The_Dark_Knight

I'm generally busy but i try to catch my local team when they play at home. If not, i go down the leagues and attend random matches. So yes, i think i know what I'm talking about. This isn't a debate. This is a fact. What more evidence do you need? Our third best team gets knocked out of Europe by a part time Welsh team (and it wasn't bad luck. The Welsh team were better in both legs). That not enough? How about Kazakhstan thumping Scotland? How about not qualifying for a major international tournament for more than two decades? The simply fact is that Scottish football has rot so badly that no one even cares that it's in a state of disrepair. No one cares that there's only a handful of players in all four leagues that can do the basics properly. You're being rather precious about this. Let's be grown ups about this and take the criticism on the chin. The only way that Scottish football will improve is if we own our failures and work together to fix them. People here can have a chip at me all they like. I'm not going to be drawn into an argument. Chances are Scottish football won't change. The SFA won't improve things. The clubs won't demand that things get better. And because of this Scotland will probably never qualify for another major tournament. But it's alright, because Motherwell had a decent second half of the season and they had a today run in the league cup. I suppose there's nothing to worry about then. Phew!

I was necessarily talking about you, I was talking about the general tone of football fans in Scotland. The way that football is played in Scotland, from SPL downwards, is brainless.

Yeah. I think you've missed the point. This match will give kids (and adults) a taste of football as it SHOULD be played.

And this is exactly what's wrong with Scotland football. "Improvement? Nah! We're fine as we are, 'cos football is football. Let's just keep the kick and rush mentality because as we can quite clearly see blood and sweat can bridge the gap. Launch the ball into the box 100 times a match, from all angles, because the law of averages means that they'll be goals". Meanwhile in first world footballing nations, they're treated top players who have talent and skill and they continually churn out superstars. It's alright, though, as we're only a small nation, it's not like fellow small nations like Uruguay, Denmark or Croatia have done anything.

Only in Scotland would people moan about seeing the champions of Europe playing another top European side, with many great footballers on display. Lets cut the crap. From the first day of the season, to the last, in all four domestic leagues in Scotland, up and down the country you don't see football. You see kick-and-rush, you see running as much as you can, you see launching the ball up the field at the earliest opportunity, you see lack of basic skill and talent. The aforementioned is not real football, not in my book. The vast majority of football fans in Scotland don't see actual football being played to a high standard, in the flesh, so let them enjoy this 90 minutes. As the rest of the year they'll be seeing players that can't pass, tackle, control, trap the ball, shoot, create, etc.

John McGinn is better playing as a number 10. If he's in the center of midfield he has to be part of a three man midfield as he empties the midfield too often to be trusted. And he's certainly not an anchorman.

Wan-Bissaka is definitely going to develop into a top player. Defensively he's a little bit on the naive side, and as I said, his tendency to slide tackle is... well... it'll make Manchester United worth watching this season. I think he'll be shown a fair few reds this season. If they had Wan Bissaka on the right and Tierney on the left, it would be their best balance since the days of Irwin and Parker and Neville and Evra. This pre-season Wan-Bissaka has been on fire, whereas Shaw's been underwhelming. I think Fraser could cut it at a top 6 team. It's a shame that Bournemouth have put a £40m price tag on his head. He's another one that Arsenal wanted, and interesting that they'd rather take a £72m punt on a player who they don't know will adjust well to the EPL, than spend pretty much half that on a player who outshone the majority of his peers last season. For what it's worth, I don't think you place too much value on rating sites. Sites like sofascore, whoscored, etc, are interesting and they have their place.

Well, if Aaron Wan-Bissaka went for £50m then Tierney should certainly be more than half that. Talking of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, the amount times that he goes to ground and slide tackles, he's going to be a bombscare. Against Inter Milan he went ground maybe twenty times, alright, he won the ball 100% of the time, but law of averages tells you that he'll be sent of fair few times this season. Pepe is a fantastic player, I would say that he's worth that type of money, especially in today's climate. I was more having a go at Arsenal for not valuable Tierney higher.

Arsenal can't find £25m for Tierney and yet they spend £72m on Nicolas Pepe. Typical.

It would appear that our Scott is winning over the Old Trafford faithful - http://www.redcafe.net/threads/scott-mctominay-2019-20-performances.448811/page-11 There was times during the Spurs match he reminded me of a cross between Keane, Vieira and Scholes. His passing, composure, game intelligence and strength is improving on a game-by-game basis. I'm not bias in any way, shape or form, if anything I tend to give Scottish players more criticism than the normal Scotland fan, so when I hype a player it's usually well deserves. I can't wait till the season starts. McTominay (along with Robertson) is pretty much the only Scotland player that gives me hope for the upcoming season. People who say that he's an anchorman are wrong. He's a box-to-box midfielder. Some of the forward passes he made against Spurs who Scholesesque, plus the way that he muscled Sissoko off the ball and stood up to Kane when James's arm was stamped on were very Keane like... Keane without the short-fuse.

Let's be completely honest here, the state of our game is a shambles. We have what, three organizations running our game? Plus the fact that the clubs vote in the members of the SFA. It's akin to the tail wagging the Dog in our football. The SFA can't do anything radical like limit foreign players, etc, as the clubs will just vote to get rid of the members that want change. Look at countries that are countries who have similar populace to us, like Croatia, who literally have no foundation at FA level, and yet they can get to a World Cup final. Denmark, who are what, 13th in the world? A European Championships under their belt. Hell, when you look at the infrastructure of Iceland (300k people) it dwarves ours and makes us look like a footballing third world nation. Surely we can take bits from the French, Belgium, Iceland, Germany, etc, and implement it in a smaller scale. And Croatia, how the hell do they keep producing such technically great players?! I, for one, am sick of the fat cats of the SFA and the domestic clubs only looking after number one, irrespective of the dire situation that the national team find themselves in. OK. Standing off of my soap-box as this thread is going off topic, and for that I apologize to the OP.

