Albania Match Thread (10/09/2018)

[wanderer]

13 minutes ago, Third Lanark said:

I would suggest Jack Grimmer, forgotten man but excellent for  Coventry these days. Sure he will move up the leagues soon. Also Donald Love, Sunderland?

Went to watch AFC Wimbledon v Coventry City last month, and Grimmer never even got off the bench, but one player I was intrigued by was center back Dominic Hyam (been involved with the Scotland youth set up a number of times over the years), as Coventry looked really tight at the back and at only 22, think he could progress if he can get himself into the Championship.

[ONeils4oyarder]

While not my motm, the performance I was most pleased with was Souttar. Centre-back is a real problem position for us, but the emergence of this lad and McKenna could be the answer to our prayers.

 

On the right-back debate, Richard Tait at my team Motherwell, is probably the most consistent player in our team...he has a funny accent and spent most of his career down South, so I'd expect the SFA to absolutely love him

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

2 hours ago, Return of Yermaw said:

and just to quote myself, does anyone find it grating to watch Strachan as a pundit on Sky? Maybe just me but I get really annoyed when he talks about how well Scottish Premiership players fared when he wouldn't have touched them with a barge pole when he was manager.......

You can tell he doing it through gritted teeth. He looks like he has to think of the answers, so to not look too complimentary

Edited September 11, 2018 by Bobby Russell's Lovechild

[er yir macaroon]

1 hour ago, Toepoke said:

 and the chances of that happening?

I think McGregor offers us a lot and would keep him as a starter but I'd also like to see what Fraser would do playing in that position.

 

As i suggested it won’t happen anytime soon, but looking ahead we need that extra bit of quality in terms of final pass and a year down the line Gauld might supply it. When at Utd, his passes in behind defences were Davie Cooper-like (who was ignorantly pigeonholed as a tricky winger). 

[andyD]

Well, my thoughts after that are "a win's a win."

It wasn't a classic, we played some ok stuff at times, but were suicidal at others, and got away with it due to them being utter rubbish.

McGregor - 7. Did well. Made the one vital save. But did the exact same short distribution that Gordon did, including a roll out to McDonald what was virtually a carbon copy of Gordon's to McGinn, except McDonald pinged it away to right back with his first touch, as he should have.
O'Donnell - 8. Thought he was immense. Seemed to be everywhere at times, not just on the right flank. Good defensively, making tackles and interceptions, and also being a physical presence. Contributed well going forward too. Would give him the shirt now. Use Fraser behind Griff.
Robertson - 6. One of his less good games tbh. A couple of good balls in, but passed up a lot of opportunities to go at his man and refused to shoot on a couple of occasions when well positioned. A bit too 'stable', not quite forceful enough on the night.
Souttar - 7. Did well. handle his man well, and was calm despite the early booking. Certainly did himself no harm with this performance.
Mulgrew - 6. Did what was required. Was involved in the 2nd goal too, but did get beaten by the ball over the top, we were just lucky their player miscontrolled.
Tierney - 6. Pretty quiet really. Steady defensively, but playing in the back 3 did stiffle him going forward. Robertson did drop in for him a few times, but then we lacked an overlap. Feels like we need to let them both go at it and cover with McDonald when they do.
McDonald - 6. Steady without being dominant. Kept the ball moving, made some decent forward passes and didn't give it away that I remember.
McGinn - 8&4. Bizarre performance. Fantastic in moments, and dire in others. Handed them 2 gilt edged chances with poor passing, but also harried and pressed and made things happen. Against a slightly better team we concede 2 goals because of McGinn. If he can remove the errors he'll be a fantastic player, but right now i don't know he's worth the risk.
McGregor - 5. Tidy on the ball, but faffed a lot and was ultimately just wasteful.
Russell - 7. Lots of running, was really good in the first half, but did drop off in the 2nd. Felt like if he got on the ball and ran at people he could make things happen. Would love to see him and Fraser behind the striker.
Naismith - 6. Probably seems harsh to give him a 6. But he didn't offer much up top. Dropped deep and helped start moves meaning we had no one on the shoulder of defenders for a ball in (probably why Robertson was a bit stifled). Missed a sitter.. Missed another sitter, but luckily the defender put it in. Credit for the 2nd goal, smart reaction there, but over the 90 it wasn't a particularly good game for him. If Griff had played the 90, I think we'd have had the result safe a lot earlier.
-
Armstrong - 6. Gave us a bit more going forward than McDonald did. We won the midfield and didn't really need an out and out defensive mid, so a good sub probably. Not an awful lot came from him still, but didn't do much wrong either.
Griffiths - 6. Only got 20 minutes. Pretty quiet. Trying a bit hard to find the net himself probably, but can't blame him.
McTominay - 6. Gave the ball away once in a non=dangerous area, but aside from that nothing much of note in his 10 mins.

