Yr Alban

Why should I? Not all of these players have refused (that we know of) and Scotland need as many good players as we can get. You might not want them, and that’s fine, but if they will improve the squad then I’ll have them, thanks very much. Nobody will care how authentically Scottish they are if they score the winner v one of our opponents in the Euros. Angus Gunn refused a number of call ups before he accepted. Do you want to give him back now, and have Clark and Kelly as our options for the next qualifying campaign?

Different game of course, but in rugby the introduction of a subs bench has been dreadful for smaller countries and for the game, IMHO. Means that a good first 15 isn’t enough any more - you need a first 23, plus enough spare players to cover all of the inevitable injuries with no drop-off in quality. Tall order for teams like Scotland. Plus players (front rows especially) no longer need to be able to play 80 mins, so they don’t need to be as fit or mobile and can bulk up as much as they like, which leads to more injuries. Et cetera.

It seemed more or less an open secret that Barnes was going to switch to Scotland, to the extent that it was a real surprise he wasn’t in the squad for the recent friendlies. TBH I expect he is the only one we will end up getting in the end. He’s 26 and running out of time to have a real international career. Gordon has cracked into the England squad and promptly said we were never an option for him (whether true or not). Livramento will still fancy his chances of getting England caps. Anderson - doubt he is coming back, given his past behaviour, but who knows?

We had some lucky breaks, yes. But we also played really well in the majority of the games. You don’t beat Spain 2-0 by pure luck. We also didn’t look like slipping up in the games against the smaller sides. More celebrated Scotland teams toiled to beat Cyprus with 97th-minute goals. This team had the game won after half an hour. I think we were playing above ourselves though, and now we seem to have entirely forgotten how. We have 3 months to remember. Have to say I am not optimistic right now.

So, after looking imperious pretty much the whole way through qualifying, now we’ve completely lost our mojo and we look hopeless again. With pretty much exactly the same squad. I worry that the hopeless is closer to the actual ability of our players, and that we managed to play above ourselves for a while. If we could find that once then we can find it again, but we’d better get a move on if we don’t want another ignominious failure at a major finals.

Yes, but unless we get a bid big enough we can’t refuse it (which seems unlikely) then I’d be inclined to keep him and let him run his contract down (assuming he doesn’t sign an extension). Because if we don’t get big money for him he will be impossible to replace. (You can bet Rangers* will offer something ridiculous like £800k on the last day of the window)

Meant to ask this the other night. What was the deal with the Dutch playing Auld Lang Syne when they scored? Was it just to wind us up?

I think Shankland will get another start. He did a lot right and not much wrong on Friday (despite hitting the bar with that chance) and I reckon Clarke will want to see him again. He knows the other forwards inside out.

I can't disagree with this. It's frustrating as hell to play that well and lose heavily, but we only have a few friendly games to prepare for the tournament, and the manager is going to try new things out.

This is a bit of mystery to me as well. Tierney is crucial to the way we play. Kingsley isn't the same player by any stretch, but he's the next best fit for the role and has had a great season. Surprised SC hasn't at least given him a shot given we struggle a bit for central defenders.

OK, I may be biased, but it's a bit harsh to call that a sitter. It's not as if he pulled an Iwelumo. It was a good chance, maybe our best in the game, but he still had to beat the keeper. He just got slightly too much on it - six inches lower and it's unsaveable. If there was a sitter in the game, it was McTominay's free header with the keeper exposed.

Was at work last night, so just watched the highlights now. As a Hearts fan, this was reminiscent of about a hundred games I've seen us play against Celtic and Rangers over the years. It was never a 4-0 game, but we didn't convert any of the chances we created, couldn't get established in the game, lost a sucker punch goal, passed up further chances to equalise, and then at the end got picked off with late goals as we lost focus, to put a polish on the scoreline for the opposition. It's basically what happens when you play against a better team. No matter how well you play, you'd better convert your chances, or you could be on the wrong end of a hiding. The trouble is that, well, we aren't as good as the top teams. Let's take Shankland's chance. I've seen him score similar goals from there a dozen times, but his conversion rate is maybe 70-80% for a chance like that, and the Dutch have guys who will score from there 98% of the time, and did. Doesn't make him a bad player (and I think he played well, and hope Clarke noted that) but their players are turning out for the likes of AC Milan, and Shanks is at Hearts. I'm hoping that we learned one lesson - against a top team, you can't lose your focus even for a moment, because they will punish you.

Trying to think of something positive. I guess that if we’re going to fail to take our chances and lose badly, better to do it in a warm-up game.

Yeah, the timing is pretty sus. If there was never any question of him playing for Scotland, why did he wait to say so until he got into the England squad? I never thought we had much chance of getting him anyway. Ditto Livramento. So no real loss.

Nope. Never scored more than 18 in a season for Aberdeen. He only broke 30 in a season once in his career, though to be fair that year he scored 48 in 53 appearances for Celtic!