AndyDD

Good grief.

Apology accepted. A decent weekend for the likely squad members (aside from Hickey, good experience for him though), although I was worried to see Porteous miss the Hibs game through injury. Might rule him out of either senior or Under 21 squad. The hope now is for the celtic players and Ryan Jack to come through their midweek European games unscathed; even better if Mcgregor, Christie, Forrest and Jack have good games. They will be playing against superior opposition than they are set to face in Cyprus and against Kazakhstan. And if we're really good and promise to eat our tea, maybe Griffiths will get onto the bench.

It isnae going to happen and it has been discussed to death for decades. Start another topic about it by all means, or go and seek out the discussion elsewhere (believe me, you'll no be short of options), but it isn't really relevant to Scottish players in action season 2019/20. So kindly get it tae fuck from here.

I have no idea what impact the old firm leaving would have, for good or for ill. It's never going to happen, though, and it's a honkin topic of discussion that I'd happily never see discussed again. By all means get it into it's own thread, but this is about Scottish players in action this season. On that basis, given the squad is likely getting announced, what, tomorrow, is Naismith likely getting back in, having come through large part of the second half yesterday? Griffiths apparently getting back in during the game against Motherwell for Celtic but likely too soon for him again? Suppose can always call him in afterwards if he does indeed play.

Marshall is not convincing, nor is he as good as he once was. However, Bain isn't playing and doesn't look likely to be playing any time soon. Ditto Craig Gordon. Mclaughlin has lost his place as well and is also not playing. Kelly has gotten into his side but is not doing well, Archer is without a club, Allan Mcgregor retired, Zander Clark lost form and never regained it. It's pretty much Marshall by default. His experience keeps him above Kelly for me, who is the only rival for the role currently playing football. They are both playing at the same level for teams who concede a lot of goals. It's likely that the defences of those teams are more to blame than the keepers, but that the keepers are also flawed and limited, thus compounding the frailty of the defence. It's not something to be pleased about, but Marshall has to be the first choice at the moment. He has done okay, on the whole. It is definitely a crisis, given the lack of options. Imagine if Marshall gets injured? Doesn't really bear contemplating. Ideally Bain gets his place back and Gordon goes and gets football on loan somewhere, Kelly settles down and someone emerges from somewhere, because going forward we are in real bother between the sticks. If Celtic do manage to get Forster on a permanent deal, Bain needs to get out that club as well. He's a young goalie and he was progressing his career, he can't let it stagnate.

Yesterday rather underlined that Hickey is very much still a prospect, and not by any means ready to be playing first team international football. Badly caught out on several occasions for Hearts. We need to be patient with young prospects like him.

Besides the point. You said he was a clown. You didn't say Ryan Jack was showing up 'That scotland manager who has not gotten off to a good start, Clarke' you said 'that clown Clarke'. He's a very decent coach who is 6 games in to his tenure.

I'll miss his wind-ups to an extent, but this is a trigger that they should have pulled a while ago.

Clarke DOES rate Jack. He called him up in two of his 3 squads and Jack got injured during one squad and pulled out injured before the games in the other. And yet somehow Clarke is a clown? Yeesh.

Exactly. The player can throw themselves to the deck, they can do a somersault, they can dae the fucking worm if they like. It doesn't make it a foul.

... No, I literally said - 'There's no obligation to stay on your feet'

That's good, suppose it's not the end of the world if he misses Kazakhstan at Hampden but ideally he is able to play in that game as well by avoiding getting booked in Cyprus.

Spot on. Anyway; Gilmour included in the Under-21 squad today. Clarke persisting with leaving the under 21s together? If Gilmour gets more game time over the next 10 days or so it might well force his hand.

Bang on. Fucking honkin'.

See, there is a difference between a push and touching, though. Earlier you were saying touching someone, contact itself, is a foul. A push is a foul, I would say. Contact itself, it ain't necessarily so. If you're a striker running towards goal and you are touched by a defender, then throw yourself to the ground, well, you've thrown yourself to the ground,. You have not been fouled, you have dived, you deserve a yellow card. There's no obligation to stay on your feet, but if you have not been put their by a defender, or in any other way fouled, the ref is under no obligation to give you anything. It is a contact sport. A freekick or penalty should only be awarded if a player is fouled. Not touched; fouled. And here I thought you pined for the good old days. Imagine Craigy Broon's Scotland boys couldn't touch anyone? Even the three at the back wouldn't have saved them...

