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Your line-up to play Albania and Israel


Chripper

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2 minutes ago, Lairdyfaeinverclyde said:

Just don't believe i'm so pessimistic when it comes to Scotland, not a good place to be.

I know. In all my time of supporting Scotland I've been an optimist, I thought that it was eternal, but apparently not.

To be honest, I think the blinkers have come off and we see us for what we are. We're in the backwaters of football, both domestically and internationally. The worst thing is that the people in charge are fine with it.

 

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6 minutes ago, Chripper said:

I know. In all my time of supporting Scotland I've been an optimist, I thought that it was eternal, but apparently not.

To be honest, I think the blinkers have come off and we see us for what we are. We're in the backwaters of football, both domestically and internationally. The worst thing is that the people in charge are fine with it.

 

👍

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1 hour ago, Chripper said:

These kind of teams? We are these kind of teams. If we weren't in the same bracket as Albania and Israel then why are we are in the same group as them?

I think people don't understand how three at the back works. If people think it leaves us exposed down the flanks when we're attacking, those people would be wrong, as one of the center backs drifts out to cover the space. If people think it's a negative formation, those people are wrong, as when we are enjoying a lot of possession then one of the center backs can stroll into midfield, allowing one of the midfielders license to roam.

We are awful at the back, we have fragile center backs, we've played with a flat back four for 20 years and I can never recall us looking solid at the back. And yet people want to persist with it "because our players play this formation at club level". Yes, International level isn't club level. International level is akin to European competitions. How many players do we have currently competing in European competitions? 

We have good midfielders? McGinn plays in the Championship with Villa, McDonald plays a team at the bottom of the EPL, Armstrong plays with a struggling Southampton side, McGregor plays against teams who have no transfer budget. McTominay can't break into the worst Man United team I have ever seen.

We have decent midfielders, France and Germany and Belgium and Brazil and Argentina, etc, have good midfielders.

Still not convinced with your back 3 obsession, but can't disagree with much else here.

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30 minutes ago, Chripper said:

I know. In all my time of supporting Scotland I've been an optimist, I thought that it was eternal, but apparently not.

To be honest, I think the blinkers have come off and we see us for what we are. We're in the backwaters of football, both domestically and internationally. The worst thing is that the people in charge are fine with it.

 

A few years ago, even if I wasn't going to a game, I would be really up for it with a week to go. Would even watch the most shittiest friendlies.

Gave up watching these a few months back and with a few days to go, really think I can't even be bothered to watch these two games either. Just feel after missing out on the last qualifiers, the excitement has pretty much been extinguished for me.

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12 minutes ago, stevenmcn said:

Still not convinced with your back 3 obsession, but can't disagree with much else here.

Fair enough, as long as you agree with the majority. ;)

I know what you mean, though, I don't get the obsession with the back four. It would be different if we had top center backs. If we had two rocks at the center then sure, play four at the back, but we don't, so I say shore up the middle of defence by playing more center backs.

I've read people saying that "No one plays with three at the back in modern football", but no one played it in the 90's, either, when we qualified for 2 tournaments using it. It's not even like we had top center backs back then, either, which is the reason for us using it.

If people aren't convinced by it, that's completely fine, but what I don't find fine is when people see a formation change as something radical and that 3-5-2 is something from the Stone ages. :lol:

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Just now, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

A few years ago, even if I wasn't going to a game, I would be really up for it with a week to go. Would even watch the most shittiest friendlies.

Gave up watching these a few months back and with a few days to go, really think I can't even be bothered to watch these two games either. Just feel after missing out on the last qualifiers, the excitement has pretty much been extinguished for me.

I hear ya.

I wonder if all Scotland fans have a breaking point, where they just go "Enough is enough". 

The facts are that the SFA just don't care. They don't. The clubs don't care. Sooner or later the fans will follow suit.

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11 minutes ago, Chripper said:

I hear ya.

I wonder if all Scotland fans have a breaking point, where they just go "Enough is enough". 

The facts are that the SFA just don't care. They don't. The clubs don't care. Sooner or later the fans will follow suit.

Think it's happening now with a sizeable support. Even with a positive result on Saturday, don't think Tuesday's game will be anywhere near a sellout

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I had a breaking point when we didn't beat Slovenia, I knew something in my heart had changed.  Ever since Eck has came in, our football has been dire, our formation has been dire and the results have been dire. Things need to change in these next two games.  

