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Portugal match thread


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6 hours ago, er yir macaroon said:

I don’t get this “second gear” business. If it was their 2nd team they’d have neen bursting to get in the first. It’s just the way the play. 

This. No need to put an even more negative spin on things. I would put it more down to quality football players with better touch and awareness making the game look easier. 

Pogba is a prime example of this.

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3 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

agree with most of that except the obvious - no to forrest. Not that I am touting GMS for as start but he did more in 15 minutes than Forest has done in all of his caps. 

Forrest had a decent first half, caused them problems down the right, but faded badly in the second half like most of the team. 

I would give him another chance against a lesser quality team, where he will see more of the ball in forward areas.

Him and Fraser should both play in my opinion. 

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Here's my analysis. There's a lot of things going wrong and the first goal's a good thing to look at as it highlights a lot of them.


1) McBurnie completely misjudges the ball. I think this is because Naismith's jumped just infront of him and looks like he's going to flick it on. McBurnie's preparing to go after it, but instead Naismith misses it and it hits McBurnie's thigh. Really poor understanding and communication between the forwards. McBurnie needs to be braver and shout to claim it, get Naismith making a run. Better communication up front and this doesn't happen.

2) Hendry backs off and backs off towards the goal, instead of forcing Bruma towards the corner. This is just not good defending from Hendry. He's young, maybe he's worried about the ball being knocked past him, but if he says "go on, go past me to the corner", it's easier for the team to defend. Letting Bruma into the corner of the area opens up all kinds of angles for Portugal to make a chance from.

3) Hendry and O'Donnell's communication. Hendry is right to take Bruma, and O'Donnell is right to cover. Very rarely at any decent level of football do you leave a man 1v1 against a pacey guy like Bruma. The problem is Hendy's backed off despite that letting Burma into a dangerous position and despite O'Donnell being there to cover the cut inside. They should be doubling up and forcing Burma to move the ball before help can arrive, but instead Hendry stands off and gives Bruma all the time in the world. I honestly think O'Donnell is right to be covering behind Hendry, because Bruma can just cut inside and shoot, as he proved later. Ultimately O'Donnell has to go to the overlap, but Really we're already screwed in terms fo stopping the ball coming in by that point.

4) Speaking of the overlap. This is another of the key points. It's the workrate of central midfield in terms of defending. Rodriguez makes the overlapping run.. and he starts that run about 12 yards the other side of McGinn. At that point in play he's McGinn's man, but McGinn watches him run past and just lets him go, jogging back towards the area too late and far from Rodriguez. Rodriguez wasn't sprinting, he was catchable, but McGinn didn't bother. Yes, the goal could have been stopped at other points, but McGinn could have stopped it too and the least I'd want of the two defensive center mids is to get back and defend when the opposition break. Sadly, McGinn couldn't be bothered.

5) Andy Robertson having a 'mare. He's in exactly the right place, ball-side, goal-side and Costa should never get anywhere near it. I'm not sure what happens to Andy. He's aware of his man, he's positioned well, but instead of anticipating the ball in and stepping forwards to meet it he just kinda stalls. Individual mistake. It happens. Won't crucify the lad, but he should be doing better there.

So overall:
We're badly organised.
We don't seem to be vocal enough on the pitch both in attack and defense.
We're making individual errors.
We're not working hard enough.

These 4 things play off each other and make each one of them even worse.

First thing we should do is be organised. You can see from the 2nd goal what a mess it is. O'Donnell fighting with 3 Portuguese players who are all lining up to score. Then 7 blue shirts in no mans land, in the area, but completely uninvolved in the play. It's shocking. There's 6 Portuguese being marked by 9 Scots as the ball comes in and they end up with a 3v1 on the end of the cross.

This is not how those players play every week. This is how they play under McLeish. Whether we need a new manager or we need a more experienced captain (Shinnie?) who will organise, or a more senior figure at the back (Berra or Mulgrew, both injured for this game) to marshal the line. We need something to change, because these are simple, obvious and very easy to sort out problems. We're talking basics here.

