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Squad announced and what it tells us.


andyD

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43369364

Jordan Archer (Millwall)
Allan McGregor (Hull City)
Jon McLaughlin (Hearts)
Barry Douglas (Wolves)
Grant Hanley (Norwich)
Russell Martin (Norwich, on loan at Rangers)
Scott McKenna (Aberdeen)
Charlie Mulgrew (Blackburn)
Callum Paterson (Cardiff)
Andrew Robertson (Liverpool)
Kieran Tierney (Celtic).
Stuart Armstrong (Celtic)
James Forrest (Celtic)
Tom Cairney (Fulham)
Ryan Fraser (Bournemouth)
Kevin McDonald (Fulham)
Kenny McLean (Aberdeen)
Dylan McGeouch (Hibernian)
John McGinn (Hibernian)
Callum McGregor (Celtic)
Scott McTominay (Manchester United)
Jamie Murphy (Brighton, on loan at Rangers)
Matt Ritchie (Newcastle)
Ryan Christie (Celtic, on loan at Aberdeen)
Oli McBurnie (Swansea, on loan at Barnsley)
Jason Cummings (Nottingham Forest, on loan at Rangers)
Matt Phillips (West Brom)

So.. some unexpected names, some expected names absent.

1st thing that strikes me is the defense. We're playing a back 4.
Paterson and Martin for right back. Douglas and Robertson for left back and 4 central defenders including Tierney.
Probable line up: Robertson - Tierney - Mulgrew - Paterson
Had been hoping for something a bit more dynamic that allowed Tierney to get forwards too.. oh well.

2nd thing.. 2 strikers. So we're playing 1 up top.
4-5-1 is the order of the day, we're not even trying to make teams guess what we might do, it's painted on the side of the team bus.

3rd the center of midfield seems massively overloaded with options.
We'll have three, probably McTominay, McDonald and Armstrong.. but we have 5 more players who play in the middle just incase.
Maybe he's just taking a look at people.
We also have 3 guys for each wide position, which again seems too many, but hey.

Probable line up:

McGregor
Paterson - Mulgrew - Tierney - Robertson
Ritchie - McTominay - Armstrong - McDonald - Fraser
McBurnie

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I think this squad you can take very little going forward with until we know from those missing who has a future with the team.

Imagine the defense is more a case of "how do we fit Robertson and Tierney together, while taking Callum Patterson's good form also into account?" than anything else.

Rest of the squad looks more like giving a number of Starchan's fringe players who never got given a chance the opportunity to show what they can do for Eck.

I would also like to see us doing now what Strachan should have done last time Brown quit and use this chance to build a midfield around Cairney, and take it from there (this might mean McTominay having to buy his time a little bit, but Cairney has been one of the most consistent players in English football over the last 3/4/5 years, and we have never looked to build on this).

Edited by wanderer
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32 minutes ago, wanderer said:

I think this squad you can take very little going forward with until we know from those missing who has a future with the team.

Imagine the defense is more a case of "how do we fit Robertson and Tierney together, while taking Callum Patterson's good form also into account?" than anything else.

Rest of the squad looks more like giving a number of Starchan's fringe players who never got given a chance the opportunity to show what they can do for Eck.

I would also like to see us doing now what Strachan should have done last time Brown quit and use this chance to build a midfield around Cairney, and take it from there (this might mean McTominay having to buy his time a little bit, but Cairney has been one of the most consistent players in English football over the last 3/4/5 years, and we have never looked to build on this).

 

Cairney tends to play a more offensive midfield role for Fulham. McDonald sweeps behind and Cairney and Johansen look to make things happen. IF Cairney were to play, I don't think McTominay would be the player he's competing with for a spot. He's more likely to be competing with Armstrong who has not really put a foot wrong in his games for us.

Cairney did get his debut under Strachan, it's just Armstrong did better with his and so took the shirt.

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1 minute ago, andyD said:

 

Cairney tends to play a more offensive midfield role for Fulham. McDonald sweeps behind and Cairney and Johansen look to make things happen. IF Cairney were to play, I don't think McTominay would be the player he's competing with for a spot. He's more likely to be competing with Armstrong who has not really put a foot wrong in his games for us.

Cairney did get his debut under Strachan, it's just Armstrong did better with his and so took the shirt.

I do not think Cairney was ever given a fair chance under Strachan.

Basically failed to impress v Canada, and that was enough to convince Strachan he was not for him (but as you said, Armstrong did have a good 2017 for Scotland, so limited his chances).

Suppose we will know when Eck sends out his team v Costa Rica to show what his plans are..... last time around Eck was very top heavy with his selection most the time, with Ferguson and Hartley keeping things ticking in the center of the pitch.

I do not think his formation will vary greatly from Strachans, and we will still plane who a solo target man up front, but probably find players like Forrest and Phillips will get a degree more freedom to play to their style (or Ryan Fraser getting a long deserved chance to show what he can do) to give us a more traditional 4-3-3 style.

 

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Has there ever been a more depressing selection of forwards?  A total rookie, some guy who's come running back up the road cos he can't cut it at the second level in England, and a CV whore who sh*tes out of tackles in case it stops him appearing for his club the next week.

The depressing thing is there's nobody else although I'd play empty space before Phillips.

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1 hour ago, wanderer said:

I do not think Cairney was ever given a fair chance under Strachan.

