Mexico-Scotland

[Texas Pete]

35 minutes ago, Toepoke said:

Note to Rob McLean, Scotland getting beat is not a "remarkable result".

The fact it was only 1-0 was pretty remarkable to be fair to the guy. 

5-1 would have been a true reflection of the game I think.  

Not that the result matters. 

[BucksburnDandy]

Watched the highlights on the BBC website and we definitely seem to have got lucky.

In terms of what we take from the tour, McKenna looks a good centre half option moving forward, as does Hendry. Johnny Russell also looks like he could do a job for us. But ultimately we learned that the majority of our best players were still at home.

Moving forward to the qualifiers, we still have not resolved formation yet. If we go with a four, it's very clear that Tierney is comfortably our best right back option. If we go 4-2-3-1, probably be looking at Gordon; Tierney, Hendry, McKenna, Robertson; Armstrong, McTominay; Forrest, McGregor, Fraser; Griffiths.

If we go 3-5-2, then probably be looking at: Gordon; Hendry, McKenna, Tierney; Fraser/Forrest, Robertson; McTominay, Armstrong, McGregor; Forrest/Phillips, Griffiths.

On Christie, he has been crap since December. McLean is a decent player but not up to international level.

The worrying thing about Scotland under McLeish is we have lost our style of attacking play that we had under WGS. Hopefully that returns with the return of a full squad but that's a big leap of hopeful faith. Worrying on that particular front given we have only got one more game before the Nations League starts. And that is likely to be another defeat due to us dicking about for too long and being left with bloody Belgium.

[BucksburnDandy]

So basically what we learned from the tour is that McKenna & Hendry look like competent centre half options going forward; that we need to keep Gordon, A McGregor & Marshall as long as possible; & that Armstrong, C McGregor & Griffiths all have to start for our attack to function

[RenfrewBlue]

16 minutes ago, BucksburnDandy said:

So basically what we learned from the tour is that McKenna & Hendry look like competent centre half options going forward; that we need to keep Gordon, A McGregor & Marshall as long as possible; & that Armstrong, C McGregor & Griffiths all have to start for our attack to function

The biggest worry is that if Griffiths is injured or not playing we have absolutely nothing to bring in. 

[Donaldo87]

It's some going when the opposition look more likely to score from your own corners. 

[BucksburnDandy]

2 hours ago, RenfrewBlue said:

The biggest worry is that if Griffiths is injured or not playing we have absolutely nothing to bring in. 

 

Indeed. Our best prospects if that happens looks like Oliver Burke or Chris Martin. Martin at least looked a threat now and again last campaign.

[Mox]

The Mexico goal was laughable, Dos Santos and Lozano had about nine touches between them inside the penalty area and not one of the seven Scotland players in the area got close to them.

Overall I think these trips can be good in identifying players that are able to adapt which is exactly what is required particularly in major tournaments. Ultimately, however of the squad that McLeish took, I'd be surprised if more than a handful would go on to be regular internationals, the majority that went are not good enough.

[Third Lanark]

26 minutes ago, Mox said:

The Mexico goal was laughable, Dos Santos and Lozano had about nine touches between them inside the penalty area and not one of the seven Scotland players in the area got close to them.

Overall I think these trips can be good in identifying players that are able to adapt which is exactly what is required particularly in major tournaments. Ultimately, however of the squad that McLeish took, I'd be surprised if more than a handful would go on to be regular internationals, the majority that went are not good enough.

Michael Stewart said that only Mulgrew and McKenna would be certainties to start; wonder who the other 9 are?

[macy37]

Folk really believe that McKenna can be a fixture for us? I’m clearly missing something?

For Alex to say they did us proud sums this country of our up.

We’ll go absolutely nowhere under him except backwards.

[Toepoke]

47 minutes ago, Third Lanark said:

Michael Stewart said that only Mulgrew and McKenna would be certainties to start; wonder who the other 9 are?

Indeed I'd say the defensive midfield that we had out there was pretty much full strength. Can't see Darren Fletcher earning many more caps now.

[csm88]

1 hour ago, Toepoke said:

Indeed I'd say the defensive midfield that we had out there was pretty much full strength. Can't see Darren Fletcher earning many more caps now.

Agree on Fletcher. Would have been an easy experienced head for McLeish to bring along given the call offs and I doubt he’d have asked not to be picked. Other than an injury crisis he won’t be back.

I would expect to see McArthur in the squad in September and he would possibly start in a deeper role. 

[Toepoke]

9 minutes ago, csm88 said:

I would expect to see McArthur in the squad in September and he would possibly start in a deeper role. 

Good point, forgot about him.

Is Morrison injured long term? Haven't heard of him for a while...

 

[KirkieRobRoy]

Can't be as negative as some about this.