The system worked ok. I think 343 suits us reasonably well. Let's us get 5-6 attacking bodies pretty easily, but also drop into a 541 if need be. The wide men got involved, we just lacked bite, with McGregor and Naismith not having the best games imo. Defensively we coped petty well and with McKenna potentially coming in for Mulgrew, we've got a young and promising defensive trio, which is great to see.

We combined well going forwards and 25 shots is a testament to that. We also seemed reticent to shoot in a lot of situations.. A bit more edge from bringing in players like Griff, Fraser, McBurnie, Snod, Rhodes.. They're all very winning to shoot, and we seemed to almost reject shooting opportunities. The 25 shots reflects our dominance rather than our incisiveness in the final 3rd.

Along side that we were still vulnerable. McGinn's 2 errors should have been punished, a great save from McGregor, and we got a bit lucky with the ball that came over the top that the 1st touch went straight into McGregor's arms.

Glad to have got the win, and as I said before the game, we should have enough to win this Nations League section. This performance doesn't give me much confidence for the next qualifying group tho, where we'll likely be facing 2 better and 1 comparable side to ourselves. McLeish talked after the game about 'building a wall' (weird to make a Trump reference, but ok) but in this performance i didn't see any foundations being laid. Maybe the thing to cling to is the age of those involved.. and our foundation is that we've got young layers getting experience and looking ok. So that's where we build from..

[Brummie Hibs]

10 hours ago, madoneone said:

does anybody know why the Albanian fans were segregated from each other

Was talking to security when I went to pick up tickets at 2pm from Hampden, and they told me that they were taken aback by the number of Albanians had shown up looking to buy tickets for the game. Most of them from London. 

They were telling the fans that they could buy Scotland end tickets but not to wear colours.

Security told me that they couldn't let them into the official Albanian end as that was controlled by the Albanian FA. 

However I think they were considering what to do as it was obviously an issue the amount of fans. 

It looks like common sense prevailed and they herded all the unofficial Albanian fans into their own section. 

A good support. 

[Third Lanark]

46 minutes ago, wanderer said:

Went to watch AFC Wimbledon v Coventry City last month, and Grimmer never even got off the bench, but one player I was intrigued by was center back Dominic Hyam (been involved with the Scotland youth set up a number of times over the years), as Coventry looked really tight at the back and at only 22, think he could progress if he can get himself into the Championship.

Yes, he is a regular now. Centre back is no longer the problem position - we have a crop of youngsters now.

[andyD]

2 minutes ago, Third Lanark said:

Yes, he is a regular now. Centre back is no longer the problem position - we have a crop of youngsters now.

Doesn't look too bad, does it.

Mulgrew and Berra are still around.
Hanley is playing regularly at Norwich.
Souttar, McKenna, Tierney looks like it could be a steady starting 3.

Then behind that we have a bunch of other promising looking players:
Lindsey, Hendry, Devlin, Bates..

and some youngsters on the horizon, like:
Hyam (Coventry), Johnston (Liverpool), Souttar (Stoke), Hamilton (Hearts)

So current depth.. other senior options outside the squad.. and some kids on the horizon.  Good stuff.

[mrniaboc]

Can I just address something that's really bugging me? These "suicidal passes" and "gilt edged chances" that McGinn was responsible for were really not as big as they're being made out to be. 

The one in the first half was a really stupid pass, but it left the Albanians 2 on 5 with McGinn also closing fast to make up for his error. Even Mane and Salah would have had work to do to create a goal. 