In that moment, he was too laid back for my liking. It stuck out to me precisely because it's so unlike him. I believe Solskjaer did mention it post-match, something along the lines of 'Scotty knows it's an error...' but he might have been referring to just the losing of the ball. I don't really care what Solskjaer does or does not make of it, I'd be annoyed if any player for my team did that. In fact, i'd give someone grief at five or seven asides if they lost the ball and never bothered their arse to get back. Maybe i'm just a hard task master that way, but it annoys me; if you lose the ball in your own half, you don't just leave it for the defence to deal with and you do try to get after the opponent with the aim of winning the ball back. I'm sure overall, like anyone, his manager will have been pleased with his performance. I'm sure his manager, like anyone, will point to that goal as something he should try to avoid.

Doesn't really make sense to have different rules for what is and isnt a foul at set-plays. Nor do I think that any contact is a foul at any time (not finding any rule which states it is, either, as it happens), but the highlighted part there is one of the worst attitudes to have increasingly crept into football in the last 20 years. Makes my skin crawl.

I don't dispute how good he is or how much ground he covers. I said that he lost the ball, I even said hey that can happen, but that I was disappointed with how little effort he put in to make up for this and try to win it back. I do not want my centre mids to lose the ball and go 'ah well, i'll just leave this to my defenders and goalie, i'm not the last man so nevermind'. I want them to put a chase in, a proper chase, to try and win the ball back or try to get back in front of the opponent. Good that he was able to get through the rest of the game despite the booking tightrope, but he has a wee bit of a habit for getting yellows. Going to cost us and Man U at some point, is the fear.. He was missed in Moscow, that's for sure. And he comes right back from suspension to get booked again against San Marino. Granted, that was a harsh booking for me, but it still means that if he gets booked in Cyprus he will again miss a match. He needs to watch that.

No, it doesn't. Otherwise there would be 4 penalties and 5 freekicks awarded at any corner or freekick into the box. Players touching each other does not make it a foul. Physical contact is permitted and does not in and of itself constitute a foul.

Really hope he gets himself a goal for Scotland in these next two, imagine the reaction fae the fans. He really is coming on leaps and bounds. Praying he doesn't get injured.

Up until his daft booking he was doing really well. He then gave the ball away horribly cheaply for the Porto goal, started to lose his way and was lucky not to get booked again for an accumulation of fouls before halftime. He managed to get a hold of himself again in the second half, for the most part. 'absolutely brilliant' is overstating things, somewhat. I'd like and expect him to start for us though, he has something we have been missing.

No. Did the highlights leave out a part of the Norwich goal that changes it in any way? Have they doctored the footage to show McTominay nonchalantly jogging back after being easily robbed when in reality he was bursting his arse to get back and retrieve the situation? The guy is a very good player already and is well on the way to being an excellent one. By all accounts he had a great game and took his goal really well. He has been the best outfield player for Man U this season thus far. But he should have shown more desire to get back and make up for his glaring error in that moment, not just jogged back in the norwich player's wake. No player is perfect, especially at that age. Coming along very nicely indeed, but he can and should do better and do more there.

utter rubbish. Contact does not equal a foul. Get the game stopped with that kind of attitude.

Aye very much so. Right across the football world, money is going into youth development, in many ways because transfer fees are getting so insane between the big clubs and smaller clubs see the size of the rewards for sell ons. However, for the moment and for the foreseeable, the old firm will continue to sign players like Defoe and Elyanoussi (etc etc ad infinitum) and play them ahead of their prospects, due in large part to cut-throat fan expectations. I expect you're right and it will continue to grow. Here's hoping.

Aye, agreed on all fronts. Not that we expect him to be the finished article at this stage, 22 years old with, what, under 50 appearances for his club? At first team level anyway.