Israel Match Thread (11/10/2018)

[mccaughey85]

My analysis on last night's performance is that it must come down to McLeish. He doesn't look like a mentally well person, he is either drinking or has a an illness, either way he shouldn't be in the job. We had a chance to get a somebody in who might be able to get results with the average players we have but reality is we have fucked ourselves yet again by picking McLeish. We have got the players to be beating Israel and Albania home and away so we should be achieving this no problem. As for comparing today's crop with browns lot. There is no comparison, we had top class players who played for top teams in Europe in the 90s, guys like collins, McAllister, Lambert. Even your guys like hendry, Gallacher and calderwood were good EPL players. Now it's not all doom and gloom as we do have a solid base of decent young players (under 22)and reasonably young players(under 25) but unless we get a good manager to lead them then we ain't going to beat the likes of Israel most of the time. McLeish in the short time he's been manager has alienated our best striker and can barely pick our best team, Forrest and Armstrong should of started, with Armstrong we look a far better side. Anyways it's a case of waiting til the cunt gets sacked then hopefully we can employ someone who can tell which players he has subbed on from the ones he hasn't. If the sfa got rid of Strachan for this then we really are stupid bastards.

[exile]

32 minutes ago, Chripper said:

The thing with rubbish players is that they are inconsistent, meaning that one week they win, the other they don't.

Albania and Israel are awful, so the fact that our players can't beat both teams equates to our players being simply average.

OK, I see what you mean. But I thought this time they were seemingly particularly bad, useless throughout. Still can't work out why that bad.

[Malcolm]

16 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

My analysis on last night's performance is that it must come down to McLeish. He doesn't look like a mentally well person, he is either drinking or has a an illness, either way he shouldn't be in the job. We had a chance to get a somebody in who might be able to get results with the average players we have but reality is we have fucked ourselves yet again by picking McLeish. We have got the players to be beating Israel and Albania home and away so we should be achieving this no problem. As for comparing today's crop with browns lot. There is no comparison, we had top class players who played for top teams in Europe in the 90s, guys like collins, McAllister, Lambert. Even your guys like hendry, Gallacher and calderwood were good EPL players. Now it's not all doom and gloom as we do have a solid base of decent young players (under 22)and reasonably young players(under 25) but unless we get a good manager to lead them then we ain't going to beat the likes of Israel most of the time. McLeish in the short time he's been manager has alienated our best striker and can barely pick our best team, Forrest and Armstrong should of started, with Armstrong we look a far better side. Anyways it's a case of waiting til the cunt gets sacked then hopefully we can employ someone who can tell which players he has subbed on from the ones he hasn't. If the sfa got rid of Strachan for this then we really are stupid bastards.

Totally.... get graeme souness in asap

[mccaughey85]

2 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Totally.... get graeme souness in asap

Not sure souness would be the answer, unless you were joking of course.

[Malcolm]

Just now, mccaughey85 said:

Not sure souness would be the answer, unless you were joking of course.

Aye.... it was a wee bit of fun 😊

[Chripper]

7 minutes ago, exile said:

OK, I see what you mean. But I thought this time they were seemingly particularly bad, useless throughout. Still can't work out why that bad.

Completely agree with you, at some stages of the match it seemed like they didn't know how to control or pass the ball.

The entire Scottish game has to be ripped up and reset to zero.

[ceudmilefailte]

2 hours ago, Chripper said:

Without a shadow of a doubt we should be playing 3-5-2, and we should have been doing so for the past 20 years. In my time I can only remember Scotland qualifying for two tournaments (Euro 96 and France 98), with both we played with a three at the back system. Why? Because we haven't had a solid pairing of central defenders since the 80's. Scotland have produced decent defenders in the past twenty years, but nothing top drawer, with the obvious exception of Colin Hendry. 

 

Football is a simple game that's complicated by idiots. Rule of thumb is if you're weak in a position then you must lean towards the "strength in numbers" philosophy. Craig Brown saw this when he took charge and he took us to two tournaments, and it could/should've been three, as we battered England at Wembley in the '99 play-off. Brown saw that we were weak at the back so his solution was to play with three, and it worked.

 

When Berti Vogts took the reins he wasted no time in ripping up the successful template left by Brown and reverted to the  four at the back system - every subsequent Scotland manager has done likewise - and we have achieved nothing but failure.

