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John Fleck


er yir macaroon

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7 hours ago, Texas Pete said:

The European Championships has been devalued for me with it going to 24 teams (and potentially 32 in future). Donā€™t get me wrong, I wonā€™t be complaining if we qualify but there are going to be some bang average teams at Euro 2020. I have no doubt that we can qualify for the next Euros and not look out of place.Ā 

Sweden are a very average team at best and got to the quarter finals of the World Cup so didnā€™t look out of place until England beat them.Ā 

Our players are definitely good enough to qualify for a major tournament. Ā We should have made at least the playoffs in the last 2 qualifying campaigns. Easy to say IĀ know but a less stubborn manager would have got us to one of the last 2 tournaments. Iā€™m certain of that.Ā 

As long as McLeish picks and plays ourĀ best players then our team will be international class. World class? No. How many international teams are world class though?

I agree they have been devalued, unfortunately not devalued enough so that we can sneek in the back doorĀ Ā 

I dont know if i would agree with you on our players definitely being good enough to qualify - they haven't done it previously and i think our squad is getting weaker rather than strongerĀ 

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1 hour ago, borojock said:

I agree they have been devalued, unfortunately not devalued enough so that we can sneek in the back doorĀ Ā 

I dont know if i would agree with you on our players definitely being good enough to qualify - they haven't done it previously and i think our squad is getting weaker rather than strongerĀ 

If we had beaten Lithuania at Hampden in the last campaign (which we were good enough to do) or hadnā€™t conceded a 94th minute equaliser against England we would have finished second in our group.

If we finish second in our next qualifying group we will qualify for Euro 2020. ScotlandĀ qualifying for a major tournament is not the impossible task you appear to believe it is. We very nearly made the playoffs last time despite underperforming in several games in the campaign.

We also have a brilliant chance of securing a playoff before the qualifiers for Euro 2020 even begin. Ā 

I understand peopleā€™s scepticism given our record over the last 20 years but I honestly fancy our chances of getting to the next one.Ā 

A lot will depend on the draw for the qualifiers as well as who we get in the playoffs and where theyā€™ll be played (if we make the playoffs). Given that 2nd place in our Nations League group mayĀ be enough for a playoff Iā€™d be surprised if we didnā€™t make them.Ā 

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20 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

If we had beaten Lithuania at Hampden in the last campaign (which we were good enough to do) or hadnā€™t conceded a 94th minute equaliser against England we would have finished second in our group.

.Ā 

And if we hadn't scraped past Slovakia and Slovenia we would have been fourth.

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17 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

And if we hadn't scraped past Slovakia and Slovenia we would have been fourth.

Very true.Ā 

It doesnt change the fact that we could easily have finished second though.Ā 

We could finish 4th in the next campaign. Or we could finish 2nd. I suppose we could even win the group if something amazing happens.Ā 

If you listen to half the people on here youā€™d think we were totally useless with no chance of qualifying.Ā 

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9 hours ago, Texas Pete said:

Very true.Ā 

It doesnt change the fact that we could easily have finished second though.Ā 

We could finish 4th in the next campaign. Or we could finish 2nd. I suppose we could even win the group if something amazing happens.Ā 

If you listen to half the people on here youā€™d think we were totally useless with no chance of qualifying.Ā 

I love your optimism about the next campaign and not trying to dampen it as more of us including me could do with a boost of optimismĀ 

My real big concern about the next campaign is if Griffiths isnt fit or playing regularly for Celtic who is leading the line for usĀ 

Anyway i hope your right and we do make itĀ 

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21 hours ago, er yir macaroon said:

Iā€™d imagine McGeouch, McLean, Cairney, Shinnie will all be competing with him for a place in theĀ squad.

I think McGeouch can forgetaboutit this season.Ā  No way should we be picking League 1 players for a position we have so many players that are better than him and playing at a better standard.Ā 

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I would take very little from the recent friendlies squad, from the ones who are not already established squad members, I suspect it will only beĀ Stephen O'Donnell and maybeĀ Johnny Russell getting regular call up's from now on.

McGeouch plays in a position were we are flooded with players, and if the likes of Tom Cairney and Kenny McLean can maybe establish themselves along side the likes of Armstrong, McTominay, Morrison, McGregor, McGinn, McArthur etc.... and I think playing in League One is just going to see him to far out the picture (granted he is at Sunderland, so might grab more headlines as a result, but realistically we should have so much better playing at a much higher level).

I think Fleck is worthy of a look at least (shocked he never got a mention for the last squad), but again its a case of do we have the room for him?

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14 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Your correct,looking at his Wikipedia page we must have had some great midfielders over the past few years.

Not particularly but then Cairney certainly wasn't materially better than who we had playing in midfield at that time.Ā  Ā 

He broke through at an young age for Hull and playedĀ in the second half of the season when they were in theĀ Premiership in 2010 and got a lot of good reviews for his performances then.Ā  At this point there was the usual - "get him capped now so England don't steal him" nonsense on here and it was expected he would get a move to another Premiership club following Hull's relegation.Ā  Ā That didn't happen and his career stalled somewhat albeit injuries played their part in that.Ā  Ā A move to the complete basket case of a club that is Blackburn Rovers didn't help either.Ā  Ā In truth its only in the last couple of seasons that his form at Fulham has warranted us looking at him again and but for Strachan's pig headedness he would probably have been called up a year or so earlier than he was.Ā  Ā  Anyone who says he should have been in the squad since 2010 is talking mince.

