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Team for forthcoming matches


Malcolm

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6 minutes ago, Tartan_McCole said:

Can't disagree with your middle two points. It's still McGinns fault first and foremost. He should be doing a lot better.

Anyway, it'll not be an issue once McGregor is in goals as most of his distribution will just be getting shanked up to opposition defenders. Safer option, but we'll not be a better team for it.

Do you honestly think we were playing the ball out from the back because that’s what Gordon decided to do? It was obviously McLeish’s tactics. 

If McGregor plays, he will also follow instructions from his manager and goalkeeping coach and won’t be lumping long balls to the opposition’s defence. Unless this is what he’s instructed to do. 

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5 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Do you honestly think we were playing the ball out from the back because that’s what Gordon decided to do? It was obviously McLeish’s tactics. 

If McGregor plays, he will also follow instructions from his manager and goalkeeping coach and won’t be lumping long balls to the opposition’s defence. Unless this is what he’s instructed to do. 

Of course not. I'd imagine we'll be told to play out from the back when possible. I'd imagine Gordon and McGregor have different views on that though. Look, I'm not trying to slate McGregor, or even stick up for Gordon here. I just don't think he was as at fault for the goal as some people would have me believe he was.

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23 minutes ago, Tartan_McCole said:

Of course not. I'd imagine we'll be told to play out from the back when possible. I'd imagine Gordon and McGregor have different views on that though. Look, I'm not trying to slate McGregor, or even stick up for Gordon here. I just don't think he was as at fault for the goal as some people would have me believe he was.

McGinn asked for the ball in a very dangerous position - big mistake. He then fuked it up when he got it - even bigger mistake. But at this level he is just an inexperienced young laddie. Gordon should be the wise old man of the team. He should never have even considered giving the ball to anybody in that position. IMO that was the biggest mistake of all. I wouldn't have given the ball to Pirlo in that position. 

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Gordon
Souttar - Mulgrew - Tierney
O'Donnell - Shinnie - Armstrong - Robertson
Russell - Fraser
Griffiths

Think I'd go with that.
Russell and Fraser have both looked lively and give us a bit of pace around Griffiths.
Shinnie's looked steady and quick using the ball. It's a must win, and I'm sorry, I don't trust McGinn to turn up at this point.
Armstong is the most rounded center mid we have, able to adapt to what the game needs at that moment.
Robertson's deliveries from the left are 2nd to none.
O'Donnell is happy to make forward runs, and I think Fraser would be more effective if involved centrally. Paterson, maybe?
Back 3 pretty much picks itself as we don't have any other central defenders (because McLeish is an idiot).

Feels dynamic and forward thinking enough to go win the game.

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1 minute ago, Orraloon said:

McGinn asked for the ball in a very dangerous position - big mistake. He then fuked it up when he got it - even bigger mistake. But at this level he is just an inexperienced young laddie. Gordon should be the wise old man of the team. He should never have even considered giving the ball to anybody in that position. IMO that was the biggest mistake of all. I wouldn't have given the ball to Pirlo in that position. 

It wasn't that dangerous a position until McGinn took the worst touch anyone's ever taken.
He could have made the short pass to McDonald with his first touch and it's all safe.
He could have touched it to his left and turned, rolling past the oncoming Belgian.
He could have knocked it out wide left to Tierney with his first touch.
No worries in the world if he does any of those.
He takes a really poor touch, then looks up to see where people are.. no idea why, as he's just had a look right an left as the ball came to Gordon, which is exactly what he should do. He takes a poor touch and panics, it seems.

If McGinn plays, Albania will pressure him and it's likely he'll make mistakes again.

I think McGinn will be a decent player. Watched him for Villa recently and was impressed. He'll be a good player. But right now I don't trust him. Mexico and Peru both showed his physical shortcomings.. and Belgium has asked questions about his mentality. We have more consistent players in that area of the pitch right now, so we have the luxury of giving McGinn the time he needs to fully develop.