 

What puzzles me is that in sporadic times that we actually have played with a three at the back, and lost, the vast majority of fans come out and say that we should forget about using the three at the back system. Which means that the fans are as clueless as our previous five managers. The masses want to play with a flat back four even though we have systematically failed with that system for 19 years. 

 

I love the argument that "Our defenders don't play as a three at their clubs, so they probably couldn't do it playing for Scotland". Look back at '96, we had Calderwood, Boyd and Hendry as the three, none of them played with a three at their clubs. In '98 we had Boyd, Calderwood/Weir and Hendry, again, none of whom played in a three at the back system with their clubs.

 

Three at the back is the only change we have of qualifying, simply because we are weak at the back, and if our defenders aren't intelligent enough to plug the gaps then another body will fill if simply by being there.

 

The common consensus is that we are strong in midfield, which is baffling. How many of our midfielder are competing for trophies in top footballing nations? Just because we had about a dozen or so decent midfielders in no means that our midfield is strong. In 96/98 we had the likes of McAllister, Collins and Lambert. Those three were great players. In actual fact, those three were better players than all of our current midfielders combined. So to say that we are "strong" in midfield is just plain wrong.

 

Same with in attack, I'd take one of Durie, Gallacher and McCoist over all of our strikers. And while I'm comparing, Goram and Leighton were top-drawer goalkeepers and were far better than Gordon and McGregor.

 

It's not all doom and gloom, we have the foundation of McKenna, Robertson, Tierney and McGinn to build on, and with kids like Johnstone, Middleton, Bates, Morgan, Gilmour and Porteous coming through, things do look a little bit sunnier.

 

The main strength we had under Craig Brown's leadership is that we were organized, we were compact, we were like a club side, in that they worked tirelessly for one another. With the 3-5-2 we had eight players down the middle of the park which made it difficult for teams to tear us apart. Like I said, strength in numbers.

 

Those fans who are old enough to remember the aforementioned qualification successes and are adamant that we're better with four at the back should be embarrassed.

As for last night's debacle, it wasn't about formation, it was about 10 out of 11 players who were simply pathetic. If 10 players play badly in the same team then 99 out of 100 times that team will be beaten.

We have to stick with 3-5-2. We've stuck with a variation of 4 at the back for 20 years and we've had nothing but abject failure.

You play a team for the for players you have. We don't have the players for a 3-5-2 so don't bother comparing it with Browns days.

One thing about sticking to a formation in the way Brown did was that the players knew their job and absentees were easy to replace. 

[Third Lanark]

7 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

You play a team for the for players you have. We don't have the players for a 3-5-2 so don't bother comparing it with Browns days.

One thing about sticking to a formation in the way Brown did was that the players knew their job and absentees were easy to replace. 

I see that engerlund abandoned their 3-5-2 tonight in favour of a back four. So maybe McLeish will be inspired to do the same. 

[ceudmilefailte]

5 minutes ago, Third Lanark said:

I see that engerlund abandoned their 3-5-2 tonight in favour of a back four. So maybe McLeish will be inspired to do the same. 

McLeish will probably play with a sweeper  next game.

[Bino's]

44 minutes ago, Chripper said:

Completely agree with you, at some stages of the match it seemed like they didn't know how to control or pass the ball.

The entire Scottish game has to be ripped up and reset to zero.

This has been obvious for decades

It won't be

[Chripper]

38 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

You play a team for the for players you have. We don't have the players for a 3-5-2 so don't bother comparing it with Browns days.

One thing about sticking to a formation in the way Brown did was that the players knew their job and absentees were easy to replace. 

And evidence of the previous 20 years would suggest that we don't have the players for a 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1, etc, either. So what do you suggest? Another 20 years of trying to get used to playing 4-5-1? I mean, most of the players play it at their clubs, so by that definition they should be used to it... right?

We don't have the players who can play 2 in the middle of defence and the middle of midfield. We don't. History has shown that we don't. 

McLeish has to keep faith with 3-5-2 and not go back to a tried and failed system.

[Chripper]

12 minutes ago, Bino's said:

This has been obvious for decades

It won't be

I know.

The SFA have been rotten to the core since the 70's, and probably further back than that.

A blanket boycott of tickets, merchandise, etc, would probably go a ways to getting the word to them that we are sick of them.

That won't happen, either.

[Bino's]

4 minutes ago, Chripper said:

I know.

The SFA have been rotten to the core since the 70's, and probably further back than that.

