in every other group, or it requires Slovakia to beat England, to prevent us coming second.
If we don't qualify from here, it's almost 100% our fault.
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11 minutes ago, romanticscot said:
If Slovakia beat Slovenia, I have us needing 12 points, and to go into the last game needing to win. If Slovenia win then we can do it with 10 points, and we can draw either of the last two games. The is assuming Lithuania don't do us any favors and England beat the both of them. If Lithuania do in fact either draw or beat Slovenia or Slovakia then we have much more breathing room. In 10 hours, things will be clear on the last 3 games. Of course, if we get 12 points then we take care of ourselves. We are on a two match unbeaten run, come Monday night I hope that to be 4.
England have not lost a qualifier at home in 17 years. For us to not come second involves us dropping points and/or Slovakia beating England
If either of the above happens then Slovakia deserve to make the playoffs. Simple
For us to win all four games and make the play offs is very very unlikely. I'd put the odds at even more remote than us winning those four games in the first place
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2 minutes ago, Grim Jim said:
So reading more on this...
Lets throw this competition completely and get 0/12 points remaining
Is that too late to drop us to division D for the nations leagues? (i.e. among the worst 16 in Europe.)
That could be our best chance of getting to Euro 2020: Win our division D pool and we then have semi+final play-offs vs the other 3 div.D winners. What can possibly go wrong?
Not a bad shout!
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3 hours ago, ProudScot said:
Strachan saying tonight's match is NOT a must win ?????
I absolutely hate this sort of thing. We DON'T perform when games don't matter. It's when games do matter that our best performances happen. 'Not a must win' is exactly what happened in Georgia and at home against Lithuania.
Every game from here is a 'must win'. A draw is crap result, and just puts unecessary pressure on the game v Slovakia or Slovenia.
Wouldn't it be nice going into the final game knowing a draw was enough because we won tonight? We treat players like children.
Start the game at 100mph, high tempo and don't let Lithuania into the match. They did it to us at Hampden and wrote off our entire first half. So often we're pedestrian in possession. I've never understood that approach.
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3 hours ago, Grim Jim said:
Slovakia's Georgia may yet come.
Funny how we seem to be the only ones capable of such terrible results. The next two games could easily be a 12-pt swing for or against us.
There is no doubt in my mind that Slovakia would get 100% if this weekend's fixtures were reversed. Anything less than 6 points for us is an embarrassment
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6 hours ago, davew said:
Strange comparison. I've not seen much of Cooper playing, but the fact that he can also play at left-back tells you he's more like Russel Martin than Hanley.
Hanley is an old-school defender who's good in the air and likes to throw himself into tackles.
If Cooper is better in the air than Russell Martin, then he's probably good enough to be in the squad.
Good in the air? Perhaps at winning a ball no one else is competing for.
how many headers have we conceded this campaign? Remember his free header against England??
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1 hour ago, Malcolm said:
Graeme sourness would be good. Or I would take back Walter smith or Alex Mcleish. Maybe take a punt on derek machines.
What I'd do for a convincing win on Friday. No one is owed anything in life, but for once I'd LOVE a non-stressful away tie with Scotland.
Strachan will move on - one way or the other - after then eventual end of this campaign. Happy with Souness, Smith, McLeish, Lambert or Moyes.
Ideally I'd go with a qualified foreign manager, but the suit brigade in Scottish football is so colloquial (a world in which Kris Boyd's opinion of a manager matters), that we could have Simeone and people would claim he knew nothing, as if a provincial backwater was really that hard to understand.
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3 hours ago, norsefox said:
Not sure it matters. His not-particularly-high level has been found.
Need to start looking at Cooper, Souttar, Lindsay etc
When was the last time a centre half was given a debut for Scotland? Mulgrew, Martin, Greer, Reynolds etc aren't getting any younger or any better.
and we know what Hanley is capable of...
Someone can probably correct me if I'm wrong, but was the last centre halves given a debut back in 2010 versus The Faroe Islands?
I've just gone through every friendly in the last seven years and it's the same names in every game. I can't think of anyone being given a debut in a competitive match at CB.
Danny Wilson and Gary Kenneth both got their first caps in that match. We've had a lot of different full backs, but almost no variation at the CB.
Absolutely mental that no one else has been given a shot in that time - even against Canada, Qatar, Gibraltar etc...
EDIT: Apparently Russel Martin and Hanley's first games were in 2011 v Wales - not that that is a significant improvement
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1 hour ago, Rab The Crab said:
To play alongside or to replace Martin I wonder?
Not sure it matters. His not-particularly-high level has been found.
Need to start looking at Cooper, Souttar, Lindsay etc
When was the last time a centre half was given a debut for Scotland? Mulgrew, Martin, Greer, Reynolds etc aren't getting any younger or any better.
and we know what Hanley is capable of...
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1 hour ago, romanticscot said:
Indeed, come Monday evening, things will look even clearer We have 4 points to make up over Slovakia. On Monday I will be cheering on the English and Lithuania.
Hoping for an England goal is going to be a different feeling...
I'd be happy if we didn't play them for another 20 years mind.
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1 hour ago, Malcolm said:
Playing off the front, behind griffiths
Chosen for his goalscoring prowess?
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45 minutes ago, Morrisandmoo said:
Can you elaborate on what he did that was influential? No doubt will see on highlights tonight, but would be good to hear from somebody that has seen the whole match.
I am in the camp that he is finished, but have an open mind to compelling evidence to the contrary.
He's playing every week for an EPL team. How can he possibly be finished?
By every objective criteria, he obviously has something to give. It's not like his continued inclusion is keeping some wonder-kids out the team.
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40 minutes ago, Malcolm said:
Mcgregor
anya, Martin, Berra, Tierney, robertson
fletcher, brown, McArthur
bannan, griffiths
Bannan at striker?
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5 minutes ago, Barney Rubble said:
Hey no problem - but your post seems to reinforce my opinion?
My issue was with 'facts'. You cherry picked a couple of dubious ones that I'd dispute as facts, but I'd largely agree with your sentiment otherwise.
Doolan's inclusion on the other hand... ?
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5 hours ago, Barney Rubble said:
He ain't Johann Cruyff, agreed. Facts are facts though - and I'll trust WGS on this one, even though the wee bam is intent on ignoring Kris Doolan's impeccable credentials every time international week comes up.
"Facts are facts" - 'facts' say what you want them to say. Griffiths has scored two goals against England. Martin has scored against Malta, Gibraltar and Slovenia.
I'll also trust Strachan on this one. Griffiths brings far more to the game than Martin does. That said, bringing Martin on with 20 to go seems like a good tactic, which has won us points in the last few game. I don't begrudge Martin his place, even if he was diabolical against Canada (though perhaps not as poor as Snodgrass).
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2 hours ago, aaid said:
And has taken a step backwards and dropped down a level to do it. That's the bottom line.
That's not the bottom line, that's your bottom line.
Playing a bit part at a CL club has only so much value. If Burke is playing every week in the EPL, then he's made the right choice. Besides, this is his decision and not yours. I highly doubt he's moved back to England because he lacks ambition.
2nd Place
in TA specific
Posted
100% harder. As badly as we play against teams like Slovenia, I know who i'd rather play