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2 hours ago, Chripper said:

I hear ya.

I wonder if all Scotland fans have a breaking point, where they just go "Enough is enough". 

The facts are that the SFA just don't care. They don't. The clubs don't care. Sooner or later the fans will follow suit.

I don't think I'll ever not care about the team. I can have real low points where I'm not optimistic we will win any matches, but even then I care about the results. On the bright side, look how fast things can change. Try and remember just how bad we were under Vogts and Levein. I think sometimes some fans have short memories. Or perhaps it's the opposite? Maybe we remember too many of the bad times from the last 20 years? There have been great moments too. I'm holding out for the next one, and until them I'll support the team whenever they take the pitch, no matter the match and no matter how poor the squad may be on paper.

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5 minutes ago, mrniaboc said:

I don't think I'll ever not care about the team. I can have real low points where I'm not optimistic we will win any matches, but even then I care about the results. On the bright side, look how fast things can change. Try and remember just how bad we were under Vogts and Levein. I think sometimes some fans have short memories. Or perhaps it's the opposite? Maybe we remember too many of the bad times from the last 20 years? There have been great moments too. I'm holding out for the next one, and until them I'll support the team whenever they take the pitch, no matter the match and no matter how poor the squad may be on paper.

I don't think we were that bad under Vogts.  In my opinion, we had a FAR more limited squad then than we do now.  But that was the last time that we reached any playoff.  I think Vogts gets a bit of unwarranted stick, and I agree (at the time) I thought that he was awful.........but in hindsight with players like Crawford, Kyle et all at his disposal, it was a minor miracle he did as well as he did!

Edited by WeLuvIrnBru
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3 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

Think it's happening now with a sizeable support. Even with a positive result on Saturday, don't think Tuesday's game will be anywhere near a sellout

I think it's only a matter of time till the majority lose patience in the entire thing. But saying that, there'll always be a sizeable pocket of stubborn fans who wouldn't even contemplate missing a match. Those people are akin to an abused spouse who stays with their abusive spouse, as they think that things will get better.... They will not. You only get when you make a change.

3 hours ago, romanticscot said:

I had a breaking point when we didn't beat Slovenia, I knew something in my heart had changed.  Ever since Eck has came in, our football has been dire, our formation has been dire and the results have been dire. Things need to change in these next two games.  

I think for me it was getting trounces from Israel, we were just so disorganized and without any direction.

40 minutes ago, mrniaboc said:

I don't think I'll ever not care about the team. I can have real low points where I'm not optimistic we will win any matches, but even then I care about the results. On the bright side, look how fast things can change. Try and remember just how bad we were under Vogts and Levein. I think sometimes some fans have short memories. Or perhaps it's the opposite? Maybe we remember too many of the bad times from the last 20 years? There have been great moments too. I'm holding out for the next one, and until them I'll support the team whenever they take the pitch, no matter the match and no matter how poor the squad may be on paper.

I think we'll all care, because that's what we do. We love the team, but there's going to be a time when we ask "is that love shared by the SFA, the players and the clubs?".

36 minutes ago, WeLuvIrnBru said:

I don't think we were that bad under Vogts.  In my opinion, we had a FAR more limited squad then than we do now.  But that was the last time that we reached any playoff.  I think Vogts gets a bit of unwarranted stick, and I agree (at the time) I thought that he was awful.........but in hindsight with players like Crawford, Kyle et all at his disposal, it was a minor miracle he did as well as he did!

The worst thing that Vogts did was rip up the successful 3-5-2 template and switch back to the back four. It was so long ago that it would appear that the vast majority of Scotland fans have forgotten that we qualified for tournaments with 3-5-2.

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2 hours ago, Chripper said:

I think it's only a matter of time till the majority lose patience in the entire thing. But saying that, there'll always be a sizeable pocket of stubborn fans who wouldn't even contemplate missing a match. Those people are akin to an abused spouse who stays with their abusive spouse, as they think that things will get better.... They will not. You only get when you make a change.

I think for me it was getting trounces from Israel, we were just so disorganized and without any direction.

