mccaughey85

If theres no decent keepers around by then and hes doing well as rangers no.1 then i dont see any other option but to use him. No point in chucking some 25/26 year old who isnt good enough just because they are young. If he becomes rangers no.1 then he will probably merit selection over any other keeper and can be used for few years until a young talented keeper comes along.

Looks like mclaughlin is starting games for rangers this season. If he becomes rangers no.1 over the next couple of seasons then he will merit a starting place for scotland especially when gordon retires which i am guessing he will after the 2024 euro campaign.

Dykes, stewart and brown goals from the weekend. All good finishes.

Burnley would be a decent option imo. Good chance they go back up and i think a season in the championship would do him good before stepping up to the epl. Hes still quite inexperienced considering hes 27 and i think the epl could be too big a leap for him.

Jack hendry not even in the match squad for club brugge tonight. Is he injured or just out of favour? Currently its 1-1. Maybe hes best moving on if hes not going to get games.

Middleton scores a beautiful goal for dundee united.

Lol yeh fair enough. Midfield is a strong area.

Only 5 of that first list are guys who should be starting games. Guys like ferguson, campbell and mclean are currently just squad filler and mclean might not be even get in squads in the future. The guys in that second list are no where near our squad. Lets wait until they actually get called up before we worry about who they should replace.

Yeh i will be surprised if he goes for as little as that. Usually has a wee spells where he does well for saints but can be quite average alot of the time. At least its another epl side wanting him.

Doesnt sound good but hopefully its just a bad game. Every player has them.

Thats good to see, a season in the championship will do him good then next season a loan move to an epl side. Its a big ask for him to make it at city but theres a decent chance of him making it as an epl player.

Was souttar poor for the whole game?

Maybe, its hard to tell. Scotland fans and fans of the clubs they played for probably appreciated them but alot of normal football fans didnt know much about collins due to him playing in scotland and then france. Epl fanboys probably didnt know much about him. Not sure hendry was always rated that highly by fans outside of scotland and blackburn. Hes probably our best ever centre back in terms of performances for scotland. To only concede 6 goals in two qualifying campaigns is something we will probably never see again. Strange that none of the bigger clubs in europe took a chance on him. Alot of scotland fans slagged the standard of player we had in the 90s due to us having much better in the 70s and 80s but those 2 were big performers in what was average squads and personally i dont think i appreciated how good we had it in the 90s until they were gone and we then had 20+ years of centre backs who mostly couldnt make it in the epl let alone win it. What we would give for a hendry these days. Maybe not so much collins due to us always having good central mids but a hendry and even colin calderwood would be heaven sent these days.

Should be a good move. He did well at league 1 level last year and this will be a good step up for him. Not sure if blackpool are any good but if he can spend a season doing well in the championship then get a loan move to a epl club the season after then he should be on course to becoming a regular epl player in his early twenties.

Completely different. 1.The idea of germany as a country didnt exist back then, infact germany only really became what it is today in the past couple of hundred years. The germanic ppls who emigrated did so at a time when there was no modern german country and they probably didnt even think of themselves as german. They were just a collection of tribes from what is now denmark,holland and germany looking to conquer the southern part of britain and they ended forming the early basis of england at a time when nations were forming and nationhood was replacing tribal identities. Obviously these germanic ppls chose to become loyal to the idea of english nationhood in the same way the picts and scots became loyal to the idea of being scottish. 2. Germany has never occupied england for any length of time and hasnt purposely sent over large amounts of german ppl to colonise parts of england with the intention of using those immigrants to control england and divide it. Comparing england and germanys relationship with the relationship of ireland and britain is wrong and daft. There were movements of tribes in europe before nations were formed. However these movements were generally not orchestrated in any way and were just random movements with no real higher motive other than trying to seek out land in order to prosper and help their tribe grow.

Yes i agree that you could originally come from any country in the world and emigrate to scotland and then choose to be for or against indy. In that specific instance the land mass or your ancestory will have no bearing. However that question has no relevance to what we are talking about. If you have no historical links through dna or heritage to scotland or brirain then you will pick a side based on how you feel or how each option will benefit you and your family. I have never ever suggested that not to be true The case with northern ireland is completely different to that situation. Ireland had a huge number of british ppl placed into the north with the specific job of colonising it and keeping it under british rule. Scotland never had that, the british in scotland originate in scotland and are native scots. Comparing that situation to random immigration that has no political aspect and what choices and loyalties these immigrants make has no relevance to colonising a place that you invaded hundreds of years ago and have occupied ever since. Your trying to compare random immigration to colonisation that had a specific task of keeping a country occupied and under british rule.