 

I thought the whole trip was a bad idea, but playing Mexico in the Azteca (I hadn't appreciated it was their Word Cup send-off or they would surely have dished out a game against a team like ours to some Mexican Pittodrie or Easter Road) in front of a near-capacity crowd in testing conditions with a team of second- and third-choices, well, we were always going to lose, yet we only lost 1-0. 'It could have been five or six'? Well, it could, but it wasn't because much of their shooting was mince (which is their issue) and at other times our defence or keepers stopped them , just like they're supposed to.

 

Wouldn't single out any players but many of them, especially the younger ones, must have learned something and gained something from playing in that setting, in that occasion. I thought we had some decent passages of play, usually spoiled by a bad touch or a careless gifting of possession.

 

Was depressed by the appointment of Eck but I will say it was good to see Killie and Motherwell and Aberdeen and Hibs and Hearts players getting runouts for the national team. If this had come early in the Strachan era, you can be sure he would have found some bench-warmers at Shrewsbury or Northampton with a Scottish granny to play instead.

 

Three defeats in four friendlies doesn't look good (and I guess it'll be four out of five by September unless the entire Belgium squad retires from internationals after the World Cup) but there were things to be happy about. And if Mexico usually underperform at World Cups and clearly cannae shoot, they're better than Albania or Israel.

[Bino's]

Albania lost 3-0 at home to Kosovo the other day

[Caledonian Craig]

46 minutes ago, KirkieRobRoy said:

Can't be as negative as some about this.

 

I thought the whole trip was a bad idea, but playing Mexico in the Azteca (I hadn't appreciated it was their Word Cup send-off or they would surely have dished out a game against a team like ours to some Mexican Pittodrie or Easter Road) in front of a near-capacity crowd in testing conditions with a team of second- and third-choices, well, we were always going to lose, yet we only lost 1-0. 'It could have been five or six'? Well, it could, but it wasn't because much of their shooting was mince (which is their issue) and at other times our defence or keepers stopped them , just like they're supposed to.

 

Wouldn't single out any players but many of them, especially the younger ones, must have learned something and gained something from playing in that setting, in that occasion. I thought we had some decent passages of play, usually spoiled by a bad touch or a careless gifting of possession.

 

Was depressed by the appointment of Eck but I will say it was good to see Killie and Motherwell and Aberdeen and Hibs and Hearts players getting runouts for the national team. If this had come early in the Strachan era, you can be sure he would have found some bench-warmers at Shrewsbury or Northampton with a Scottish granny to play instead.

 

Three defeats in four friendlies doesn't look good (and I guess it'll be four out of five by September unless the entire Belgium squad retires from internationals after the World Cup) but there were things to be happy about. And if Mexico usually underperform at World Cups and clearly cannae shoot, they're better than Albania or Israel.

Wow someone getting things into perspective. How refreshing.

Peru and Mexico are both World Cup-bound - we aren't. They were both at home in their own conditions - we weren't. They had full strength sides out - we had third and fourth string players in to make up our teams. Jeez if we had our full side out we would have been hard pressed to get any sort of result out of these games.

What did we learn? Scott Bain is ahead of McLaughlin and Archer in the pecking order but behind Gordon, McGregor and Marshall. Johnny Russell deserves further chances on his showings as does Lewis Morgan. McKenna solid enough and Shinnie didn't do too bad and thought McBurnie worked hard and will operate far better with stronger service from midfield.

[weekevie04]

It was a tough match against a very good team, and they really could have scored a lot more.  I was quite pessimistic and had Mexico-2 (only bet that strangely didn't come in last night ; trust Scotland eh

We didn't do too bad though, and for an inexperienced side playing against a team that has about 600 caps between them in their final send off before the world cup then there surely are some positives to take out of this : McKenna looks quite a decent prospect ; Hendry whilst could have done better for the goal, did play reasonably well and looks good with the ball at his feet too ; Shinnie struggled in the first half but looked a lot better in the second ; Bain and McLaughlin both did well and on this showing look a much better goalkeeper than Archer.

A pity we didn't see more of Morgan as he looked very good when he came for the last ten minutes or so.

We may well have had three defeats on the bounce before the Nations Cup with Israel and Albania - who lost 3-0 to Kosovo on Friday and play Ukraine today.

You can see why folk are questioning this game and the tour, I didn't see the Peru game ; but certainly there are positives from this experience, and I'd hope we look to play more non-European opponents in the future .

Mulgrew's clearance was brilliant, just chilling on the line for coolly knock the ball away, plus Eck's moobs bouncing about in that white t-shirt were a highlight. Also, that Mexican pipe band too!

 

 

[mccaughey85]

4 hours ago, Third Lanark said:

Michael Stewart said that only Mulgrew and McKenna would be certainties to start; wonder who the other 9 are?