For my club side it can be different but I will always follow Scotland whenever I possibly can. Granted we've not been good enough in a lot of games but I still think the players are playing for the shirt, sometimes in spite of lack of quality. As long as I see them give them the same effort I would if I had professional footballing ability I'm content.

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8 hours ago, Chripper said:

I hear ya.

I wonder if all Scotland fans have a breaking point, where they just go "Enough is enough". 

The facts are that the SFA just don't care. They don't. The clubs don't care. Sooner or later the fans will follow suit.

My breaking point was yesterday with the new Scottish cup tv deal. More money for a particular outcome to a tournament is corruption!!!!

the SFA can take their membership and their national team and shove it up their fucking arseholes. 

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6 hours ago, Chripper said:

I think it's only a matter of time till the majority lose patience in the entire thing. But saying that, there'll always be a sizeable pocket of stubborn fans who wouldn't even contemplate missing a match. Those people are akin to an abused spouse who stays with their abusive spouse, as they think that things will get better.... They will not. You only get when you make a change.

I think for me it was getting trounces from Israel, we were just so disorganized and without any direction.

I think we'll all care, because that's what we do. We love the team, but there's going to be a time when we ask "is that love shared by the SFA, the players and the clubs?".

The worst thing that Vogts did was rip up the successful 3-5-2 template and switch back to the back four. It was so long ago that it would appear that the vast majority of Scotland fans have forgotten that we qualified for tournaments with 3-5-2.

It’s not so much the formations though as the players in them and the manager managing them.

We pick poor teams now which aren’t even our strongest sides and are badly managed, so we are crap. 

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20 minutes ago, ProudScot said:

It’s not so much the formations though as the players in them and the manager managing them.

We pick poor teams now which aren’t even our strongest sides and are badly managed, so we are crap. 

Agree.

If a manager can get out best XI on a pitch in an organised fashion with a game plan suitable for the opposition, we could do well. By well I mean we beat teams below us in the rankings, compete well against teams of a similar standard winning most home matches and giving the better sides a tough match whenever we play them.

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I do feel like our biggest problem is the system. The players aren't familiar, our captain said as much.
Our 352 is weird. We seem to play a midfield 5 similar to how top premier league sides play a midfield 5, with 1 sitter and 2 forward looking players (McDonald with McGinn and McGregor), but the big sides (man city, liverpool, chelsea) play that 5 in front of a 4. We do it in front of a 3 and then wonder why we're dodgy at the back. Setting aside the gulf in class between McDonald and Kante, it seems obvious that a back 3 needs even more protection than a back 4 does. Yet, we do what we do.

If we played a sensible, familiar system, say a 451, which our players know and are suited to, is stable and balanced.. then i feel like we might have a bit more success.

As far as players go, it feels like we are not in the best place. We haven't replaced Hutton, nor Brown. Since McFadden the only life we've had in a wide position came from Anya just being so ridiculously quick that it didn't matter than he couldn't cross a ball. Our big goalscoring hopes are a semi-washed up 32 year old who was previously left out for missing open goals for a 5 straight years and a stroppy child who's only scored in 3 games one of which was against Malta.

We have a squad with no right back.
We still haven't solved the Tierney/Robertson problem.
Probably out best attacking player, Fraser, still only has 4 caps.
We continue to ignore Rhodes, when we're crying out for goals.
Meaning our best option up front is a guy who is traditionally a right back.
It's a sad state of affairs.

It's hard to not feel like any of us could do a better job than McLeish without eyes closed.
8 games into his latest reign, 6 losses and no clue what our system or team is.

People talk about how we're on a par with Albania and Israel. We're not. Simple as.
We're ranked 40th, Albania 60th, Israel 91st.
We were supposed to walk this group and win every game.
Saying "we're on a par cos we're in that group" is stupid on it's face. It's like saying Malta and England are on a par because they were both in our last qualifying group. Ridiculous. Groups have top seeds and bottom seeds, and we are very clearly the top seed and we're screwing up because we've put a chancer in charge who couldn't get a job anywhere else.

So frustrating.

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9 minutes ago, andyD said:

Saying "we're on a par cos we're in that group" is stupid on it's face. It's like saying Malta and England are on a par because they were both in our last qualifying group. Ridiculous. Groups have top seeds and bottom seeds, and we are very clearly the top seed and we're screwing up because we've put a chancer in charge who couldn't get a job anywhere else.

