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andyD

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The optimism thread got me thinking.. What is our depth actually like across the pitch, as center mid actually has a lot more options than I'd recognised in my own head.

GK: McGregor, Gordon, McLaughlin, Bain, Clark, Kelly
Feels like we've got enough to do a decent job and some younger guys coming thru.
Gloves feel like they'll be reliable for a while yet.

RB: O'Donnell, Paterson, Tierney, Liam Palmer, Tony Ralston, Liam Smith?
Feels like this gets pretty shakey pretty quickly. 2nd choice is a center mid, and 3rd is a left back. Palmer can probably do a job, but Ralston and Smith have yet to prove it regularly in the Scottish Prem.

LB: Robertson, Tierney, Douglas, Greg Taylor, Kingsley, Tony Gallagher?
Any nation would be pretty happy with this list of options imo.

CB: McKenna, Mulgrew, Souttar, Bates, Devlin, Tierney, Hendry, Hanley, Berra, Lindsey, Porteous
Still needing some games for a few of these players, but great to suddenly have 8 options under 24 appear, given how desolate this position was a few years back.

CM: Armstrong, McGregor, McGinn, McTominay, Shinnie, McDonald, Cairney, Lewis Ferguson, McCrorie, Fleck, Coutts, Bannan, Jack, Fulton
Again, lots of depth where there wasn't a lot before. I'm sure a few of us would rather some didn't see the light of day again, but that shows how our options have improved imo.

CAM: Christie, GMS, Snodgrass, Paterson, Russell
Lacking some depth, with Christie looking really vital to me. McGregor could maybe step up here which helps a bit. The ability to link, while also having a goal threat isn't something we have a lot of. Snod and GMS can probably also do the job well enough, but less convinced by the others. Probably hoping for Gauld to find his old feet and for Gilmour to step up in a few years to add some real depth here.

Wide: Forrest, Fraser, Phillips, McKay, Russell, GMS, Jake Hastie, Lewis Morgan, Glenn Middleton, Michael Johnston.
Wide is a problem for me. We have really good 1st choices.. but after that not a lot at all. Phillips and McKay are ok, but hardly spectacular. We could really do with those last 4 names developing over the next few years and pushing into the squad. For me Hastie should probably be included at some point in the next two games given how red hot he is, the other three really need to find first team football every week.

ST: Naismith, Fletch, Griff, Rhodes, McBurnie, Harper, Burke
No clear 1st choice, but looking well stocked, with some promising younger players in there too.

 

So really, it feels like we're not too bad. RB and wide could use some more depth, but there are players there who can come thru.
Overall, I'm sort of optimistic looking at this.

Feel free to nay-say or fire in names that i've missed.

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I think you have listed a lot of players that I wouldn't want anywhere near the team next month and a few that I'd never consider again.

If you consider the level that our players are currently at, we have 3 players above the rest -

  1. Robertson (LB)
  2. Tierney (LB)
  3. Fraser (LM)

We have a bunch of players that play at a good level and should be fairly dependable at international level -

  • Gordon (GK)
  • McGregor (GK)
  • McKenna (CB)
  • Armstrong (CM)
  • McGregor (CM)
  • Christie (CM)
  • McTominay (CM)
  • Cairney (CM)
  • Forrest (RM)
  • Snodgrass (RM)
  • Phillips (RM)
  • Paterson (CF)
  • Griffiths (CF) - this is where he should be anyway

Then we have players that play at a decent level and can be hit or miss at international level - 

  • Marshall (GK)
  • O'Donnell (RB)
  • Mulgrew (CB)
  • Souttar (CB)
  • Bates (CB)
  • Jack (CM)
  • McDonald (CM)
  • McGinn (CM)
  • Ritchie (RM)
  • Fletcher (CF)
  • McBurnie (CF)
  • Burke (CF)
  • and a load of others.

We need that list of 3 to be closer to 10, and the list of next list enough to fill the rest of the squad, with cover in each position.  Some players will improve.  Others won't reach their potential or will be unavailable for a wide range of reasons like injury, international retirement and falling out with the SFA.

There will be arguments about the standard of different players that I've listed but the reality is we are still short on real quality, but our options at LB and in midfield aren't too bad.  

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1 hour ago, PASTA Mick said:

If you consider the level that our players are currently at, we have 3 players above the rest -

  1. Robertson (LB)
  2. Tierney (LB)
  3. Fraser (LM)

This pretty much sums it up for me.