The 2nd half one was an underhit volley that came to pretty much nothing. 

Can we please calm the fuck down and try and focus on the positives and look at the 10+ outstanding moments he had winning the ball and moving us forward? 

Anyone can make a shit pass, but few people can do the rest of what he did in the game. 

[Squirrelhumper]

59 minutes ago, ONeils4oyarder said:

While not my motm, the performance I was most pleased with was Souttar. Centre-back is a real problem position for us, but the emergence of this lad and McKenna could be the answer to our prayers.

 

On the right-back debate, Richard Tait at my team Motherwell, is probably the most consistent player in our team...he has a funny accent and spent most of his career down South, so I'd expect the SFA to absolutely love him

29 this year but worth a look. I'd much rather have guys like him or SOD playing right back/wing back in a position they are used to, than pigeon holing others into an unfamiliar position.

[Squirrelhumper]

41 minutes ago, andyD said:

McGregor - 5. Tidy on the ball, but faffed a lot and was ultimately just wasteful.

 

Can't agree with that, I thought he was very good and a goal would have topped off his performance.

[mrniaboc]

4 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

Can't agree with that, I thought he was very good and a goal would have topped off his performance.

Totally agree with you. Thought he had a great game and was slightly unlucky not to come away with a goal. 

[wanderer]

McGregor made some great runs into the box and was not scared to dig deep to win the ball last night, but was just let down by to heavy touches once he got into a good space, certainly much better than than that.

[Texas Pete]

55 minutes ago, andyD said:

Well, my thoughts after that are "a win's a win."

It wasn't a classic, we played some ok stuff at times, but were suicidal at others, and got away with it due to them being utter rubbish.

McGregor - 7. Did well. Made the one vital save. But did the exact same short distribution that Gordon did, including a roll out to McDonald what was virtually a carbon copy of Gordon's to McGinn, except McDonald pinged it away to right back with his first touch, as he should have.
O'Donnell - 8. Thought he was immense. Seemed to be everywhere at times, not just on the right flank. Good defensively, making tackles and interceptions, and also being a physical presence. Contributed well going forward too. Would give him the shirt now. Use Fraser behind Griff.
Robertson - 6. One of his less good games tbh. A couple of good balls in, but passed up a lot of opportunities to go at his man and refused to shoot on a couple of occasions when well positioned. A bit too 'stable', not quite forceful enough on the night.
Souttar - 7. Did well. handle his man well, and was calm despite the early booking. Certainly did himself no harm with this performance.
Mulgrew - 6. Did what was required. Was involved in the 2nd goal too, but did get beaten by the ball over the top, we were just lucky their player miscontrolled.
Tierney - 6. Pretty quiet really. Steady defensively, but playing in the back 3 did stiffle him going forward. Robertson did drop in for him a few times, but then we lacked an overlap. Feels like we need to let them both go at it and cover with McDonald when they do.
McDonald - 6. Steady without being dominant. Kept the ball moving, made some decent forward passes and didn't give it away that I remember.
McGinn - 8&4. Bizarre performance. Fantastic in moments, and dire in others. Handed them 2 gilt edged chances with poor passing, but also harried and pressed and made things happen. Against a slightly better team we concede 2 goals because of McGinn. If he can remove the errors he'll be a fantastic player, but right now i don't know he's worth the risk.
McGregor - 5. Tidy on the ball, but faffed a lot and was ultimately just wasteful.
Russell - 7. Lots of running, was really good in the first half, but did drop off in the 2nd. Felt like if he got on the ball and ran at people he could make things happen. Would love to see him and Fraser behind the striker.
Naismith - 6. Probably seems harsh to give him a 6. But he didn't offer much up top. Dropped deep and helped start moves meaning we had no one on the shoulder of defenders for a ball in (probably why Robertson was a bit stifled). Missed a sitter.. Missed another sitter, but luckily the defender put it in. Credit for the 2nd goal, smart reaction there, but over the 90 it wasn't a particularly good game for him. If Griff had played the 90, I think we'd have had the result safe a lot earlier.
-
Armstrong - 6. Gave us a bit more going forward than McDonald did. We won the midfield and didn't really need an out and out defensive mid, so a good sub probably. Not an awful lot came from him still, but didn't do much wrong either.
Griffiths - 6. Only got 20 minutes. Pretty quiet. Trying a bit hard to find the net himself probably, but can't blame him.
McTominay - 6. Gave the ball away once in a non=dangerous area, but aside from that nothing much of note in his 10 mins.