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8 hours ago, er yir macaroon said:

Agreed, so there's room for Fleck (or Gauld).Ā 

Maybe but still got McTominay, McArthur, McGregor, Armstrong, McGinn, Cairney andĀ McDonald. Also Morrison and Fletcher could still be considered.Ā 

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26 minutes ago, PASTA Mick said:

Maybe but still got McTominay, McArthur, McGregor, Armstrong, McGinn, Cairney andĀ McDonald. Also Morrison and Fletcher could still be considered.Ā 

McDonald is gash. Morrison and Fletcher should be consigned to the Steven Naismith category of ā€œonly if we are desperateā€.

The others are bang on and should be the core with Fleck close behind.Ā 

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1 hour ago, bazmidd said:

Really disappointing Gauld hasn't pushed on tbh still time though I suppose. He is two years younger than McGregor who has only just broken in to the squad so a couple of good seasons could push him in there

It looks like he doesn't even have a squad number at Lisbon this season so hopefully leaves there for good and goes gets some first team football elsewhere as he must have a full season of playing first team football in a competitive league or i fear it will be down hill from thereĀ 

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On 7/30/2018 at 8:31 AM, borojock said:

I love your optimism about the next campaign and not trying to dampen it as more of us including me could do with a boost of optimismĀ 

My real big concern about the next campaign is if Griffiths isnt fit or playing regularly for Celtic who is leading the line for usĀ 

Anyway i hope your right and we do make itĀ 

Being that our next game is just over a month away I think weā€™re really struggling up front if Griffiths hasnā€™t had any game time for Celtic.

Who do we turn to? McBurnie or hope Rhodes has a decent start at Norwich?

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3 hours ago, Rab The Crab said:

Being that our next game is just over a month away I think weā€™re really struggling up front if Griffiths hasnā€™t had any game time for Celtic.

Who do we turn to? McBurnie or hope Rhodes has a decent start at Norwich?

I can see the SFA raffling the No 9 role off in a fans specialĀ 

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Heā€™ll probably go with Phillips I imagine but fingers crossed someone hits the ground running.

Its getting a wee bit desperate unfortunately but Rhodes, Watt or McBurnie could force their way in.

Is Steven Fletcher still injured or indeed is he still a footballer?

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Stevie Fletcher's a strange one with the fans, a lot of people just don't rate him but when you see how thin we are on options after him he really is still about the next best striker we have after Griffith's. Let's be honest he's no Ibrahimovic but he would probably still bang in a good few goals in Scotland. He's a decent number 9 leads the line quite well decent touch, goalscoring records not great for Scotland but prob still the second best of a bad bunch

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54 minutes ago, bazmidd said:

Stevie Fletcher's a strange one with the fans, a lot of people just don't rate him but when you see how thin we are on options after him he really is still about the next best striker we have after Griffith's. Let's be honest he's no Ibrahimovic but he would probably still bang in a good few goals in Scotland. He's a decent number 9 leads the line quite well decent touch, goalscoring records not great for Scotland but prob still the second best of a bad bunch

Think problem is his return was hyped up far to much by Strachan when we were really struggling forĀ goals, even thoughĀ Steven Naismith was doing a half decent job.

Strachan would keep going on and on how he does not have a out and out striker, but once he got Fletcher back that would be the missing piece..... problem is, he got him back and used him more as a target man to set up for the likes of Anya and Maloney, and 6 goals in two games against Gibraltar was not seen as a good return.

Also did not help that after breaking his ankle Fletcher developed this fear of having a glass ankle, as he seemed to pull out of challenges a lot, and if we was to take a knock in the first 5 minutes of a match, he just seemed to lose all confidence for the rest of the game.

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6 hours ago, wanderer said:

Think problem is his return was hyped up far to much by Strachan when we were really struggling forĀ goals, even thoughĀ Steven Naismith was doing a half decent job.

Strachan would keep going on and on how he does not have a out and out striker, but once he got Fletcher back that would be the missing piece..... problem is, he got him back and used him more as a target man to set up for the likes of Anya and Maloney, and 6 goals in two games against Gibraltar was not seen as a good return.

Also did not help that after breaking his ankle Fletcher developed this fear of having a glass ankle, as he seemed to pull out of challenges a lot, and if we was to take a knock in the first 5 minutes of a match, he just seemed to lose all confidence for the rest of the game.

Stephen Fletcher's a great example of "the less you play, the better you get", he was mostĀ highly rated for Scotland when he fell out with Levein. Ā A huge benefit of not playing meaning people couldn't see how average heĀ really was.Ā A promising start at Hibs, then did well when he went to Burnley. Ā Since then it's been largely disappointing. Ā Another thing about Fletcher is that his goal scoring record isn't really that good for a striker, I'm guessing it's 1 in 3 or 1 in 4, what makes it worse though is that he's the sort of striker that scores in streaks, so he'll get 4 in 6 and then not score for 12 games. Ā That means he really doesn't score that often, which for a striker isn't really what you want.

Ā 

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