morrison1982

Fletcher played there a couple of times 6-7 years ago (when he was a much better player, before his illness) for Man Utd when they had some injury crisis. Michael Carrick also filled in there. TBH they were both pretty hopeless at centre half, they lost 3-0 at Fulham during that period. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8414926.stm

Looks like the Marshall to West Brom deal is dead, because they've signed Anders Lindegaard from Man Utd (Danish goalie who's been 2nd or 3rd choice there for donkeys).

The Georgia game was on the Wednesday night before a Rangers v Celtic game on the Saturday lunchtime. Predictably a few of the players cried off and miraculously recovered in time for Saturday (Brown, Hutton). McCulloch was suspended for the Georgia game having been booked v Ukraine on the previous Saturday. Don't really blame the players - it was a crazy bit of scheduling by the good people at the SPL. They then very helpfully cancelled a whole round of matches the week before the Italy game, which caused not insignificant fixture congestion (that was the year when the season had to be extended). Perhaps it would have been more helpful if they had just postponed the Rangers v Celtic game. http://www.soccerbase.com/matches/results.sd?date=2007-10-20

I see Georgia have recalled Khizanishvili (the Dundee and Rangers player from 10+ years ago). He's now 33/34 and playing for a club in Azerbaijan. Perhaps not coincidentally, the manager of that club is also the Georgia manager. They've also recalled the teenage goalie (Makaridze) from the 2007 disaster game. He's now 25 y/o, but his career hasn't panned out to much. I would be very surprised if he played, given that their first choice goalie (Loria) did quite well in Greece last year and got a move to Olympiakos. http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_fa_news.cfm?page=2986&newsCategoryID=6&newsID=15222

West Brom are still trying to agree a fee with Cardiff for Marshall.

IMO, McGeady hasn't been as big a miss as I thought it might be at the time he decided to play for Ireland. On topic, this kind of list only really tells you who was producing players ~10 years ago. Hence why Hibs are that high up, while Dundee United are relatively low.

Rhodes was injured a week or so ago.

When Adam was on MOTD2 the other week, he said that he didn't feel up to full speed physically yet (no sniggering at the back!) because he had less of a close season this year. They had been talking about teams leaving out players that had been in the Copa America (e.g. Arsenal / Alexis Sanchez)

Compared to the last squad (Qatar / Ireland), the changes are: In: McGregor, Hanley, Armstrong, C. Martin Out: Samson (no club!), Reynolds (injured shoulder), Adam (not playing much), Bannan (not playing at all)

Aye, this isn't going to be like earlier in the group when he was taking along younger players (eg1 Ryan Gauld, eg2 Lewis Macleod) "for the experience"

Have you seen McGregor in the last year? Looks like he's back on the bevvy.

I would pick Scott Bain ahead of him now.

Rhodes injured an ankle today and had to be subbed. Apparently a recurrence of an injury suffered in preseason.

Worth noting that David Marshall hasn't played yet this season, due to a three match suspension held over from last season. He'll probably move to West Brom in the week, having now served the suspension. Bit of a dilemma if he hasn't played much (if at all) going into early September. Goalkeeping is one of our stronger areas, but I don't think Strachan would want to drop Marshall ideally.

There is talk of him being sold (he only has one year left under contract).