The system worked ok. I think 343 suits us reasonably well. Let's us get 5-6 attacking bodies pretty easily, but also drop into a 541 if need be. The wide men got involved, we just lacked bite, with McGregor and Naismith not having the best games imo. Defensively we coped petty well and with McKenna potentially coming in for Mulgrew, we've got a young and promising defensive trio, which is great to see.

We combined well going forwards and 25 shots is a testament to that. We also seemed reticent to shoot in a lot of situations.. A bit more edge from bringing in players like Griff, Fraser, McBurnie, Snod, Rhodes.. They're all very winning to shoot, and we seemed to almost reject shooting opportunities. The 25 shots reflects our dominance rather than our incisiveness in the final 3rd.

Along side that we were still vulnerable. McGinn's 2 errors should have been punished, a great save from McGregor, and we got a bit lucky with the ball that came over the top that the 1st touch went straight into McGregor's arms.

Glad to have got the win, and as I said before the game, we should have enough to win this Nations League section. This performance doesn't give me much confidence for the next qualifying group tho, where we'll likely be facing 2 better and 1 comparable side to ourselves. McLeish talked after the game about 'building a wall' (weird to make a Trump reference, but ok) but in this performance i didn't see any foundations being laid. Maybe the thing to cling to is the age of those involved.. and our foundation is that we've got young layers getting experience and looking ok. So that's where we build from..

Interesting that you consider pot 2 teams as better than us (obviously some of them will be) but pot 4 teams are comparable (if we get into pot 3 obviously, which we should now we’ve seen how poor Albania are). 

We could get a favourable draw (when does that ever happen?) and get a pretty average team as our pot 2 team. Or we could get England or Croatia or something. Two League A teams will end up in pot 2.

We could also get a shite pot 3/4 team like Albania. I’d take them no problem after last night. 

[Bino's]

1 hour ago, andyD said:

Souttar - 7. Did well. handle his man well, and was calm despite the early booking. Certainly did himself no harm with this performance.

 

his early booking was the best challenge of the night

 

unfortunately that kind of clearing out when winning the ball is only still legal in Scotland!

[andyD]

22 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Interesting that you consider pot 2 teams as better than us (obviously some of them will be) but pot 4 teams are comparable (if we get into pot 3 obviously, which we should now we’ve seen how poor Albania are).  

We could get a favourable draw (when does that ever happen?) and get a pretty average team as our pot 2 team. Or we could get England or Croatia or something. Two League A teams will end up in pot 2.

We could also get a shite pot 3/4 team like Albania. I’d take them no problem after last night. 

I'm not looking at pots, I'm looking at what we've had in our last 3-4 groups.

[andyD]

47 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

Can't agree with that, I thought he was very good and a goal would have topped off his performance.

Maybe he deserves a 6.. I think I'm just frustrated by the great positions and opportunities he had and yet he spurned all of them.

[BucksburnDandy]

Really pleased overall after last night. The performance was good and while not getting carried away, we should be pleased with our efforts.

 

I was very sceptical of the team that McLeish picked but fair play, he got it bang on outside Kevin McDonald. Naismith was bright and worked hard to being others into play. McGregor was very bright and while not everything came off, the things that did come off were excellent. Armstrong was excellent when he came on and just brought that extra intelligent play around the edge of the box that we needed. McGinn pressed high up the park and did the pressing work that we needed.

 

I was unconvinced about SOD before the game but he did well. Souttar as well looked assured so both of those were pleasing.

 

The only real worry is Kevin McDonald. I just don't think he's up to international football. Too slow, too ponderous and ultimately gets exposed against better opposition.

 

Great start to the section. Put me in a superb mood today.

 

[Texas Pete]

43 minutes ago, andyD said:

I'm not looking at pots, I'm looking at what we've had in our last 3-4 groups.

