ScotlandWintheWorldCup

Good to see a target man in Dykes be able to hold the ball up and do something with it. Could do with having a poacher alongside him. Or is it unfashionable these days to play 2 strikers

😂same, watching the second half thinking just that

Where has our creativity gone?? In the Euro16 and WC18 qualifiers at least we would be entertaining and create chances. We seem much more solid but are doing absolutly nothing in the final third. The amount of times we pass backwards in the last 5-6 games is very frustating. Steve Clarke has made us more compact, but we havent done anything offensively against Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Russia or Israel. Very turgid to watch.

Shame the fans can't have a say in how they would like UEFA comps to be organized. Think the fans all across Europe would be for Champions League to be the Champs only!! The ridiculous situation was summed up last year by having two finalists who havent't been Champions for 29 &58 years respectively!! In the old format, that extremely limited Tottenham side would have been knocked out and we could have had a proper European final Could it not be something like this Champions only in Champions League Cup Winners Cup comes back but its played in separate weeks, so if the team is champions as well they get to play in CL & CWC (means a quintuple is possible lol) Europa League can be where the teams finishing 2-6 in their leagues play qualifying to get to a group stage The champions league and the CWC should be straight knockout. This way the CL & CWC get proper European champs and the Europa League can be all the 27 games between European giant clubs where endless games meaning nothing and keep the money men and broadcasters happy. So all of us who actually support teams can enjoy the ups and downs of our teams in Euro campaigns and the indian and Chinese markets and Agnelli get huge numbers of Europa league games to get excited about.

Just asking, but does anyone on here care who wins either European final this year? I mean I know in eng it will be very popular and hyped up. But does anybody living in a different European country have any interest in it? Always feel 2 teams from same country ruins the ethos of the old European cup. Ive watched every CL final since 92 but will give this a miss because you need to want one of the teams to win or lose. Shame they cant both lose.

I think both Clarke and McInnes are really good managers and get more out of their players than expected. Think Derek would be a great Scotland manager, he is a really proud scot, good man manager and could be our J.Low Unlike the other candidates he wouldn't be looking at it as a stepping stone to a bigger thing, I think he is a Scot first and foremost, unlike the others who all seem to regard the job as a way of getting back over the border...bizarre thinking.

I disagree in part. When did Strachan, Moyes, Bilic overachive massively? I mean what Clarke has done at killie is miraculous. The players love him, they seem very fit now and well drilled. But overall they are really hard to beat. I think Clarke is a better manager, just he hasn't got the big club cv, which really doesn't matter, ie ONeil with Brechin.

Id just like someone who is a great manager......ie gets more out of the players than the previous one. For example did Moyes, Bilic, Dickov!!, ever get more out of their players than their talent suggests. No! But these guys do.....Clarke (miracle work at Killie), Ross (He changed the buddies from absolute dross into a really good side), McInnes is a bit different in that he is a more consistent manager, probably would beat all the shite teams but lose against the bigger teams. Or is that his players at the dons? I'd like any of these three, know the game here, are good managers(most aren't), get more out of players(what we need)

Yeah you are right, Im surprised how low it is.....127million. What is all this guff in the papers and from MrBlarney then about Scottish teams being unable to compete?? Celtics wage bill was 60mill last year. I know its half of spurs but the difference isn't that much. They have been losing to teams in Europe with lower wage bills under blarney. If you think Aberdeen is about 10mil, that's 6times less!!

I think you have clicked on the wrong forum. English lovers.com is over there We have possibly the worst ever team to reach the CL final tonight. It used to take great teams to reach this level. Shame for football

What a sad day for football. This Ajax team have bucked the money trend of CL football with a stylish brand of football. And what happens the spurs spend 300 million on wages and play Oxford Utd boot it up to Lorente and hope for dumb luck. Well I guess they got it, but football lost out tonight. Now a final between two teams who were last champions when??? Such a bad advert for the European game, the less you play football the more likely you are to win.

These points averages should get better as the teams get worse. So the anomalies are the #2 & #6 seed away where we lose ground But most importantly the amount of points we are dropping at home to the #5 & #6 seeds

Average points gained against the different seeds over the last 20 years HOME #1 = 1.11 #2 = 1.29 #3 = 1.71 #4 = 2.57 #5 = 2.36 #6 = 2.40 AWAY #1 = 0.67 #2 = 0.57 #3 = 0.86 #4 = 1.57 #5 = 2.00 #6 = 1.40 Shows where we are losing ground on our rivals to qualify. Most notably how poor we have been away from home against the #4 and #6 seeds. But also against the our main rivals for qualifying the #2 seeds, we are poor home and away against them. I'm just trying to show, maybe we need to go into these games with a different mental attitude instead of looking at the whole qualifying picture. Play against the bottom seeds like its against eng and really focus on the #2 seed at home

