mrniaboc

What do you reckon those interests are? Not sure it's a massive CV boost to play for Scotland right now. What if he was genuinely interested in helping us out while experience a proper centre back crisis? Perhaps I'm naive.

The point of international football is to have something to get really excited about every few months, then experience crushing disappointment.

I'm not sure mccaughey mentioned bigotry. I did. I said I was worried that was what was underpinning some people's strong opposition to Caulker, but I also fully appreciate that many people are just of the non-bigoted opinion that once you've chosen another team, it's not cool to switch. I would just be really interested to see the reaction if he was world class and not English.

Not as many as I thought! But those two are "Scottish" because they want to play for us and are eligible right? Truth is that if this was Messi and somehow he became eligible and wanted to play for Scotland, everyone would have his name on their shirt and be learning how to tango before you could say "bienvenido". My worry is that some people's reaction to Caulker is based on bigotry rather than a genuine unhappiness that he's represented another country already. And let me be clear, I hate the England national team more than most. Out of interest, is Karamoko Dembele also not welcome in our team in the future if he decides he wants to play?

Nice one! Thanks for the reminder. I'll be able to watch it on my commute home.

So, my examples have underlying nuances and/or are flukes, but your examples are purely down to the formation? Come on mate. Don't you see the issue with this?

Our oceans were actually probably formed by large comet impacts delivering massive quantities of water from the outer Solar System in a relatively short period of time a few billion years ago. But that's besides the point... I agree that experimenting is good, but I disagree with the way you go about advocating for it. You are fixated on one parameter, and you are incapable of exploring the idea that you may not be right. This leads to a failed experiment every time.

Hahaha. Having a Scotland cap on your CV right now is probably just one level above having permanent criminal record on there.

So are half our squad 😂😂😂

5 and 6 are even more reasons to call him up 😂

1) He's a good player 2) He's eligible 3) He wants to play for us That's enough for me!

...and Brighton demolished Tottenham with a back four, and Livingston beat Celtic for the first time with a back four, and Leicester held the best team in Europe for over 90 minutes in their home ground with a back four... I'm not saying you're wrong or I'm right, we've had this discussion endlessly and there's no right answer. You may well be right that it would make us harder to beat, I just don't think it would and here's the main points that I think support that argument: 1) Formation change is not a panacea. There is a lot more to consider. 2) I worry that CB is our weakest position. To you this means we should bolster it by adding more bodies, but to me that solution means putting weaker players on the pitch and inviting more pressure on them by removing a better player from the midfield. 3) Most of our players do not play this formation week-in-week-out, and we'd be playing a lot more people out of position. 4) Steve Clarke clearly favours 4 at the back and has shown that he can make a poor team very hard to beat with that formation. So yet again, my question would be "Why should we put more low quality players on the pitch, and make our team and manager play a formation they are not comfortable with?" You'll say "We've been playing 4 at the back for 17 years and it clearly isn't working!" I'll say "Correlation does not imply causation, and formation change is not a panacea!" The needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before. Welcome back.

I think he's being honest, which is refreshing. Also, I see absolutely nothing wrong with a player feeling allegiance to two different countries, especially in the modern world.

Lols, yeah let's take a look: He's scored 20% of our goals in this campaign, is possibly the best left back in the world right now, is definitely the best Scottish player in the last decade, and people are confused as to why he appears to be better when playing for Liverpool where he has Mane, Salah, and Firmino to pass to. There. Looks all done. This one's been put to bed.

Some people on here not satisfied with constantly tearing into the less able players we have, so now they are shitting all over the genuinely brilliant ones? Fuckin. Geez. A. Break.

Exactly. McGinn is our most on-form player right now. I'd be very surprised if he didn't start.

In the first three games last season he was outstanding. There were a few articles and pieces on MOTD at the time talking about what a player he was. Then he got injured. Then he was benched for a lot of the subsequent games. Add to that the fact that his team were completely transformed and mis-managed I think it's harsh to say he couldn't handle it at EPL level.

It's truly alarming how many Scotland fans decide a player isn't that good because he "fails to perform in the dark blue". It's really simple. Players don't lose their ability depending on which jersey they are wearing. So what are the variables. There's formation, tactics, desire, passion (most of this falls under management), and there's the ability of the other players around them. Now I know that some of our players are not great in an international context, but I won't hear it that we don't have a solid group of very able players, so it's down to the management to get the best out of them. The raw materials are there to build a decent team. Simply put, McGinn, Robbo, Fraser, McTominay etc don't play better for their clubs than for Scotland in isolation, their entire team plays better.

It's a popular social media platform which allows people to post text and other media content in short form - originally restricted to a maximum of 140 characters. Unvetted access to celebrities, institutions, and companies, along with the emergence of the #hashtag (used for marking multiple posts that relate to a single matter) have made it an extremely useful source of real-time information. At the same time it's unfiltered nature has led to it also being a source of nonsense and extreme views.

Interesting. He was listed as a sub earlier, but isn't there now. Though I may just be going mad...

Fraser on the bench today again. This time didn't even get brought on. What is going on there?! Can't see any explanation in any news reports online. They've basically just decided to bench their best player without justification. In not normally a conspiracy theorist, but is this because he's not signing a contract? I doubt it, because that would be really dumb.

Another goal for McGinn today. That's 3 goals and 1 assist in 7 games. I wonder when he's going to get found out in the EPL? 😂😂😂

Good to see this thread stayed on topic for a while instead of descending into a random abuse storm haha.

Just look here https://twitter.com/search?q=billy gilmour&s=09. It's abundantly clear he's been impressive this evening. Not just random fans getting excited about a young player.

Yeah I just did they same. They are losing their minds hahaha.