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1 hour ago, andyD said:

Here's my analysis. There's a lot of things going wrong and the first goal's a good thing to look at as it highlights a lot of them.


1) McBurnie completely misjudges the ball. I think this is because Naismith's jumped just infront of him and looks like he's going to flick it on. McBurnie's preparing to go after it, but instead Naismith misses it and it hits McBurnie's thigh. Really poor understanding and communication between the forwards. McBurnie needs to be braver and shout to claim it, get Naismith making a run. Better communication up front and this doesn't happen.

2) Hendry backs off and backs off towards the goal, instead of forcing Bruma towards the corner. This is just not good defending from Hendry. He's young, maybe he's worried about the ball being knocked past him, but if he says "go on, go past me to the corner", it's easier for the team to defend. Letting Bruma into the corner of the area opens up all kinds of angles for Portugal to make a chance from.

3) Hendry and O'Donnell's communication. Hendry is right to take Bruma, and O'Donnell is right to cover. Very rarely at any decent level of football do you leave a man 1v1 against a pacey guy like Bruma. The problem is Hendy's backed off despite that letting Burma into a dangerous position and despite O'Donnell being there to cover the cut inside. They should be doubling up and forcing Burma to move the ball before help can arrive, but instead Hendry stands off and gives Bruma all the time in the world. I honestly think O'Donnell is right to be covering behind Hendry, because Bruma can just cut inside and shoot, as he proved later. Ultimately O'Donnell has to go to the overlap, but Really we're already screwed in terms fo stopping the ball coming in by that point.

4) Speaking of the overlap. This is another of the key points. It's the workrate of central midfield in terms of defending. Rodriguez makes the overlapping run.. and he starts that run about 12 yards the other side of McGinn. At that point in play he's McGinn's man, but McGinn watches him run past and just lets him go, jogging back towards the area too late and far from Rodriguez. Rodriguez wasn't sprinting, he was catchable, but McGinn didn't bother. Yes, the goal could have been stopped at other points, but McGinn could have stopped it too and the least I'd want of the two defensive center mids is to get back and defend when the opposition break. Sadly, McGinn couldn't be bothered.

5) Andy Robertson having a 'mare. He's in exactly the right place, ball-side, goal-side and Costa should never get anywhere near it. I'm not sure what happens to Andy. He's aware of his man, he's positioned well, but instead of anticipating the ball in and stepping forwards to meet it he just kinda stalls. Individual mistake. It happens. Won't crucify the lad, but he should be doing better there.

So overall:
We're badly organised.
We don't seem to be vocal enough on the pitch both in attack and defense.
We're making individual errors.
We're not working hard enough.

These 4 things play off each other and make each one of them even worse.

First thing we should do is be organised. You can see from the 2nd goal what a mess it is. O'Donnell fighting with 3 Portuguese players who are all lining up to score. Then 7 blue shirts in no mans land, in the area, but completely uninvolved in the play. It's shocking. There's 6 Portuguese being marked by 9 Scots as the ball comes in and they end up with a 3v1 on the end of the cross.

This is not how those players play every week. This is how they play under McLeish. Whether we need a new manager or we need a more experienced captain (Shinnie?) who will organise, or a more senior figure at the back (Berra or Mulgrew, both injured for this game) to marshal the line. We need something to change, because these are simple, obvious and very easy to sort out problems. We're talking basics here.

The key point you’ve missed is that O’Donnell was 20 yards too far up the park when we lost possession. We couldn’t recover from that moment. 

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1 minute ago, er yir macaroon said:

The key point you’ve missed is that O’Donnell was 20 yards too far up the park when we lost possession. We couldn’t recover from that moment. 

Why not?

If McGinn tracked Rodriguez and Hendry showed Bruma outside then O'Donnell could have stood entirely still and we wouldn't have conceded.

I'm not saying O'Donnell wasn't pushed up a wee bit too far, but he got back in position quickly and it was by no means an unstoppable goal when they got the ball.

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