A blanket boycott of tickets, merchandise, etc, would probably go a ways to getting the word to them that we are sick of them.

That won't happen, either.

The Scottish football fan is comfortable with it's players not being skilled at controlling or passing a football, or being fit

Don't see any appetite for that changing

[mcnish]

7 hours ago, exile said:

Hi, just wondering can you explain why those 10 players were so pathetic in Israel, when they seemed to do OK against Albania? 

Might have something to do with the fact that Albania are a poor team with largely third rate players (only Hysaj is international class) whereas we are only a fairly poor team with largely second rate players. Albania are seeded where they are based on their performances from a few years ago not how good they are at the moment.

[bazmidd]

This whole chat we are having now about different formations and systems all stems from how we bring our players through and the way we teach them to play football. We really shouldn't even be having this argument as everyone should know the way Scotland play our style and formations. At the present time this is evident only in our youth sides who have been completely revamped and taught to play in a certain style and to play in a certain way. They don't change for anyone. Against Spain, England, France, Holland whoever it is 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. They pass the ball the play on the front foot, they are in the faces of the opposition. We are trying to introduce our style through our youth teams now playing in this way. Formations aren't even discussed at youth level, they just know it will be 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 and they know exactly what their job is and how they are expected to play. So with this style and identity being introduced in our youth sides, it is absolutely criminal the senior side are doing the complete opposite. What the hell are these young players we are teaching to do one thing meant to think when they do excellent things playing this way at youth level, taught for years this is now the Scotland Way, only to come into the seniors and everything is arse for tit, and the manager at the top doesn't even have a scooby doo what formation or system he's playing. Spain have a style, Holland have a Style Germany have a Style, Croatia have a style, why the hell do we change what our youth sides do when we get to senior level! It shouldn't even be a discussion. Okay all formations can be tweaked etc but to completely deviate away from the way we are teaching our youth sides to play football is just insane especially when right now we have a team with 5 or 6 U21 players who could potentially start for the national team. We have to trust in the style and systems we have introduced at youth level and implement them at seniors or what is the point in any of the structure we have built up in recent years at youth level. Things have improved massively from U17s to U21s it is actually great watching these Scotland sides play. Ok we don't win every game but you know what you are going to get. They try and attack, play the right way play with heart. We are teaching these guys these things so they will in turn play that way for Scotland in future. So keep the seniors completely in line with what they are doing at youth level and trust in what we are doing or nothing will ever change for the better

[RenfrewBlue]

11 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

My analysis on last night's performance is that it must come down to McLeish. He doesn't look like a mentally well person, he is either drinking or has a an illness, either way he shouldn't be in the job. We had a chance to get a somebody in who might be able to get results with the average players we have but reality is we have fucked ourselves yet again by picking McLeish. We have got the players to be beating Israel and Albania home and away so we should be achieving this no problem. As for comparing today's crop with browns lot. There is no comparison, we had top class players who played for top teams in Europe in the 90s, guys like collins, McAllister, Lambert. Even your guys like hendry, Gallacher and calderwood were good EPL players. Now it's not all doom and gloom as we do have a solid base of decent young players (under 22)and reasonably young players(under 25) but unless we get a good manager to lead them then we ain't going to beat the likes of Israel most of the time. McLeish in the short time he's been manager has alienated our best striker and can barely pick our best team, Forrest and Armstrong should of started, with Armstrong we look a far better side. Anyways it's a case of waiting til the cunt gets sacked then hopefully we can employ someone who can tell which players he has subbed on from the ones he hasn't. If the sfa got rid of Strachan for this then we really are stupid bastards.

You should nip down to the local hospital and offer your amazing powers to help diagnose mental illness with just a look at someone on a TV screen. 

Either that or you should get off the disgraceful personal attacks when you know fuck all about it. 

Slag off McLeish's ability as a manager all you want but try and stay above the shitey Sun headline rubbish. 

How you can possibly say we should be beating Israel and Albania no problem is beyond me. What factual evidence do you have for this? 

The main Israeli striker plays for a team that just rogered our 8 in a row champions without breaking sweat. 

Albania have half a team that plays in Serie A. 

We have 2 players from the EPL and both were woeful the other night. 

The failure here is a combination of crap players and poor tactical management. Our midfield and attack had to be pressing faster and harder to prevent the balls in behind the wing backs. They didn't and nobody seemed to be keen to point out the issue. 