There's a common fallacy within Scotland fans is that we are strong in midfield. The list of midfielders in the OP should be used as a stark reminder that we don't have one midfielder who could hold their own playing against a top team. We saw what happened to Christie, McGregor (and Brown was even worse) against Valencia. All they did in the entire match was collect the ball, look forward, go into their shell and pass backwards/sideways.

We have one player who is fighting to win a big trophy (Robertson). That's it.

None of our keepers play in a top league. Our defenders don't play at a very good level, therefore, they aren't used to playing top strikers. Our current lot of midfielders are powederpuff who aren't technically good enough to dominate a midfield and our strikers aren't streetwise. 

All In all, I know that people are looking for positives. Truth is, there are none. People are trying to grasp at anything and everything, even if it's citing beating Albania and Israel, but the truth is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

We aren't producing players who can go toe-to-toe with the best players in the world and the longer that's an issue the longer we'll continue to fail.

Is it all doom and gloom?

Yes.

 

Edited by Chripper
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1 hour ago, Chripper said:

This pretty much sums it up for me.

There's a common fallacy within Scotland fans is that we are strong in midfield. The list of midfielders in the OP should be used as a stark reminder that we don't have one midfielder who could hold their own playing against a top team. We saw what happened to Christie, McGregor (and Brown was even worse) against Valencia. All they did in the entire match was collect the ball, look forward, go into their shell and pass backwards/sideways.

We have one player who is fighting to win a big trophy (Robertson). That's it.

None of our keepers play in a top league. Our defenders don't play at a very good level, therefore, they aren't used to playing top strikers. Our current lot of midfielders are powederpuff who aren't technically good enough to dominate a midfield and our strikers aren't streetwise. 

All In all, I know that people are looking for positives. Truth is, there are none. People are trying to grasp at anything and everything, even if it's citing beating Albania and Israel, but the truth is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

We aren't producing players who can go toe-to-toe with the best players in the world and the longer that's an issue the longer we'll continue to fail.

Is it all doom and gloom?

Yes.

 

That all depends on what the current ambitions are. Of course if the ambition is to go toe to toe with Europe's big guns and actually challenge the big nations to win international competitions then of course we are way way off. But if the ambition is just to qualify for these competitions then there are reasons to be positive that we have players at the required level to achieve this. And possibly, hopefully, have some younger players who may potentially reach the same level as Andy Robertson one day. Remember it still wasn't so long ago he was still playing for Queens Park. Stay positive. 

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3 hours ago, Chripper said:

This pretty much sums it up for me.

There's a common fallacy within Scotland fans is that we are strong in midfield. The list of midfielders in the OP should be used as a stark reminder that we don't have one midfielder who could hold their own playing against a top team. We saw what happened to Christie, McGregor (and Brown was even worse) against Valencia. All they did in the entire match was collect the ball, look forward, go into their shell and pass backwards/sideways.

We have one player who is fighting to win a big trophy (Robertson). That's it.

None of our keepers play in a top league. Our defenders don't play at a very good level, therefore, they aren't used to playing top strikers. Our current lot of midfielders are powederpuff who aren't technically good enough to dominate a midfield and our strikers aren't streetwise. 

All In all, I know that people are looking for positives. Truth is, there are none. People are trying to grasp at anything and everything, even if it's citing beating Albania and Israel, but the truth is that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

We aren't producing players who can go toe-to-toe with the best players in the world and the longer that's an issue the longer we'll continue to fail.

Is it all doom and gloom?

Yes.

 

I would love to disagree with anything in that, but you have just about nailed it.

Some one in another thread mentioned Wales and Ethan Apmadu and David Brooks for Wales . When the former made  his Chelsea debut he was younger than Billy Gilmour is now, and made his Wales debut at 17 and the latter was capped just after he turned 20.

In another thread you mentioned Hornby who at 19 still hasn't even got on the Everton bench.

Currently our best right back, attacking midfielder and centre forward could well be Callum Paterson.

Pasta mentioned a pile of players playing at a reasonable level, the reason they are playing at the level they are is that they simply aren't good enough to play at a higher level. None of them are kids and I doubt if you could call any of them the best player at their clubs, even my beloved McBurnie

Bazmidd is right we have to accept were we are, probably about the third tier of international football and our aim is just to qualify these days. Probably only in the way our women's team have couple of performance above what was expected and performances below what was expected by their opponents. Bottom line is they have qualified but will be very lucky to get a point in the finals a bit like we would.

 

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6 hours ago, PASTA Mick said:

I think you have listed a lot of players that I wouldn't want anywhere near the team next month and a few that I'd never consider again.