So frustrating.

I agree with much of your post but this bit isn't quite right. The Nations League groups are entirely designed to put teams on a similar standing in together, whereas the bigger, main qualifying groups are completely designed to allow the bigger teams to qualify through the seeding system. The UEFA coefficients, rather than the world rankings, say that we're on a par with Israel and Albania and the results in the group so far seem to bear this out with no one team winning all their games.

Edited by wee-toon-red
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29 minutes ago, andyD said:

I do feel like our biggest problem is the system. The players aren't familiar, our captain said as much.
Our 352 is weird. We seem to play a midfield 5 similar to how top premier league sides play a midfield 5, with 1 sitter and 2 forward looking players (McDonald with McGinn and McGregor), but the big sides (man city, liverpool, chelsea) play that 5 in front of a 4. We do it in front of a 3 and then wonder why we're dodgy at the back. Setting aside the gulf in class between McDonald and Kante, it seems obvious that a back 3 needs even more protection than a back 4 does. Yet, we do what we do.

If we played a sensible, familiar system, say a 451, which our players know and are suited to, is stable and balanced.. then i feel like we might have a bit more success.

As far as players go, it feels like we are not in the best place. We haven't replaced Hutton, nor Brown. Since McFadden the only life we've had in a wide position came from Anya just being so ridiculously quick that it didn't matter than he couldn't cross a ball. Our big goalscoring hopes are a semi-washed up 32 year old who was previously left out for missing open goals for a 5 straight years and a stroppy child who's only scored in 3 games one of which was against Malta.

We have a squad with no right back.
We still haven't solved the Tierney/Robertson problem.
Probably out best attacking player, Fraser, still only has 4 caps.
We continue to ignore Rhodes, when we're crying out for goals.
Meaning our best option up front is a guy who is traditionally a right back.
It's a sad state of affairs.

It's hard to not feel like any of us could do a better job than McLeish without eyes closed.
8 games into his latest reign, 6 losses and no clue what our system or team is.

People talk about how we're on a par with Albania and Israel. We're not. Simple as.
We're ranked 40th, Albania 60th, Israel 91st.
We were supposed to walk this group and win every game.
Saying "we're on a par cos we're in that group" is stupid on it's face. It's like saying Malta and England are on a par because they were both in our last qualifying group. Ridiculous. Groups have top seeds and bottom seeds, and we are very clearly the top seed and we're screwing up because we've put a chancer in charge who couldn't get a job anywhere else.

So frustrating.

Totally agree the system is the problem.  The players that are currently in the squad are, on paper, perfectly capable of beating both Albania and Israel without any major issues.

I disagree with a couple of points though, no way is Paterson our best option up front, I know he's scored some goals in the EPL but it's not his natural position and its not like he's on some kind of streak.  Our best option up front with this current squad is still Fletcher and he's still a decent enough option to have!  I don't understand people wanting him ditched.

The Tierney/Robertson problem is one of our own making.  It's pretty simple, for these 2 games at least, play Tierney at RB in a back 4 like Strachan was doing.  He performed well at RB against higher ranked opposition in the WC qualifiers.  If we'd done that against Israel we might not have made Kayal look like a world beater!  If in the future we have a natural RB and 2 CBs available, its down to a choice of one of the 2 at LB, which means it's Robertson and Tierney sits on the bench.  But McLeish doesn't have the stones to do that.

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49 minutes ago, andyD said:

Our big goalscoring hopes are a semi-washed up 32 year old who was previously left out for missing open goals for a 5 straight years and a stroppy child who's only scored in 3 games one of which was against Malta.

Who are you talking about there? 😕

If anyone has any doubt how poor we are, our top scorer in the squad is Fletcher, our second top scorer is Robertson with 2.  Armstrong and Phillips have 1 each.  The rest of the squad are equal 5th with none.  

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50 minutes ago, wee-toon-red said:

I agree with much of your post but this bit isn't quite right. The Nations League groups are entirely designed to put teams on a similar standing in together, whereas the bigger, main qualifying groups are completely designed to allow the bigger teams to qualify through the seeding system. The UEFA coefficients, rather than the world rankings, say that we're on a par with Israel and Albania and the results in the group so far seem to bear this out with no one team winning all their games.

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