mrniaboc

I like this just now. Would consider putting Tierney in for McKenna.

That is a dark, cold place!

What I love about the TA is the solid friendship it cultivates between members.

Good stuff dude! So what we're saying is please please please give us a home draw today UEFA! Please.

That's down right anti-gaelic haha! It's a top username BTW. One of my favourite phrases in any language.

Yes. You regularly fail to spell people's names properly and have openly admitted that you are not interested in getting them right.

Come on man! I know there's no hope for TDK, but I thought you would at least be able to get it right. It's 'Mr' then 'Cobain' backwards OK. I know is cringeworthy but it's been my handle since I was 14.

Shit! Now I'm not even sure. Vanderark14 might be right after all hahaha. On another note though, it's probably worth pointing out that I am at least capable of spelling people's usernames correctly. Including my own.

Good work. Maybe just slightly in our favour at Hampden there, but not by much!

Ha! I imagine that must have been particularly frustrating for you then? I know how you feel.

Nailed it.

Hahaha, I just like data. I don't think my opinion is too disagreeable though. I think we probably won't qualify, but this represents one of the best chances we will get.

If Clarke can figure out a solid formation that that allows McGinn, McTominay, Christie, Fraser, Tierney, and Robertson to start then I'm not too fussed about who the other five players are. Would be great to see another one or two stars rising in the next three months as well!

It's a little biased to remove the bottom seeds and not do the same for the top seeds when talking about points we are sensibly meant to be able to win. It would be interesting to compare our home stats in the last few years to the away stats of Bulgaria, Romania, Israel, Hungary, Serbia, and Norway. Just wish I had the time to pull all those stats!

Hahahaha

I had never heard that 2nd reason before. Interesting. I am a little suprised that they had pre-season training in 1950!

Always suspected this!

I really hope you don't actually mean me hahaha.

For sure, and defs a level above the teams we'll be playing in March.

Meant to say "would", not "wouldn't". But yes.

Apologies mate, I think I'm maybe not making my point clearly. I'm not trying to say we have an absolutely amazing home record. Otherwise we would probably be qualifying all the time. What I'm saying is that our home record against teams of the standard that we will be playing in the upcoming playoffs makes a case against sheer pessimism. I don't think we will qualify, but I think it's a lot less doom and gloom than many are making out. We will not get this good a chance again any time soon. Finally, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to say Russia are not a top team. They very recently got to the quarter finals of a world cup, only going out on penalties to the eventual runners up. Also, Wales were on the start of a path that led them into the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings and the semi finals of the Euros when they beat us. Just trying to spread a little glimmer of optimism.

OK I have run some more representative numbers for us to take a look at. The following is the percentage of available points we took from competitive home matches per decade: 1990s - 81.94% 2000s - 65.22% 2010s - 61.54% So there's been an obvious drop-off, however over 60% of possible points taken at home (including matches against top seeds) isn't such a horrible home record. Also, as other posters have pointed out, it's hard to list too many teams that aren't clearly above our level that have taken points from us at home in recent history. From whatever angle I look at I simply cannot see these playoffs as anything other than the best chance we may ever have to qualify for a tournament any time soon.

Absolutely! But it does show that we don't tend to lose in 90 mins at Hampden, which in this time of real negativity is something I'm trying to hold onto. For the record. I do not expect us to qualify.

I feel like not losing will be a real start. Don't you?

Wouldn't both lists be more informative than either in isolation. Sorry I wasn't able to grab that for you all. I had 5 mins before my train.