If you consider the level that our players are currently at, we have 3 players above the rest -

  1. Robertson (LB)
  2. Tierney (LB)
  3. Fraser (LM)

We have a bunch of players that play at a good level and should be fairly dependable at international level -

  • Gordon (GK)
  • McGregor (GK)
  • McKenna (CB)
  • Armstrong (CM)
  • McGregor (CM)
  • Christie (CM)
  • McTominay (CM)
  • Cairney (CM)
  • Forrest (RM)
  • Snodgrass (RM)
  • Phillips (RM)
  • Paterson (CF)
  • Griffiths (CF) - this is where he should be anyway

Then we have players that play at a decent level and can be hit or miss at international level - 

  • Marshall (GK)
  • O'Donnell (RB)
  • Mulgrew (CB)
  • Souttar (CB)
  • Bates (CB)
  • Jack (CM)
  • McDonald (CM)
  • McGinn (CM)
  • Ritchie (RM)
  • Fletcher (CF)
  • McBurnie (CF)
  • Burke (CF)
  • and a load of others.

We need that list of 3 to be closer to 10, and the list of next list enough to fill the rest of the squad, with cover in each position.  Some players will improve.  Others won't reach their potential or will be unavailable for a wide range of reasons like injury, international retirement and falling out with the SFA.

There will be arguments about the standard of different players that I've listed but the reality is we are still short on real quality, but our options at LB and in midfield aren't too bad.  

No Bain? You going to take even that wee bit of optimism from me.

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1 hour ago, ceudmilefailte said:

I would love to disagree with anything in that, but you have just about nailed it.

Some one in another thread mentioned Wales and Ethan Apmadu and David Brooks for Wales . When the former made  his Chelsea debut he was younger than Billy Gilmour is now, and made his Wales debut at 17 and the latter was capped just after he turned 20.

In another thread you mentioned Hornby who at 19 still hasn't even got on the Everton bench.

Currently our best right back, attacking midfielder and centre forward could well be Callum Paterson.

Pasta mentioned a pile of players playing at a reasonable level, the reason they are playing at the level they are is that they simply aren't good enough to play at a higher level. None of them are kids and I doubt if you could call any of them the best player at their clubs, even my beloved McBurnie

Bazmidd is right we have to accept were we are, probably about the third tier of international football and our aim is just to qualify these days. Probably only in the way our women's team have couple of performance above what was expected and performances below what was expected by their opponents. Bottom line is they have qualified but will be very lucky to get a point in the finals a bit like we would.

 

Gilmour will be just fine. Hornby has played in the Europa League. Not many strikers get a game in the EPL at 19, unless they’re the lightning quick kind. Hornby is the big centre forward type and clearly that position required a physically mature player (which he soon will be).

Nobody’s saying we’re world beaters, but some fans have us a goal down before kick off. 

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26 minutes ago, er yir macaroon said:

Gilmour will be just fine. Hornby has played in the Europa League. Not many strikers get a game in the EPL at 19, unless they’re the lightning quick kind. Hornby is the big centre forward type and clearly that position required a physically mature player (which he soon will be).

Nobody’s saying we’re world beaters, but some fans have us a goal down before kick off. 

Didn't know that Hornby had been held back by an injury. Plenty countries select players on potential alone at a young age to get them used to the set up, training with the current squad in the current set up etc. To use andyD's suggested forwards then he can have Naismith's, Rhodes's, Harper's(he will never be an international) places. We will have Paterson and Phillips in the squad and available to play up front, both are probably better forwards than the ones I would ditch. Likewise Gilmour and probably a few more of our under 21's. There are, and have been too many players that been in recent squads simply because they are "experienced"

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We don't need to have players that are good enough to go toe-to-toe with the big boys! We just need players who can go toe-to-toe with the 2nd and 3rd echelon of teams, and I'm optimistic that we are actually closer to that now than we have been in the last 5-10 years.

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2 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Didn't know that Hornby had been held back by an injury. Plenty countries select players on potential alone at a young age to get them used to the set up, training with the current squad in the current set up etc. To use andyD's suggested forwards then he can have Naismith's, Rhodes's, Harper's(he will never be an international) places. We will have Paterson and Phillips in the squad and available to play up front, both are probably better forwards than the ones I would ditch. Likewise Gilmour and probably a few more of our under 21's. There are, and have been too many players that been in recent squads simply because they are "experienced"

Bit early to write off Harper...