Surely the other players are 5/6 from Celtic plus Fraser and Robertson. Maybe cairney as well. Let's be honest very few of the line ups from both friendlies will be in the first team in the future.

[mccaughey85]

2 hours ago, KirkieRobRoy said:

Can't be as negative as some about this.

 

I thought the whole trip was a bad idea, but playing Mexico in the Azteca (I hadn't appreciated it was their Word Cup send-off or they would surely have dished out a game against a team like ours to some Mexican Pittodrie or Easter Road) in front of a near-capacity crowd in testing conditions with a team of second- and third-choices, well, we were always going to lose, yet we only lost 1-0. 'It could have been five or six'? Well, it could, but it wasn't because much of their shooting was mince (which is their issue) and at other times our defence or keepers stopped them , just like they're supposed to.

 

Wouldn't single out any players but many of them, especially the younger ones, must have learned something and gained something from playing in that setting, in that occasion. I thought we had some decent passages of play, usually spoiled by a bad touch or a careless gifting of possession.

 

Was depressed by the appointment of Eck but I will say it was good to see Killie and Motherwell and Aberdeen and Hibs and Hearts players getting runouts for the national team. If this had come early in the Strachan era, you can be sure he would have found some bench-warmers at Shrewsbury or Northampton with a Scottish granny to play instead.

 

Three defeats in four friendlies doesn't look good (and I guess it'll be four out of five by September unless the entire Belgium squad retires from internationals after the World Cup) but there were things to be happy about. And if Mexico usually underperform at World Cups and clearly cannae shoot, they're better than Albania or Israel.

I agree with some of what yer saying but why is it good to Hibs or Motherwell players playing when they are clearly not good enough which was shown last night. We need to stick with a core of Celtic players plus fraser, Robertson, cairney for the first team if we want to have any chance of going to a major tournament. Putting spl players in our first team is not a good idea when the reality is they get beat of teams from Gibraltar and cyprus In European club qualifiers.

[BucksburnDandy]

27 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

I agree with some of what yer saying but why is it good to Hibs or Motherwell players playing when they are clearly not good enough which was shown last night. We need to stick with a core of Celtic players plus fraser, Robertson, cairney for the first team if we want to have any chance of going to a major tournament. Putting spl players in our first team is not a good idea when the reality is they get beat of teams from Gibraltar and cyprus In European club qualifiers.

 

The reason it is good is we have tried the options and confirmed who is and isn't good enough. Which is more than WGS did. Wins over fans who complained about lack of opportunities too, which there were plenty of.

[mccaughey85]

9 minutes ago, BucksburnDandy said:

 

The reason it is good is we have tried the options and confirmed who is and isn't good enough. Which is more than WGS did. Wins over fans who complained about lack of opportunities too, which there were plenty of.

Surely we can tell that from the fact none of the Scottish teams reach the group stages of the EL league. Only McKenna is worthy (even that's debatable)from the spl tryouts and I could probably of told you that without having them play against Peru and Mexico. Another point is why was Burke not taken. Fair enough it's been nice to see him perform well in the Toulon Tournament but it would of much better to have him in the main squad getting experience against top opposition. I suppose given the call offs we were forced to play spl players but reality is very few are good enough for international football and I very much hope that we return to the core of Celtic players plus fraser, Robertson and cairney.

[Squirrelhumper]

One thing id say is that this group at least looked like they cared. They all sang the anthem for starters. 

[Squirrelhumper]

1 hour ago, mccaughey85 said:

I agree with some of what yer saying but why is it good to Hibs or Motherwell players playing when they are clearly not good enough which was shown last night. We need to stick with a core of Celtic players plus fraser, Robertson, cairney for the first team if we want to have any chance of going to a major tournament. Putting spl players in our first team is not a good idea when the reality is they get beat of teams from Gibraltar and cyprus In European club qualifiers.

He said ir was good as Strachan would have capped English diddies from league 1 instead.

At least Cadden, SOD, mcgeough etc looked like they cared.

[mccaughey85]

3 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

He said ir was good as Strachan would have capped English diddies from league 1 instead.

At least Cadden, SOD, mcgeough etc looked like they cared.

Either way we are still playing diddies regardless of what league they are in wether thats English championship, league 1 or spl.

[PASTA Mick]

14 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

One thing id say is that this group at least looked like they cared. They all sang the anthem for starters. 

SOD performed better against Mexico than he did against Peru. I was disappointed with his crosses though, mainly because of how much you went on about them.

He's actually one of the few new caps that might earn a few more. Mainly because of our lack of options but last night did him no harm. 

[Toepoke]

Club specs clearly in place but I think SOD could be worth retaining in the squad given our lack of alternatives at right back.

 

Edited June 3, 2018 by Toepoke