Basically failed to impress v Canada, and that was enough to convince Strachan he was not for him

Bit unfair on Strachan. He played Cairney in one friendly and Armstrong in the other. Cairney was ok, Armstrong played a blinder, so got the shirt and carried on playing well to keep it. Not sure how you got to 'Cairney wasn't for him'.

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4 hours ago, andyD said:

 

Cairney tends to play a more offensive midfield role for Fulham. McDonald sweeps behind and Cairney and Johansen look to make things happen. IF Cairney were to play, I don't think McTominay would be the player he's competing with for a spot. He's more likely to be competing with Armstrong who has not really put a foot wrong in his games for us.

Cairney did get his debut under Strachan, it's just Armstrong did better with his and so took the shirt.

Armstrong did put one foot wrong. The memory is irreversibly seared onto my frontal lobes.

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3 hours ago, daviebee said:

Has there ever been a more depressing selection of forwards?  A total rookie, some guy who's come running back up the road cos he can't cut it at the second level in England, and a CV whore who sh*tes out of tackles in case it stops him appearing for his club the next week.

The depressing thing is there's nobody else although I'd play empty space before Phillips.

I’m trying to work out who the whore is in this tapestry.

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The "forwards" are a VERY depressing bunch! 

And Phillips YET AGAIN arggggggghhhhh

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I think it tells us something totally different. I remember Mcleish loved a sitting mid player in front of the defence - gary caldwell. Also he talked about paterson scoring goals so i cant see him playing right back. Wing back i see. Tierney is not a cb so a back 3 will allow him to get forward with Robertson dropping in.Also Tom Cairney should be one of the first names on the team sheet. Got played against Canada as was our best player. 

I can see

                                           Mcgregor

                                    Martin Mulgrew Tierney

                                             McDonald

                       Paterson McTominey Armstrong Robertson

                                      Cairney

                                                     Phillips (I know, i know)

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Going on this seasons form I’d start Hanley in cb with Tierney and Robertson  on left and Patterson on right. A great back 4. 

Before all the ignorant Hanley haters come out in force. Go look up how the Norwich fans absolutely love him at the moment.

Edited by Scotsdeutsch
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10 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

In answer to the original question "Squad announced and what it tells us?" McLeish totally over rates the SPL and we are a very average footballing nation(infact below average)

Aren’t you a a ray of sunshine.

8 hours ago, Scotsdeutsch said:

Going on this seasons form I’d start Hanley in cb with Tierney and Robertson  on left and Patterson on right. A great back 4. 

Before all the ignorant Hanley haters come out in force. Go look up how the Norwich fans absolutely love him at the moment.

McKenna or another less experienced CB has to start, otherwise what’s the point? Hanley has had a lot of caps and let’s be honest, he’s been poor in a Scotland shirt so far. He may improve, he may already have improved but we need to be giving the new blood some game time.

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13 hours ago, jamboman said:

Tom Cairney should be one of the first names on the team sheet. Got played against Canada as was our best player.

Must have watched a different game. He was ok, nothing more. Snodgrass and Anya were more prominent imo.
In truth is was probably our central 3 of Fletch, Cairney and Naismith that left us unable to get a grip on the game.. against Canada.

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14 hours ago, buckielugger said:

The "forwards" are a VERY depressing bunch! 

And Phillips YET AGAIN arggggggghhhhh

We didn't say he was a forward. That's the BBC putting their own 'categories' on the list. Would just ignore it if i were you.

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On 12/03/2018 at 9:12 PM, ceudmilefailte said:

In answer to the original question "Squad announced and what it tells us?" McLeish totally over rates the SPL and we are a very average footballing nation(infact below average)

Aren’t we ranked 31st out of 206 countries in the world?

I know the world rankings are a bit shite but if they are anywhere near accurate we are in the top 16% of footballing countries on the planet (according to FIFA anyway). 

That’s hardly ‘below average’. Granted, we’re not fantastic and we haven’t qualified for a major tournament for 20 years but average teams tend not to qualify for things. 

Sadly the days where most countries outside of Western Europe and South America were in the footballing third world in terms of infrastructure and coaching are long gone. The rest of the world has caught up and we are exactly where a country of our size should be - scrapping with other similar sized countries for a place at major tournaments. 

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46 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Aren’t we ranked 31st out of 206 countries in the world?

I know the world rankings are a bit shite but if they are anywhere near accurate we are in the top 16% of footballing countries on the planet (according to FIFA anyway). 

That’s hardly ‘below average’. Granted, we’re not fantastic and we haven’t qualified for a major tournament for 20 years but average teams tend not to qualify for things. 

Sadly the days where most countries outside of Western Europe and South America were in the footballing third world in terms of infrastructure and coaching are long gone. The rest of the world has caught up and we are exactly where a country of our size should be - scrapping with other similar sized countries for a place at major tournaments. 

That's not quite the way average ability works, but I'm not sure I can explain how^?^ something along the lines of Brazil are 80% we are 10% and  Gibraltar are 1%. solomen islands are 1% the average is a lot more than 10%

Current Rankings only have three countries that are outside Europe or South America, which is probably false. Regards population we need to find a Suarez or a Bale or what ever N. Ireland, Denmark or Iceland have found

Edited by ceudmilefailte
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