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Not sure why people expect us to be world cup winners. That seems a bit bizarre to me, given where we are and have been for.. well.. forever. We've never, in it's 89 year history, looked like winning the world cup. So it's a crazy bar to set now, and if that's what you're doing then i'm not surprised you think it's doom and gloom. But perhaps you should adjust your expectations as they're kinda ridiculous.

Obviously (or so i thought) our goal is just to qualify, having not done that in 20 years. And to that end I don't think we're badly positioned. The 1st teamers of yesteryear are now largely the backups to a younger, technically better squad of players, and where we've previously lacked depth in key positions like center back, defensive mid and center forward, we've now got 2-3 good options just everywhere but right back (and even there we have 2 decent looking youngsters who could develop in the next year or two).

So yeah, I don't see it as doom and gloom at all. We're trying to beat Russia, not Belgium.

 

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55 minutes ago, andyD said:

So yeah, I don't see it as doom and gloom at all. We're trying to beat Russia, not Belgium.

That will be tricky for us.

Looking at the Russian players that have been called up over the last 12 months,

  • they have 13 players that play for a club that were the in Champions League group stages this season.  We have 2.  
  • they have 17 players that play for a club that were the in Europa League group stages this season.  We have 11.

They have players are regularly playing at a good level.  Our strongest XI can give them a decent game but some of the players you mentioned would be so far out their depth it's scary. 

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Eck has just been on the news saying he has been talking with Birmingham striker Che Adams’ representatives about playing for Scotland.

Malky MacKay tried to get him for his squad for the Dutch game a while back, but never went anywhere.

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3 hours ago, bigfingers said:

If more than 3 players of our strongest 11 are out for the key qualifying games then we ain’t qualifying. Simple as that. 

That's a bit strong, but depends who they are really.

Keepers are sufficiently close that we wouldn't lose much by the 1st choice being out.
Tierney at left back is doesn't scare me if Robertson's out.
Up front no one is a clear standout, so would we really miss anyone in particular?
Similarly at central defense, I'm not sure we know who our top 2 are yet. Bates or Souttar and Mulgrew or McKenna.. Kinda ok with any 2 from those pairs.

Losing Forrest, Fraser, Christie, McGregor or Armstrong would be more keenly felt imo. If we were to lose 3 of those 5 then aye, we'd probably be in some trouble.

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I wouldn’t want to lose McKenna. I think mulgrew is done at international level and Bates and souttar together scares me a bit.  

Wouldnt want to lose mcgregor or Armstrong either from midfield and Forrest Fraser and Christie are quite important to how we play now, especially at home. Snoddy is a good back up I guess. 

Up front would be okay if Griffiths didn’t have his issues. Fletcher can do a job but i’m not sure if he is the answer for the whole campaign. 

 

 

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On 2/19/2019 at 12:58 PM, PASTA Mick said:

I think you have listed a lot of players that I wouldn't want anywhere near the team next month and a few that I'd never consider again.

If you consider the level that our players are currently at, we have 3 players above the rest -

  1. Robertson (LB)
  2. Tierney (LB)
  3. Fraser (LM)

We have a bunch of players that play at a good level and should be fairly dependable at international level -

  • Gordon (GK)
  • McGregor (GK)
  • McKenna (CB)
  • Armstrong (CM)
  • McGregor (CM)
  • Christie (CM)
  • McTominay (CM)
  • Cairney (CM)
  • Forrest (RM)
  • Snodgrass (RM)
  • Phillips (RM)
  • Paterson (CF)
  • Griffiths (CF) - this is where he should be anyway

Then we have players that play at a decent level and can be hit or miss at international level - 

  • Marshall (GK)
  • O'Donnell (RB)
  • Mulgrew (CB)
  • Souttar (CB)
  • Bates (CB)
  • Jack (CM)
  • McDonald (CM)
  • McGinn (CM)
  • Ritchie (RM)
  • Fletcher (CF)
  • McBurnie (CF)
  • Burke (CF)
  • and a load of others.

We need that list of 3 to be closer to 10, and the list of next list enough to fill the rest of the squad, with cover in each position.  Some players will improve.  Others won't reach their potential or will be unavailable for a wide range of reasons like injury, international retirement and falling out with the SFA.

There will be arguments about the standard of different players that I've listed but the reality is we are still short on real quality, but our options at LB and in midfield aren't too bad.  

Picked a totally random decent result from the last few years and thought of the team against Croatia in the 2-0 win 5 and a half years ago.

1McGregor

2Hutton

4Martin

5Hanley

3Mulgrew

6Bannan Substituted for Burke at 89'minutes

7Brown

8Morrison Booked at 55mins

11Anya Substituted for Dorransat 77'minutes

10Snodgrass Substituted for McArthurat 82'minutes

9Naismith

Totally random and at far higher level with Adam and Boyd both in the EPL and on the bench I wouldn't mind seeing those two together now.

