Tartan Chris

All true but Pasta Mick was making the case more for Grifiths being the far superior option atm. It will be good for Leigh Griffiths to be back in the squad as an option after all he's been through. What a story if he's the one that scores the goal that gets Scotland to first final in 22 years.

Current league form not much diffferent. Griff scored 4 league goals since August, McBurnie 3.

Started and scored last night. OGS really rates him so he'll be getting plenty of minutes while he stays as manager.

Man. United got Brugge on Thursday. Think both legs of the next round of europa are before the internationals, add in FA cup 5th round and potentially quarter finals on the 21s-22nd March and a couple of premier league games and that is more than enough to get him up to speed as he'll be a starter before long ago. Not sure on McGinn. Seems the target is Chelsea at home on March 14th for his return. If Newcastle win their cup match then Villa's next league match would be postponed so at best it looks like he'll get one sub game before the play offs. Guess with his quality he'll still be in the squad but can only see him on the bench. At least there are other midfielders who are in form and can chip in with goals as Fleck and Armstrong have been doing last few months. In these high intensity play offs you can't be gambling with off the pace players really.

He has scored twice v PSG and freely in Bundesliga recently. That said Dortmund are very much a front foot team while I imagine Norway won't be. Probably a better example for what I was on about yesterday would be Jaydon Sancho. Looks great week in week out in Germany with goals and assits but yet to have the same impact for England in the year he's been involved in the set up.

Not sure if it's been mentioned but was flicking through some of the euro games tonight and Liam Henderson was listed on the bench for Empoli tonight, he joined them on loan in January. He's as far away from Scotland squad as he's ever been but seems he's settled in Italy now.

Interesting. Souness last job in football was in January 2006 when Newcastle sacked him. He was only 52 at that point and you only have to look at managers in premier league to see that's a very young age to retire as a manager. Perhaps he'd have taken the job but in his autobiography he'd said he'd had enough of management dealing with guys like Bellamy. There was a vacancy of course in early 2007 and after Burley got sacked so other chances to take it if he so desired. Thought Burley was a good choice as he had solid record in England. Took Ipswich into premier league and got Derby and Southampton into the play offs of the championship. Indeed it was looking likely he was going to lead Hearts to the SPL before Romanov sacked him, didn't Hearts start that season with 7 wins in a row? It didn't work out, that can happen even if the appointment appears logical.

Can see Leicester going for McGinn if Villa go down.

There are many many examples of prolific club scorers who struggle to score at international level. Andy Cole was a great premier league striker. One goal for England although of course he was around in an era of great English strikers so chances were limited, same for Les Ferdinand and Robbie Fowler around that time. Kenny Miller only had a slighly poorer record for Scotland than Ally McCoist. And international football is generally more cat and mouse than club football. In the 2018 world cup 53% of goals were scored from set pieces and generally it's the same in qualifiers so games less open and less chances from normal play than in normal club game unless you're playing a minnow. Or Scotland. Add in he won't quite have the quality of team mates to release him early like for Dortmund (although odegaard is also good enough to play for them) and those are my reasons. He has only played for Norway twice. Didn't actually score for Norway under 21s in his three games either.

I didn't mind Burley in fairness, good club manager just couldn't get to grips with the increased expectation after 2006/07 and had his issues with some of the big names and bad luck as said before. Did not rate Levein one little bit. Can anyone remember the other candidates being linked in early 2010? It's a shame the Vogts experiment went so badly so SFA simply won't appoint any foreign manager. If they'd appointed Lars Lagerback at any point in last decade I'm sure he'd have got Scotland to at least one major tournament given Iceland got to their first major final while co manager and could well get Norway out of the tournament wilderness.

At Hampden? There is a vast difference between how majority of international teams below the elite ones play at home and away. Israel certainly don't have a centre forward of calibre of Mitrovic or Haaland. They'll play to keep it tight and try to pinch a goal from set piece or on the break as Lithuania would do.

Yes. Can't see 3-5-2 being something Clarke will play simply due to Tierney is very unlikely to make it and always seems the formation is played just to fit him in. It's a problem just getting two competant CBs out there. I think it will be 4-3-3. Perhaps Armstrong will be pushed into the front 3 as more of an option to tuck in and make it a more narrow base when out of possesion while still providing a forward threat.