How rude. Perhaps you need some denazification.

So your saying that us being on the island of britain has nothing to do with scottish ppl feeling british? Are you suggesting that scots parents just randomly pick the british and scottish identity for their kids to be brought up as? If thats the case then why not pick european or american? We were in the european union so why not. Theres one simple reason why a certain section of scots have a strong attachment to being british. Me having to explain this to you is like explaining the earth is round to flat earthers. Like it or not but we are on an island called britain and that will always have an influence on how scots feel. Its very encouraging to see that stat of 62% of scots feeling scottish only. It was actually me who brought it up first several pages ago. Lets hope its true because the graph shows otherwise. Tbh i dont necessarily think theres been a surge in hardline unionism but theres certainly been an slight swing in the polls towards staying in the uk. After brexit there was a period of maybe 2 years where most polls showed us ahead. The last couple of years its evened out or even went slightly to the union side. Thats not good reading for us. There doesnt need to necessarily be a surge in unionism. Theres already nearly a third(18% + 8% + "english and british" which isnt mentioned)of our population who are strong unionists. If they can persuade the swing voters like they did in 2014 then we will have a repeat of the 2014 vote. Also there must be fair amount of the scottish only group voting no to independence otherwise we would be voting for independence quite easily. Also do you think that theres only 8.4 hardline unionists in our country. Just because someone doesnt regard themselves as "british only" doesnt mean they are not a strong unionist.

Colin hendry and john collins. We only conceded 6 goals in the qualifiers for euro 96 and world cup 98. Pretty sure we were defensively the best team in europe for those two campaigns. Colin hendry was key to this successful defensive record and was a rock for us and blackburn. John collins was a brilliant player who was good enough for most top european teams imo. A key player in helping monaco beat man utd in the 98 european cup and probably a big component in helping us qualify for tournaments in the 90s.

Lol pretty much most of these guys mentioned were never rated by us or anybody in football. For someone to be overrated they have to have been rated first.

To be honest i dont know if ppl considered themselves british before the 1600s and i doubt you do as well. The world was vastly different back then, the formation of many countries was still taking shape and national identities of many countries had only been around for a few hundred years. Globalisation of the world has been happening since roman times. Its hard to consider yourself british when your only understanding of the world is that theres an island(britain) and a land mass to the east of it. Many of the tribes of roman britain probably didnt know much beyond the island they were on, maybe even some didnt know much about the island and only knew the local area especially before roman times. I am from the northern highlands originally. If my knowledge of the world was only the highlands and i didnt even know anywhere else existed then there would never be any reason to identify as a highlander as i would not know there could be anything alternative to being from the highlands. I would say they were more likely to identify with being from their local tribe as they didnt have any concept of there being a world outside of the island they were on which is how i think some of the tribes of ancient britain would of thought. I would say britishness grew with the globalistion and expansion of english/british empire and european empires into the new world. Once it was clear that there was more to the world than just western europe the ppl of britain could choose to identify with being british in a far away world as they were technically from the island of britain. Personally i think ppl began to be proud of being british because they were considered british when out in the new world and technically you could say they were, this probably helped evolve into a feeling of british nationhood for scots and some scots chose this new nationhood and identity and placed it nearly as high as being scottish or in some cases equal. Arguably the union of scotland and england into the uk could be compared to the amalgamation of picts and scots into modern scotland. Both situations resulted in two countrys/tribes choosing to amalgamate and create something new and bigger. Both these key moments created new countries, the picts and scots made scotland(most of it) and the union between scotland and england created the uk which many consider a country. The whole british/scottish identity is one of the root causes of why we are split as a country. Many scots have a strong emotional attachment with being british and choose to preserve what they see as a nation by keeping the union together. The nationalists want scotland to be just scotland and not a extension of britain which is how many perceive us as right now. Obviously theres a fair amount of ppl in the middle who will sway each way depending of finances etc.