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46 minutes ago, Tartan_McCole said:

Of course not. I'd imagine we'll be told to play out from the back when possible. I'd imagine Gordon and McGregor have different views on that though. Look, I'm not trying to slate McGregor, or even stick up for Gordon here. I just don't think he was as at fault for the goal as some people would have me believe he was.

Fair enough but as far as I’m concerned the goal would never have happened if Gordon hadn’t have played the ball to McGinn. That puts at least some of the blame on to him. 

You play the ball out from the back when there’s no danger. Even if McGinn didn’t miscontrol it, Dembele would still have been putting him under pressure and could have dispossessed him. 

All Gordon had to do if he didn’t want to play a long ball was hold on to it for a few seconds and wait for the Belgian strikers and advanced midfielders to retreat a bit. Our defenders and midfielders would then have been in more space and there would have been less danger. 

Incidentally, I am not suggesting that Gordon is dropped solely because of the first goal. All keepers make mistakes, it comes with the territory.  I would have started with McGregor in the first place as Gordon hasn’t been at his best lately and McGregor has been playing very well. 

First rule of international management - pick in form players. 

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1 hour ago, Lion Rampant said:

Their results look all over the place, even within one qualifying campaign. Within one campaign they lost 3-0 at home to Israel and won 3-0 away to them.

If we want to compare records in competitive games though, surely Albania would be wary of our record especially at home. In the past 5 years we have only lost 2 qualifiers at home, one to Germany and one to Belgium. In that time we've beaten the likes of Croatia, Ireland, Slovenia and Slovakia and we're not far away from beating Poland and England also.

I would imagine that if Albania were pulling out some of the results we have been over the past few years then we'd have a bit more to worry about.

Still think that they'll be tough to beat, but I think we can do it.

Spot on. 

The only home qualifier in my recent memory where we were absolutely terrible was Lithuania and we still managed a draw. 

We weren’t great against England, but again we got a point and should probably have won (although we could easily have lost). 

We struggled a bit against Georgia at Ibrox in terms of breaking them down and killing the game off and I expect a similar sort of performance from Albania tonight. 

We should have enough about us for a narrow victory though. 

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Does Russell normally play wide - i thought he was a main striker? Playing players out of position normally never works out well.  Forrest has been laughably bad in recent games for Scotland but id have given him another chance tonight.

Edited by JECK
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1 minute ago, Barney Rubble said:

Just seen the bench on the other thread.

No Fraser so it's reasonable to assume he is injured, but Griffiths, Armstrong and Forrest on the bench is sheer lunacy by McLeish.

Very confused by this. Forrest you could probably make an argument either way, but the other two have to start.

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38 minutes ago, Barney Rubble said:

Just seen the bench on the other thread.

No Fraser so it's reasonable to assume he is injured, but Griffiths, Armstrong and Forrest on the bench is sheer lunacy by McLeish.

 

Disagree.... Forrest has been terrible for scotland, Griffiths not in great form and took a knock. To be fair I would play Armstrong.

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3 hours ago, Malcolm said:

 

Disagree.... Forrest has been terrible for scotland, Griffiths not in great form and took a knock. To be fair I would play Armstrong.

What's with this hatred for Forrest on here?

He was excellent for Scotland in 2017. Nowhere near terrible or anything approaching it.

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Just now, Barney Rubble said:

What's with this hatred for Forrest on here?

He was excellent for Scotland in 2017. Nowhere near terrible or anything approaching it.

 

I don’t see it... had a terrible game against England at Wembley, missed a good chance.  My opinion obviously... plus he is certainly not a wing back so doesn’t suit our formation.

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4 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

 

I don’t see it... had a terrible game against England at Wembley, missed a good chance.  My opinion obviously... plus he is certainly not a wing back so doesn’t suit our formation.

Assist for Robertson in Vilnius.

Assist for Griffiths v Malta.

Was a defender's nightmare in every game last year.

Agree he's not suited to a wing-back role - hence O'Donnell tonight.

He gets too much of a hard rap on here - he's a player's player.

 

 

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