I haven't read report but would be interested to see what the general recommendations are. I imagine it will be the usual of building more indoor centres and getting things right at youth level. That's important but realistically for a small nation with population there are always many factors in play. You take Belgium for example. Population of 11m so limited compared to the other teams they were in later stages of world cup with. Not a huge football culture and generally been insignificant in international football for most of their existance. Had a good team in the 80s and then similar to Scotland had a no frills defensive team that made two World cups in the 90s. They didn't qualify for a major tournament from 2002 up to world cup 2014. Now they're one of the world's best teams? Perhaps they've invested a huge amount in youth facilites but sometimes it's a simple case of just 5-6 World class footballers all being born in the same era. Wales is a little similar. Scotland currently have more players playing at top level (would also include Burke given he is in La Liga and regularly getting minutes) than at any point since the last near miss in 2007 even if they don't all play in key positions. It's frustrating not to have any world class forward like Norway and Serbia and the lack of any decent CBs is a massive issue but in other positions the players are more than competant if not pretty good and they show it for their club sides on a regular basis. Was there anything in the report looking at why there's so many call offs from every international round? That remains a big issue although I suspect due to the importance in March hardly anyone will pull out and then play for their club on April 4th, it will be just long term injured who miss out like Tierney and McGinn. Said it before but you see likes of Bale and Ramsey racing to join up with Wales squad and they play for some of the biggest teams in world football and this is for mundane qualifiers. Many of the Welsh squad grew up together in the youth teams so it's very much a club side mentality, same for Northern Ireland. It's a thing lacking in the Scotland set up so imo it's too easy to pull out from squads. You also then don't have that backs to the wall mentality to pull through when 0-0 in a tough away qualifier. This is a quality that will be needed in Oslo or Belgrade if the team get to the final. Another problem is some of the awful managers that have been appointed since 2007. Strachan was best of the lot but he couldn't capitalise on good periods of form.

Only played twice for Norway so far and yet to score so still feeling his way into international football and the different dynamics. By contrast Mitrovic has a brilliant scoring record in international football so he'd need to be respected as much imo. I'm more concerned how Odegaard would be handled in any potential match up v Norway. He's been in fantastic form for Real Sociedad all season so likes of McTominey and McGregor need to be rats in there to disrupt him. Sergj Milinkovic Savic is back playing well for Lazio. Huge physical box to box midfield who can score. Serbia and Norway pretty similar when you look at it, both got one top class striker and some very good midfielders but neither are that difficult to score against. Ultimately I think not playing the game at Hampden will be the decisive aspect of this but of course have to get past Israel first.

Well McGregor and McTominey are going to be certs to start in four weeks. Question is whether you go for Fleck or Armstrong as the third CM. Both can chip in with goals although Fleck more the deep lying of the two. Don't want to stoke the fires again but McBurnie is in good form for Sheffield United currently. Yes he's not scoring much (was pretty unlucky yesterday with a few scrambles) but he's dropping deep and linking the play well for the Blades.

90s cb options weren't of calibre of 70s and 80s obviously but they were still better than current crop. With Hendry you also had Colin Calderwood who was decent CB at Spurs. Weir and Gough played as regulars for Everton into mid 30s. Matt Elliott broke through around that time and was doing well for Leicester (had spells upfront for them). Also Christian Dailly who could fill a few positions and remember him randomly being linked with Juvetus. Just solid no frills defenders who were regulars at decent premier league clubs, oh for two of them now as then the 11 would look pretty good.

Interested how Sander Berg gets on at Sheffield United. Highly rated at Genk and Sheffield United signed him for 22m. More reason not to just call up Fleck but start him.

There used to be a friendly week in February but that got scrapped a while ago.

Delighted Stuart Armstrong is getting starts and playing well, will be a good option in March.

Loan move somewhere would be a good move. He's had games here and there so regular football would push him on to compete for regular squad place next season if Lampard is still there. Chelsea loan lots of their young players to Vitesse Arnham. Mason Mount went there and it really helped his career. Different club but Martin Odegaard also benefited massively from his year in Holland so that could be one move to watch in the window.

Fleck outstanding again v Man. City. Set up two chances for Mousset with excellent long range passing. Playing himself into a start for the March game(s) with the midfield injuries.

I was going to ask, are their no decent Scottish keepers in the SPL nowadays bar the obvious ones at Celtic? He's in form so should be in the squad as one of the squad options at least.

Well goalscoring is only one aspect of an attacking midfielder but for an all conquering Celtic team has just three league goals all season. John Fleck has four league goals so seems one player is timing his runs a little better and converting chances. The reality to me is in any case you play those two infront of the back 4 and then put a proper goalscorer in the number 10 role like Ryan Christie.

I watched the whole of the game. He (along with rest of the Leeds team) really struggled with PNE's tempo in the first half. Him and his CB partner Ben White lost loads of headers to likes of Nugent. His passing isn't too bad though, likes a long diagonal crossfield. With regards other players Stuart Armstrong played a great part in the 2nd Southampton goal today. Long overdue him getting a run of games and could be important timing with some of the midfield injuries.

I was looking forward to watching his progress but yeah he's been warming the bench for months now so clearly the staff think he isn't serie A quality. Can't quite see him being an alternative to Veratti somehow...