AndyDD

How soon is very soon?

Rangers chairman Dave King, who announced he will step down next year, says the club would not even accept an offer of £40m for striker Alfredo Morelos in January. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50570397 Aye mate, well I can tell the Burd I'd turn down a shag off Rhianna, knowing i'll never need to back that up. Fucking ridiculous.

Going up against clever, skillful and experienced players like Burke is a great way for Hickey to learn. He'll have learned a lot from that 45 mins of being ruthlessly exposed by a savvy operator. Well, he should learn a lot from it, at least. No guarantee that he will. From a pure development perspective i'd have liked Hearts to stick with him for the second half but that's their call, they were getting roasted and are in a bad enough mire as it is without getting hit for 6 or 7 so can't blame them. Hopefully that puts paid to any calls for Hickey to be put straight into the Senior Squad. Let the kid get gametime at this level and hopefully some Under 21 caps. We have at least three better left back options right now, and as things stand, Palmer and SOD are better than him at right back, as well. There is no need to rush.

Yeah fuck knows why they find it worth mentioning. Mind you, any time a Scottish club manager gets punted they do tend to mention it on 5 Live. As if any cunt in Chester gives a fuck about the vacancy at Hearts. Thankfully doesn't come up much on the programmes dedicated to the topic of Scottish football. What really fucking bugs me is their tendency to put live commentary on the radio of a game that is also on TV, when there are other, non televised games they could be covering at the same time instead.

That's definitely what it is during Open All Mics, score updates as they come in on the wires, but Sportsound itself only very occasionally has run a feature that is about english football unless it has some sort of Scottish football link, even if tenuous. The news through the day, though, might well be a different story, which, yup, you're right, is irrelevant pish. Presumably if there are no actual scottish sports headlines (that they can be arsed covering) they'll go with whatever the fuck else is in the headlines in sport in general.

Oh they were far from perfect, I completely agree. Look at the goal we lost at Hampden, both of them played their part in that. They certainly do, as individuals and as a pairing, have room to improve off the back of those two games. The problem with changing both for Fleck and McTominay, who to my memory have never played together, is that you run the risk of playing a dysfunctional duo for the first time in a game that we can't afford not to win and at that point it's too late. For me, it's not so much that they were brilliant against limited opposition (I think Cyprus are a better side than Israel, to be fair) but that they seemed to get each other more, and work more fluently together, than any of the other duos we have tried thus far. Granted, McTominay and Fleck could well get each other as well or better than Mcgregor and Jack did in Cyprus were they to take the field together against Israel, but we currently have no reason to think that, whereas we saw Mcgregor and Jack compliment each other reasonably well and build on that over the double header. So something that worked okay and was showing positive progression, the mcgregor/jack combo, versus an entirely unknown quantity, the Mctominay/Fleck duo. I've no idea which is the better bet, but undeniably there is a logical argument for the former. I wouldn't put the Mcgregor/Jack combo down as a guaranteed starter either, essentially, but whilst I think Fleck and McTominay are better players pound for pound, it would undoubtedly be a risk to play an entirely untested, first time midfield duo in place of the one that successfully saw us through the last set of fixtures.. Wroth noting as well that Sheffield United's strength at the moment is familiarity; they players all know each other's game inside out. Many, probably most, have played with Fleck for years. They get his game, know where he will be, and vice versa. That's one of the reasons he has been so assured for them, but looked entirely lost in Russia. You'll never replicate that familiarity with an international side.

I'd like to see how a combo of Fleck and McTominay would work but given injuries and suspensions have meant it has been pretty much impossible to test out in the campaign thus far, it would be a risky move to give an untested pairing in the centre their first run out in a must win game. I think both Fleck and McTominay are better players than Mcgregor and Jack, but the two old firm players looked like they had played together several times rather than against each other and demonstrated a real understanding. They worked as a pair, probably better than any of the pairings we have had thus far (albeit the Mcgregor/Mclean/McTominay combo in Brussles held up okay). That might well be enough to prevent technically superior players replacing them. If we were to stick Fleck and McTominay together in the midfield and they play like strangers, we will be in big trouble and Clarke will look like a fool. Come March who knows who will be in form and match fit; the decision could make itself in that regard. McTominay would almost certainly have started one or both of the games had he been fit as he was in form and has featured regularly, afterall. But he didn't because he wasn't, and we may have landed on a duo that worked. We're all out of prep games now so we need to be clever and careful.

They'll usually give the EPL score updates and mention any scots playing or scoring, but that's likely more so folk can keep an eye on their coupons than anything else. I regularly listen to the Sportsound programmes and Off the ball and Open all Mics on a Saturday, by and large I enjoy them. The rest of the Radio Scotland output is heinous. GMS is so bad it's unreal.

Going by my count on the SFA's website, Griffiths actually started 10 times under Strachan, out of his 19 caps total. 1 of those 19 caps was Stark's game and two were McLeish. So of his 16 appearances in the Strachan era, only 6 were from the bench. Surprising, that. My memory is that as soon as he started adding more hold up play to his game under the tutelage of the Rodgers era of Celtic, he was starting. Something that I think was missing from his game before then, when Deila was his club manager. Griffiths improved under Rodgers, for sure.

Not to mention the two yard open goal effort he put onto the bar that same game. Felt it was never going to happen for the guy. Then came the england match.