[Malcolm]

19 minutes ago, RenfrewBlue said:

You should nip down to the local hospital and offer your amazing powers to help diagnose mental illness with just a look at someone on a TV screen. 

Either that or you should get off the disgraceful personal attacks when you know fuck all about it. 

Slag off McLeish's ability as a manager all you want but try and stay above the shitey Sun headline rubbish. 

How you can possibly say we should be beating Israel and Albania no problem is beyond me. What factual evidence do you have for this? 

The main Israeli striker plays for a team that just rogered our 8 in a row champions without breaking sweat. 

Albania have half a team that plays in Serie A. 

We have 2 players from the EPL and both were woeful the other night. 

The failure here is a combination of crap players and poor tactical management. Our midfield and attack had to be pressing faster and harder to prevent the balls in behind the wing backs. They didn't and nobody seemed to be keen to point out the issue. 

 

This.   Bottom line is we aren’t very good.

[Rolling hIlls]

35 minutes ago, RenfrewBlue said:

You should nip down to the local hospital and offer your amazing powers to help diagnose mental illness with just a look at someone on a TV screen. 

Either that or you should get off the disgraceful personal attacks when you know fuck all about it. 

Slag off McLeish's ability as a manager all you want but try and stay above the shitey Sun headline rubbish. 

How you can possibly say we should be beating Israel and Albania no problem is beyond me. What factual evidence do you have for this? 

The main Israeli striker plays for a team that just rogered our 8 in a row champions without breaking sweat. 

Albania have half a team that plays in Serie A. 

We have 2 players from the EPL and both were woeful the other night. 

The failure here is a combination of crap players and poor tactical management. Our midfield and attack had to be pressing faster and harder to prevent the balls in behind the wing backs. They didn't and nobody seemed to be keen to point out the issue. 

Good post RB.  McLeish is getting it tight on here.  And that is wrong imo.  He will fight back.  He is a winner.  Are you and I the only folk that support our national manager?  People blame him because he fecked off to England.  But I bet he regrets it now.  We should be supporting him if we are indeed 'the greatest fans in the world'.  Right going against the grain here as usual.  Bought Glenfiddich by mistake.  Hadn't the heart to tell the lady.  But hey ho, the cork is off.  Not playing today as its the international weekend.

[Ian_86]

13 hours ago, Ormond said:

I’ll have some of what you’re smoking. 

McDonald was pish. Also, he looks to be overweight. 

McDonald was solid. There's a few people on here that see what he contributes and I personally thought he stood out. That's my opinion. Seems like a bit of a witch hunt vs him on this forum. 

Anyway the problem with the Israel performance stems deeper than any individual player.

[Bino's]

1 minute ago, Ian_86 said:

McDonald was solid. There's a few people on here that see what he contributes and I personally thought he stood out. That's my opinion. Seems like a bit of a witch hunt vs him on this forum. 

Anyway the problem with the Israel performance stems deeper than any individual player.

The Israeli were strolling past him all game

Including in the first half when everyone hadn't yet got out on their feet

And he does look overweight

[ProudScot]

14 minutes ago, Ian_86 said:

McDonald was solid. There's a few people on here that see what he contributes and I personally thought he stood out. That's my opinion. Seems like a bit of a witch hunt vs him on this forum. 

Anyway the problem with the Israel performance stems deeper than any individual player.

McDonald is fat, slow and way off international level.

He’s about as good a player as McLeish is a manager.

[Rolling hIlls]

Just now, ProudScot said:

McDonald is fat, slow and way off international level.

He’s about as good a player as McLeish is a manager.

The same manager that rang rings around mon.?  Count the leagues and medals he has won as a player and a manager.  Then try and compare that my son.

[ProudScot]

2 minutes ago, Rolling hIlls said:

The same manager that rang rings around mon.?  Count the leagues and medals he has won as a player and a manager.  Then try and compare that my son.

Lol.

Boyd talking sense here; 

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/3341571/scotland-issues-not-well-kris-boyd/

Edited October 13, 2018 by ProudScot

[Rolling hIlls]

McLeish is down right now.  We should be supporting him.

[Rolling hIlls]

2 minutes ago, ProudScot said:

Lol.

Boyd talking sense here; 

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/3341571/scotland-issues-not-well-kris-boyd/

Is this the same Boyd that is despised on here?  Canny be.  Parklife and Ormond will have your guts for garters if you are quoting the anti christ Boyd on here in a positive way.  This Glenfiddich is kicking in now 😜