mrniaboc

95% of made-up stats are complete nonsense.

Did you know Napoleon didn't consider himself French, and even fought against the French at a younger age? He ended up doing a reasonable job in the shirt...

Shit, forgot about Porteous.

If he agrees then we could see five Ryans in one squad...

Love the positivity of this post mate! I'm also really hopeful for next season. I think the key is keeping what we've got, and also adding some new excitement players. If we can do that then obviously things are moving in the right direction. In the past few years we've not been seeing that positive growth in the team and we've been losing older stalwarts. But now if we can start to fill in the gaps around Robbo, McTominay, Fraser, and Forrest then that could be very exciting indeed. I think McGregor, McGinn, and Armstrong already go some way to filling those gaps, and if one of Souttar, Bates, or McKenna takes it to the next level then we're in even better shape. And all of that isn't to mention the surprising success stories of the year to come that we don't even know about yet. Hopefully we see at least one other top class player emerge.

Yeah, Davie Weir didn't get his first of 69 caps until he was 27! Hanly reminds me a bit of Weir in that he's not technically that gifted but he has a real understanding that if the ball is not in the box then it's much less likely to go in the goal. He gets his head on a lot of balls that come into the box!

A good spirit around the squad created by having someone in charge who commands respect and gets results will soon turn things around in terms of the call offs. It's not hard to understand how, even of you're committed to your country, you can find it tough to motivate yourself during a bad run. It happens with us members of the TA, so of course it can happen with the players too. I think Snoddy will be back in September.

Excellent. Hopefully Henderson can establish himself in the team next season.

Exactly.

To be honest my wishes at the moment are low level and pretty much the same across 5 years. I just want to see Scotland being hard to beat, fighting for everything, showing passion in the jersey, and being exciting to watch. I'm so used to us not qualifying for tournaments now that it seems like asking for too much. Just please show the world that we're not a joke! I'd love to see a parallel with what happened with the rugby team in the last 10 years. We don't win anything, but we're not a joke anymore.

Fingers crossed! When was the last time a Scot played in Serie A? Denis Law?!* *Showing my pre-Euro 96 knowledge of Scottish football is poor.

Ah! Had not spotted it's over two legs. Good news, thanks.

Henderson started tonight for Verona in the playoff final, but they lost. No Serie A next season unless he gets a move.

I think I would lose my fuckin mind if we qualified for Euro 2020. Right now I'd take just not being an embarrassment anymore. No matter what happens, I hope Clarke gets the team to a point where at the end of the campaign we absolutely crush Kazakhstan at Hampden. It's time to remind the footballing world we are not a joke. I haven't felt that since 2007.

Good leaders lead by example, and there is currently no better example of what a young Scottish footballer can achieve with hard work and determination than Robbo. I think we'll see him learn how to be a great captain just like he has learned how to do everything else that has been asked of him.

I actually think that's a counting error. Looks like everyone picked him of course. Maybe I should start all over again... 😭

So there's a phenomenon referred to as 'the wisdom of the crowd' whereby if you ask many people to give an answer to a relatively simple question and then take the consensus of the answers, it is often the right answer*. So, because I'm a complete Scotland nerd who is trying to waste some time until the next matches, I thought I'd test this theory on the starting teams that have been posted here. Below are the total votes each player in the squad has gotten from the 19 people who have posted a starting lineup so far: Andrew Robertson (captain) 19 James Forrest 19 Stephen O'Donnell 18 Ryan Fraser 18 Scott McKenna 16 John McGinn 15 Scott McTominay 15 John Souttar 12 Callum McGregor 11 Scott Bain 8 Stuart Armstrong 8 Eamonn Brophy 8 David Marshall 7 Charlie Mulgrew 7 Tom Cairney 6 Oliver Burke 6 Stuart Findlay 3 Johnny Russell 3 Liam Kelly 2 Marc McNulty 2 Jon McLaughlin 1 Liam Palmer 1 Michael Devlin 0 Greg Taylor 0 Kenny McLean 0 Graeme Shinnie 0 Lewis Morgan 0 Based on these numbers, the TAMB as a collective thinks the starting lineup against Cyprus should be as follows: Bain O'Donnell Souttar McKenna Robertson Forrest McGregor McTominay McGinn Fraser Brophy With Armstrong, Mulgrew, and Cairney/Burke on as subs. I'm interested to see how close this is to the starting lineup next Saturday. Don't expect it to be far off to be honest. No love for Devlin, Taylor, McLean, Shinnie, or Morgan on here haha. * for some reason it never seems to work in referenda...

Haha what would you change. To be honest, so long as Robbo, McTominay, McGinn, McGregor, Forrest, and Fraser are in the starting line up I'll be happy. I could also convince myself that Souttar and McKenna are my desirable centre half pairing. So there's only 3 spaces I'm not sure about: Keeper, RB, and striker.

I don't think all Scotland fans are angels, and any large group will have a certain fraction of miscreants, however I like to think the vast majority of the TA hold themselves to a respectable standard.

Correct

To be fair, McLeish actually picked squads that didn't cause too many complaints on here. It's how he failed to make them work on match day that was the problem. It would have been exciting to see him gamble on the likes of Turnbull or Harper, but I'm not too surprised by this squad assuming McBurnie is injured.

I think it may have been more about your statement that appeared to suggest Jack doesn't merit a call up because his team only finished 2nd? The only team better than that is Celtic. But I'll let Pete clear things up himself...

Hahaha, but don't those odds mean it's extremely likely it did happen?

Yeah. He may yet be in Serie A next season...

You literally said "Robertson cant [sic] defend" in your previous post. Hahaha are you Chripper in disguise? Also, Robertson is fantastic defensively. That's not even up for debate.