How would the last 20 years been different if we could have just won our games against the 4th,5th and 6th seeds. Containing the likes of Macedonia, Faroes and Liechtenstein, not exactly teams we shouldn't be beating. 00 - Same - Playoff w/ Eng 02 - Same - still finish 3rd 04 - Same - but would have finished equal 1st with Germany/ Playoff w/Holland 06 - Different - Would have been equal 1st with Italy/ Playoff w/ Czech Rep 08 - Different - Would have qualified 2nd ahead of France 10 - Different - Would have been in Playoffs ahead of Norway in Group and knocked Ireland out of 2nd Place teams 12 - Same - Still behind Czech in 3rd place 14 - Different - Would have been in Playoffs ahead of Croatia 16 - Different - Would have been in Playoffs ahead of Ireland 18 - Different - Would have been in Playoffs ahead of Slovakia and knocked Ireland out of 2nd Place teams It just shows how poor we have been against the teams we should be beating. It shows with the right manager we are not far away from getting there. We don't need to suddenly be beating the Italy's, Poland's or even the likes of Denmark to qualify, just win when we are supposed to!!

Just for example, who are exceptional, generation type players? Messi, Ronaldo.....is there anyone else who could be considered a GOAT. But look at the 90's...….there was Romario, Bebeto, Hagi, Stoichkov, Maradona, Del Piero, Baggio, Maldini, Baresi, Klinsmann, Mattheus, Bergkamp, Davids, Seedorf, Schmeical, Laudrup etc.. Just shows how poor football is creativity and skills wise now. Scotland should be doing way better, I mean if that crap ROI team can qualify!!

Its great that Ajax are showing that spending ridiculous amounts of money on journeymen pros and substandard managers for the fallacy it is! Bringing through their youngsters and playing possession based attacking football, what a great advert for the game. Compared the clubs in eng, Fra, Ita etc paying fortunes for average players. Our Scottish teams should look at this and realise the difference in skill level is very small and should start having a go. Its the same in international football too, only Bel, Fra & Bra are actually any good, have a go and you would see these vastly overpaid journeymen (milner) crumble under the pressure.

Why is Bilic even mentioned? He is a proud croat, he is not going to manage another international team. Do we want him anyway? What would happen if we played Croatia, he would never want to see his country lose. Could do with a few more like him here in Scotland. Instead of this irritating unfinished business in eng crap!!

I think Steve Clarke with his man management and tactical skills could get us a result against Russia both home and away. If we win at Hampden 1-0 and draw0-0 away like in 95 we would be back into this group. Mon Clarkey

Wasn't the Irl away game. We played really poorly that day, so 1-1 was ok. Horrible team to play against ROI, ugly, physical and very defensive. Can't stand watching their boring style. It was that unbelievable stuff in September that cost us. We lose to a fired up Germany and poacher muller then lose in Georgia.....AGAIN!!!!! Then that crap ROI team somehow get a 1-0 win, think it was something like 20 shots to 1 for Germany. We are so unlucky as a football nation

Not sure better defenders, although our two now need way more experience. But better at setting up defensively. Our best campaigns over the barren years were the back end of 06 and the 08 campaign. When Walter set us up quite defensively and using ferguson and faddys skill to create a little bit with the poacher miller at top. But overall we mostly defended in those games and we had our best results. All for Scotland playing attacking football, but maybe we should wait for this team to get older and for more players to be at our top two and abroad. So for me maybe we should go back to being solid at back. Chrippers back 3/5?

Which Scottish manager's are currently working at the highest levels?? I guess it's Derek McInnes at Aberdeen. Am I wrong? So the list of managers would go in descending order McInnes Clarke Levein They are all excellent club managers in my opinion and we have only tried one of them. So for me McInnes or Clarke for the top job. But shit......I mean 10 years (is it that long) ago we had Scottish managers at the old firm, and a whole bunch in the overpaid journeyman league too.

I hear a lot of talksport in my office and listening to ally mccoist talk is sickening, hes such a suck up, Especially when they talk about England. He and Alan Brazil are an embarrassment to Scotland  Agree that coistys and brazils chat about ingliterra, it is embarrassing and feels slightly traitorish. But it is an interesting combo that management team. I mean you've got probably our best striker from the last 30. and out best defender and goalkeeper of the last 20. Fletch is right up there too after barry ferguson. They should be able to organise a team and coach really well, you would think, bit inexperienced though.

I was kind of meaning there skill level and mental toughness. If they played today they would be extremely fit. Just trying to remember when we used to be a force to be reckoned with and it was a pleasure to watch. Rather than the feeling of dread before every game now and scrapping with minnows for irrelevance. What are our chances of beating Cyprus and getting a draw in Belgium??

With international being full of very mediocre teams at the moment. There are only two exceptional teams in France and Belgium. All the other main nations are only average at the moment. I mean if Sweden & e**, was that the worst standard ever to play in a quarter final at the world cup? Probably. Where would our 74 team be if we had those players today. First off we would have sailed the WCQ group last time and we would be fighting Belgium for first place in this group. Kazakhstan result different????????? Does anyone else agree with me that our 74 team could have potentially won the WC in Russia 18?

Unfortunately, you are right about this. Why speculate when we all know McLeish is going nowhere. I'll be at Cyprus game so hopefully our best players turn up and negate the disorganised chaos from our coaching team. Then the inevitable 0-2 thrashing by Belgium. The sfa will think that's expected so Mcleish will be here until at least October.