That’s an odd way to predict who we’ll get in our next group given the pots are being decided by a different method this time. 

England have been in pot 1 for years (as far as I can remember, I could be wrong) but they are in real danger of being in pot 2 for the next campaign. 

There could be a couple of interesting groups with two huge teams who are normally in pot 1. This would leave a couple of groups without a big team. Iceland and Slovakia could be our pot 1 and 2 teams for example. I’d take that right now. 

Knowing our luck we’ll get France and Belgium or something. 

[magicTs]

5 hours ago, Tartan_McCole said:

This is a much bigger thing than I realised. I've read countless posts on social media and heard people talk about how these games are pointless and the tournament is a lot of crap.

 

Totally agree. Its amazing really but its definitely true that some football fans in this country are simply ignorant!  I'll predict right now that this Nations League is going to see the best opportunity in a very long time for Scotland to make it to a major championships. After watching last nights opponents I think there is very good chance we will be facing a play off scenario come March 2020 which sees us 2 games away from qualification and not having to face one of the top countries to achieve it! It will make the European draw and qualifying even more interesting to watch as we will likely be looking at the likes of Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece's results with more interest.

[magicTs]

5 hours ago, SMcoolJ said:

I'm a bit surprised that Souttar hasn't had more praise on here for last night's performance. Maybe the surprise is that i didn't think he could be quite so decent!  I thought he looked good throughout.  Won most of his headers, good on the deck, quick and composed.  Was unlucky to get booked.  Him and McKenna could be a good pairing (or two of three). 

He is getting better by the week for Hearts. Berra's absence has seen him step up and he is growing in stature. I think Hearts are going to make a lot of money from him in the next 12-18 months. The biggest praise I can give him is he has something of a young Craig Levein about him on the ball. Very composed and able to step out from the back. Lets hope he has more luck with injuries. 

[mccaughey85]

15 minutes ago, magicTs said:

He is getting better by the week for Hearts. Berra's absence has seen him step up and he is growing in stature. I think Hearts are going to make a lot of money from him in the next 12-18 months. The biggest praise I can give him is he has something of a young Craig Levein about him on the ball. Very composed and able to step out from the back. Lets hope he has more luck with injuries. 

Souttar had a good game and looks like he could be worth keeping in the squad at the very least. Hopefully we can have a back three of Tierney McKenna and souttar with hendry and mulgrew rotated when we need to ie injury and what not. I think big championship teams will be looking at souttar for sure. I was a fan of souttar when he first broke through but thought he didn't progress much after that but this season he's been immense for hearts and he's still only 21.

[vanderark14]

6 hours ago, PASTA Mick said:

Let's see how he does against a decent side. He did well last night but I'm still to be convinced that he's the answer to the right-back option. 

any right back we've had in recent seasons has been shite against side like albania, I include the post 2012 Alan Hutton in that too, its refreshing to see someone so confident and willing to get forward but also take care of his defensive duties. There is absolutely nothing negative about SODs performance.

[vanderark14]

3 hours ago, mrniaboc said:

Can I just address something that's really bugging me? These "suicidal passes" and "gilt edged chances" that McGinn was responsible for were really not as big as they're being made out to be. 

The one in the first half was a really stupid pass, but it left the Albanians 2 on 5 with McGinn also closing fast to make up for his error. Even Mane and Salah would have had work to do to create a goal. 

The 2nd half one was an underhit volley that came to pretty much nothing. 

Can we please calm the fuck down and try and focus on the positives and look at the 10+ outstanding moments he had winning the ball and moving us forward? 

Anyone can make a shit pass, but few people can do the rest of what he did in the game. 

Absolutely agree with this, same goes for others like C McGregor. Too many trying to pick holes in their performances, Mulgrew made some stupid hollywood passes but overall he marshalled the defence well, what I am saying is there were mistakes everywhere but we did what was needed. Rome wasn't built in a day as Eck says. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by vanderark14

[Lairdyfaeinverclyde]

8 hours ago, Baz said:

Jesus, it’s McLeish ffs.

Apologies for spelling mistake sir, oh and my name is not Jesus.