Better off wi a 4-6-0...

I'd be quite surprised if either Irish side get through their semi-final. Tough games for both.

Well, I'd have him before Brophy I suppose. Hardly someone to set the heart racing, though.

Watch his performance against Cyprus away. Incompetent. Lazy. Ineffective. We don't have the options to not include him in the squad, I suppose, but the difference in the game when we had Naismith Vs when we had McBurnie was startling. The link up, hold up, the winning of freekicks, getting us up the park and gaining territory, interlocking with the attacking midfielders, that all gave way. Anytime Mcburnie was passed the ball, his first touch was woeful and he either lost possession or, in once case, put it right out for a throw in off his own foot. A simple pass. He won nothing in the air, despite his height, and committed fouls rather than win free-kicks. He ended up getting a chance for a one on one charge at the goal but hesitated, struggled to get the ball out his feet again and then, when Burke raced through to supply him an option because it was clear Mcburnie was not going to try running past anyone, the pass was played behind. An abject attempt. He also looked absolutely knackered, despite being a second half sub who didn't seem to do much running. Ryan Jack wisely started playing passes to Palmer rather than waste the ball by trying to give it to McBurnie. I dearly hope the guy comes good and think he deserves some credit for our goal against Russia; that's who Fraser is trying to get it to and it's his attempt to slide in on the ball that puts the keeper off. That, however, is the only positive contribution he has made in all of his appearances so far. But the less than enthusiastic view of the guy comes from his performances. He has been dreadful for us and they difference in our side after he came on in Cyprus underlined it for me. If we are chasing the game and need to lump set plays and long balls into the box, though, we can always stick him on towards the end and hope he does what he did yesterday.

That seems fairly reasonable. Darren Fletcher could indeed also be worth taking as part of a sort of support staff, same as Faddy and Kenny Miller. But I would only want that if it was the desire of Clarke, rather than out of some sentimental 'these guys served us well back when we couldn't qualify'. If there is a role for them, that's up to Clarke. I see Gerrard has also gotten behind the idea, in so many words, of delaying fixtures. Good on him anawl.

Depend on allocation. Not sure what if any rules UEFA will have about the final, of if they will simply allow it to be treated as any old qualification game. Presumably the later. So it would depend how big an allocation we get and that will depend on where we are playing. Talk about a mad rush. They will likely have to strike an agreement with both Norway and Serbia, who will also have to strike an agreement with Israel, ahead of the semis. Logistical nightmare and a bit of a farce that I would care not one jot about had the draw went our way.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50516519 Clarke described the prospect of facing Israel in March as "a hugely exciting challenge for us with a massive reward". "The players know Israel well having faced them in the Nations League," he added. "It was a tough match over there but we showed our capabilities with a good win at Hampden last year. "This is the time to believe. We have three wins in a row and the benefit of momentum. We want to be active participants at EURO 2020, not just hosts, and we will give our all in what I believe will be two games."

The next logical step for Davy Provan, surely? 😜

Hahaha fair play, you're not wrong. A warm up down there would at least be walking distance from my house! Probably still be denied a bevvy though. The amount of folk cutting about the Cypriot stadium drinking Becks Blue was mind-boggling.

Ooft, Labour vote down by nearly 13, there. Lovely.

Hahaha, well then aye, McLeish should never have been sacked, he only lost two competitive games in his second stint... Totally dreadful decision. Bring him back to finish what he started in Nations League...

Win these two playoffs and he'll be on 60% already. Big ask, mind you. Also, let's be realistic here; Mcleish the second time around was not the same manager as Mcleish the first time around. Night and day. Mcleish second time around had a 41% win rate. 12 games, 5 wins, 7 defeats. Clarke sitting on 50% right now. We've no had a draw in a wee while now, eh? Penalties in the playoffs confirmed...

Fuck sake. Away. That's a pile of pish.

Get your boots shined Jamesy Forrest, another hattrick will do very fucking nicely. Get in there.

Aye, get what you mean, but i'd be interested in the figure you'd find if an opinion poll on Johnson was held in Scotland specifically. Did a quick check - https://www.politico.eu/article/poll-boris-johnson-toxic-with-scots-and-lib-dem-voters/ When voters were asked whether each of the candidates would make them more or less likely to vote for the Conservative Party, Johnson fared particularly badly in Scotland. His net score (the percentage of voters saying he would make them more likely to vote Tory minus those saying he would make them less likely) was -29 percent. That is more negative than in any of the other regions polled and lower than Hunt's -15 percent net score in Scotland. When compared with his rival, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Johnson is viewed as best suited to be prime minister in three out of the four electoral battleground regions polled: the East Midlands, the North West and London. But in Scotland, the figures are reversed. Just 19 percent of respondents there said Johnson would make the best premier Granted, that is from the summer, but it does rather suggest he is especially unpopular in Scotland. Certainly in the foreign press he is routinely vilified, ridiculed and belittled. In the UK papers, at least, he has his fair share of positive headlines and always has. The very fact he is routinely referred to as Boris speaks to this jovial, jokey blokey familiar sensibility in which much of the UK press holds him, but several papers have been and continue to be cheerleaders for the man (The Mail, The Express, quite often The Telegraph). In complete agreement on the bolded part.