I wish I knew. Gut Scottish football. Root and branch. I know that it's much easier said than done, but someone has to be done, otherwise it will get worse. I remember Germany ripping up their system and starting from scratch a while back. France did it. Will we do it? No. And that's really the thing that depresses me. Surely I can't be the only one who is sick and tired of the malaise in Scottish football? What really annoys me is when people watch McGregor and Christie or whomever ripping apart teams in the SPL, and those players get praise for it. Players and teams should not be judged by playing against free transfers and waifs and strays.

I don't think my expectations are that high. I don't actually expect Scotland to win against anyone at the moment. Isn't is a good thing to want more of our players to be playing with top clubs in top leagues and competing for major titles? The fact that we only have two players who have a shot at winning major trophies is pathetic, especially putting into consideration that football is supposed to be our national sport. It gets even more pathetic when one of those players (Robertson) was ditched and left to pack shelves by our number one domestic team, and the other (McTominay) is a product of the Man United system. I believe Tierney and Fraser could play for top clubs, too. When you see a part-time Welsh club beat our third best team, and our fourth best team struggling against a tiny Georgian club, it's time to get real and be honest with ourselves. We aren't producing young players, the clubs aren't interesting in youth development, there's little or no blueprint and infrastructure in place to arrest the decline, there's no facilities, the SFA are only interested in pulling in money via the us muggings fans. My enthusiasm for the Scotland national team is at an all time low, mainly because everyone (clubs, players, the SFA and to some extent, the fans) is fine with keeping with the status quo. No one seems to care.

Is this confusing you? If there were a league table of nationalities who won medals last season (at the top level) then Scotland would be very low in the table. Robertson (Scottish) won one trophy. I'm not sure why Real Madrid was brought up, as I'm sure Spanish players won dozen of top level medals last season.

How many trophies have they won in the past 5 years? One barren season makes them a bad club? How's this even relevant to anything? We're talking about domestic medals for different nations. How many did we have last season? One? Robertson. If you want to keep playing the "What did Real Madrid win last season", then fine. I'm sure Spanish players won several medals last season.

You should always look up the score on trust pilot: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/aztecretro.com I've used DHgate about 6 times and I've never been let down.

What do you mean? The season hasn't even started yet.

Google it.

It depends. We can't really talk about Scottish football in the context of winning trophies. Celtic are coming up against teams that rely on free transfers (barring Rangers), so it would be a miracle if they weren't in the mix to win the treble. I'm definitely saying that 99% of our players are rubbish, unfortunately, not picking any of them isn't an option. McLean plays as an anchorman? I'll take your word for it, I didn't watch Norwich once last season. Bang goes the "Players can't play in more than one position" theory. I'm not writing McLean off, if Arfield,, McArthur, Snodgrass, etc, can forge a career in the EPL then Mclean certainly can... he just won't win anything.

I said a trophy that isn't a tin-pot trophy: A league title from a credible league, a cup from a credible league or a European Trophy. Do you think the English Championship is a top league? Kenny McLean will probably get relegated this season, so does that answer your question?

If a player wins trophies it means he's with a big club (small clubs win trophies, but it's rare) and because of this it means that he's a top player. Plus it breeds a winning mentality. Top countries have tons of players winning trophies. It's no coincidence. I mean, look at Armstrong and McGinn. Those two are EPL players and there's a percentage of us that wouldn't have them in our starting 11.

No. Our midfield options are probably as bad as it's ever been. We only have one midfielder playing for a top club. The rest are making a living for teams that win nothing (apart from the Celtic players that win tin-pot trophies). I mean, how many players (apart from the Celtic players) win trophies, or are in the running to win trophies? Robertson and McTominay. Two players is pretty dire. And as far as an anchorman goes, we have no one on the horizon. The only one we have is McRorie and he's in, what, league one, for the season ahead? Not exactly anything to be optimistic about.

People say "you can only beat what's in front of you", but that's wrong. My point of view, players and teams should only be judged by how they perform against peers, not theirs inferiors. Rangers best a team 6:0, Celtic do it 5:0, but who gives a crap. The United vs Spurs game is a friendly, but it's not very friendly. McTominay stepped in (and stood up to Kane) when James was stamped on. He's not afraid to stick up for his team-mates, which bodes well for his Scotland team-mates. Listening to him being interviewed before the match he seems very level-headed and articulate. A lot of United fans think he's captain material, I would agree.

The jury is still out, in my opinion, as it is with the vast majority of our players. As we speak McTominay is bossing the Spurs midfield, including making a Scholes like pass in the first 8 mins and then muscling Sissoko (sp?) off the ball. Now almost an assist.

Hold on. He played well against the champions of Estonia, not PSG or Barcelona. Christie is decent, same with McGregor and Forrest. Let's not reward players with undeserved praise for playing well against teams with 500 capacity stadiums. Scotland fans have a bad habit of hyping up players. Then on international duty those same players chase shadows against the likes of Israel and Kazakhstan.