Thats simply not the case. The vast majority of northern irish unionists will have ancestors from britain(scotland). The reason they get brought up british is because of this and because their fathers and grandfathers before them got brought up to be british because they originally come from britain. If thousands of dutch or danish ppl colonised northern ireland then there might of been a situation where northern ireland would have a huge amount of ppl who consider themselves dutch or danish. That didnt happen so i dont know why its relevant to bring up some lone dutchman who might or might not bring his kids up as british. Another dimension to the problem is britains proximity and close relationship to ireland. It could be argued that ireland is part of the british isles and ireland had a political union and was occupied by the uk. These links have helped allow the british in ireland to keep their british identity better than decendants of other commonwealth countrys. But that still doesnt change the fact that had this huge amount of scots and northern english not moved to ireland then ireland wouldnt have a massive british population in northern ireland. Not sure how this can be argued as not true. Its pretty much a known fact. The brits in ni are originally from britain. The brits in scotland are from scotland which is in britain and therefore british.

Yeh i get your point regarding britannia and how romans used it to only refer to england, however i would say the label of britain for the whole of the island probably evolved from the romans using the name britannia. End of the day we can label britain whatever we want but we are still on this island and many of our fellow countrymen have a huge attachment to being from the island as a whole rather than just the northern part(scotland). Also i have never said that roman britain was full of tribes identifying as british. I actually dont know, they might have identified as being british(or whatever their name was for britain) or they might have had not much understanding of the geography of britain or europe at that time. They maybe just considered themselves the tribe they were from. I know that there was a tribe referred to as the britons in strathclyde after the roman empire but i am not sure if they refferred to themselves or thought of themselves as british. Again there was no polling and ppl running around checking the identity of ppl and how they felt. The picts appear to have banded together to fight the romans, i wonder how they saw themselves in terms of the island and wether they attached themselves to an overall island(british)identity. Either way i would certainly say that the scots in the lowlands developed a british identity mainly due to being native to this island and this britishness was perhaps solidified by the british empires colonisation of the world and them being heavily involved in that. Whats clear is that they would never have developed this british identity if they were not on the island of britain or whatever you choose to label it. End of the day many scots want to be british, thats life, we need to learn how to deal with it and not let it affect independence or the sovereignty of our nation. Ignoring it or pretending it hardly exists is just delusional.

Culture can trump ethnicity if you are a group of incomers in small numbers and you get swallowed up by the majority who surround you. Its obvious a catholic jacobite or an anti british highlander would probably bring his kids up to be irish rather than british especially if he chooses to mix with catholic irish. Not sure i understand your point regarding the dutchman. I think william of orange obviously chose to be british because most of his supporters and ppl loyal to him were british and were helping him retain his crown and maintain protestant control over the british isles. If some random dutchman were to move to ni he would probably mix more with fellow protestants especially 100 years ago. I think nowadays if a random dutch person moved with his dutch wife then he would probably try not to involve himself to much in identity politics and might choose irish unification based on ecomonics. Again i am not sure why this is relevant or has any bearing on what we are talking about. Its only relevant if huge numbers of dutch were to move to ni and hypothetically what way they might side with culture wise and their loyality to the brits or irish. It has no relevance to the situation that happened where huge amounts of scots who were loyal to the british crown colonised northern ireland and kept themselves largely separated from the indigenous irish and maintained their british identity. Also armies often had different nationalities and different loyalities back then. Many were probably wanting to be on the winning side and reap the benefits regardless of religion or nationality.

Its not the same mechanism imo. If it was the same mechanism then ireland wouldnt have british ppl in the north. Those ppl would identify as irish by now due to being in ireland for hundreds of years in the same way some scots consider themselves british because they are in britain. The british in northern ireland understand they are originally not from there and still wish to remain british. The scots who consider themselves british and scottish do so because they are on the island of britain and they see themselves as native to britain. Culture is a small part of it but its more to do with where you are originally from. Lowland scots had the kingdom of strathclyde before scotland was formed and they were called the britons. North of that was the picts and scots who amalgamated to create one kingdom and essentially that was the start of scotland as country before we then took strathclyde and the borders etc which had the britons and the angles. I would say the descendants of the britons of strathclyde and the fact we are on the island of britain is why we naturally produce ppl with a strong british identity. Also the emigration of northern irish brits into lowland scotland(effectively returning to their homeland)in the last 150+ years has helped push more scots towards british identity.