Celtic were in the champions league that year with hardly a Scotsman in the squad so unless the SPL and championship have improved somewhat  are we really in a better state?

We are basically saying young with potential is the reason for all this optimism or that a couple of very good players can carry the rest

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19 hours ago, bigfingers said:

I think mulgrew is done at international level

Seems a bit harsh. 1st choice defender for a Championship side who are comfortably mid-table, and he's racked up 8 league goals so far this season. That makes him the highest scoring defender in the league by a distance. For comparison, he's played a similar number of minutes to Fletch, but scored 3 more goals than him.. and kept 9 clean sheets in 33 for a newly promoted side. For what it's worth, WhoScored has him in the top 50 players in the Championship.

No part of that suggests that he's washed up or on the way down. The only thing I can see which is against him is that he'll be 33 soon, but if the performances are still there, then...

 

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2 minutes ago, andyD said:

Seems a bit harsh. 1st choice defender for a Championship side who are comfortably mid-table, and he's racked up 8 league goals so far this season. That makes him the highest scoring defender in the league by a distance. For comparison, he's played a similar number of minutes to Fletch, but scored 3 more goals than him.. and kept 9 clean sheets in 33 for a newly promoted side. For what it's worth, WhoScored has him in the top 50 players in the Championship.

No part of that suggests that he's washed up or on the way down. The only thing I can see which is against him is that he'll be 33 soon, but if the performances are still there, then...

 

Don't mention Who scored .............there are people on here who don't like facts.

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1 hour ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Don't mention Who scored .............there are people on here who don't like facts.

Maybe because you are so ridiculously obsessed with that stupid website.

Do we have the all important statistics on what brands of toothpaste our players are using or who watches Netflix the most. Bloody hell.

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1 hour ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Maybe because you are so ridiculously obsessed with that stupid website.

Do we have the all important statistics on what brands of toothpaste our players are using or who watches Netflix the most. Bloody hell.

I won't try to explain all statistics to you and the correlation between certain types of statistics as used to measure a players overall ability.

But a couple of simple ones to get you going. If a player can kick the ball to a player of his own team it is called a pass. If it is a pass to a player that can create a chance for another player it is a key pass. If a player can pass the ball to a player who scores a goal it is called an assist.

 

You stick to the daily record and the goal scoring charts in the shoot magazine if you want stupid websites.

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15 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

I won't try to explain all statistics to you and the correlation between certain types of statistics as used to measure a players overall ability.

But a couple of simple ones to get you going. If a player can kick the ball to a player of his own team it is called a pass. If it is a pass to a player that can create a chance for another player it is a key pass. If a player can pass the ball to a player who scores a goal it is called an assist.

 

You stick to the daily record and the goal scoring charts in the shoot magazine if you want stupid websites.

Lot of pish. Some of these player rating sites even contradict one another. A complete waste of time but if you want to continue chugging yourself blind over it then I can't stop you.

Oh and I don't read unionist newspapers :ok:

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10 hours ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Lot of pish. Some of these player rating sites even contradict one another. A complete waste of time but if you want to continue chugging yourself blind over it then I can't stop you.

Oh and I don't read unionist newspapers :ok:

Ok I do probably over rate the value of statistics but they are measurable rather than subjective so i will continue to value them higher than individual opinions.

I do stay up late at night analysing them but the wife prefers that to me watching porn.

Check out the Daily Record football phone in column, it's good for a laugh. But then supporters views on their own teams players often are.

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16 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Picked a totally random decent result from the last few years and thought of the team against Croatia in the 2-0 win 5 and a half years ago.

1McGregor

2Hutton

4Martin

5Hanley

3Mulgrew

6Bannan Substituted for Burke at 89'minutes

7Brown

8Morrison Booked at 55mins

11Anya Substituted for Dorransat 77'minutes

10Snodgrass Substituted for McArthurat 82'minutes

9Naismith

Totally random and at far higher level with Adam and Boyd both in the EPL and on the bench I wouldn't mind seeing those two together now.

Celtic were in the champions league that year with hardly a Scotsman in the squad so unless the SPL and championship have improved somewhat  are we really in a better state?

We are basically saying young with potential is the reason for all this optimism or that a couple of very good players can carry the rest

With the exception of Hutton and Anya that team has zero pace. I think the players on the near horizon and some already in the team will be better than those.

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