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San Marino v Scotland Match Thread


Alan

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5 hours ago, ErsatzThistle said:

When we get a new manager I think he should send a letter or an e-mail to the thirty or so players he does provisionally intend to use for an eighteen month time-frame. 

The content being short and simple

"Do you wish to continue being selected for the Scotland national football team ?"

If the answer to that from some players is

  • "nah" 
  • "I'd rather focus on my club career for the next six months but after that I'll be available" 
  • "yes, but can I please be excused from friendly matches/any game on a plastic pitch/games that involves a flight of more than four hours/games where it's very cold/games where it's too hot"

Then fuck 'em, they don't care. Prissy wee cunts

And on that note Kieran Tierney is winning his fitness battle to play in old firm game this week...

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6 hours ago, Chripper said:

Is it lashing out, though? What have McGregor and Armstrong actually done in football? Both have done/did well for Celtic, but it's more difficult to play badly in a dominating team than to do well. Armstrong has joined a top league and he's pretty much done zero. If McGregor made the same move he'd probably make the same impact.

I'm not trying to single out these two, as you can add Christie, Bain, Shinnie, O'Donnell, Burke, McNulty, McLean, etc, to the list. The jury is out with McKenna and Bates, I don't think they can play in a flat back four, though, not at this level. I'm convinced by Fraser, Robertson, McTominay, Tierney and Forrest. People aim abuse at Forrest but I think Scotland has never properly utilised him proper, apart from the two final matches of the Nations League.

I don't like saying this. Trust me. I wish all our players were playing for top clubs in top leagues but they don't. We must stop watching McGregor, Burke, et al, run rounds around teams that has no disposable income and fool ourselves into thinking that they're good. They aren't. If they were as good as some people think they are they'd be strutting their stuff with AC Milan, Barcelona or Manchester United rather than Aston Villa, Celtic and Southampton.

No doubt. Darren Fletcher should definitely be brought in. I'd suggest that he's more capable and more competent than McLeish, Grant and McFadden combined. If his name was even considered as manager, I'd take him in a heartbeat. The dedication towards Scotland by Darren Fletcher is probably the most I've seen by a Scotland player in my lifetime, and that was even before his illness, throw in his illness and he's a Scotland legend in my book.

You take a lot of stick on here but I agree with every word you say, except maybe that Bates and McKenna are still our best back four option - though they need time to build up an understanding not just with each other but with a new goalkeeper.

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6 hours ago, Chripper said:

Is it lashing out, though? What have McGregor and Armstrong actually done in football? Both have done/did well for Celtic, but it's more difficult to play badly in a dominating team than to do well. Armstrong has joined a top league and he's pretty much done zero. If McGregor made the same move he'd probably make the same impact.

I'm not trying to single out these two, as you can add Christie, Bain, Shinnie, O'Donnell, Burke, McNulty, McLean, etc, to the list. The jury is out with McKenna and Bates, I don't think they can play in a flat back four, though, not at this level. I'm convinced by Fraser, Robertson, McTominay, Tierney and Forrest. People aim abuse at Forrest but I think Scotland has never properly utilised him proper, apart from the two final matches of the Nations League.

I don't like saying this. Trust me. I wish all our players were playing for top clubs in top leagues but they don't. We must stop watching McGregor, Burke, et al, run rounds around teams that has no disposable income and fool ourselves into thinking that they're good. They aren't. If they were as good as some people think they are they'd be strutting their stuff with AC Milan, Barcelona or Manchester United rather than Aston Villa, Celtic and Southampton.

No doubt. Darren Fletcher should definitely be brought in. I'd suggest that he's more capable and more competent than McLeish, Grant and McFadden combined. If his name was even considered as manager, I'd take him in a heartbeat. The dedication towards Scotland by Darren Fletcher is probably the most I've seen by a Scotland player in my lifetime, and that was even before his illness, throw in his illness and he's a Scotland legend in my book.

Can't disagree with any of that, other than I think McGregor is a player and that McKenna is vastly overrated and if we are relying on him as a centre back then we're in trouble.

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McGregor is a good player and would be in my squad but he is somewhat overrated in as much he’s not a match winner. . Interestingly, it will be Billy Gilmour’s 18th birthday on the day of the Belgium game. Wales would have capped him by now although personally I’d wait till next season where i expect him to be playing first team football somewhere. 

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8 hours ago, jockney exile1 said:

It was 'San Marino' we were playing, FFs !!

Yes. And we've never beaten them by more than 2-0 away from home. 

Most of the hand wringing about this game is leftover angst from Thursday. 

The San Marino result was good by our own, long established standards. 

It's called realism. 

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21 minutes ago, Redz said:

One in particular - Raging hardon for all things AFC 

Hi Pal, plenty of folk have the same opinion as me re McKenna, he's hardly done anything the past two games to change that opinion either.

As for AFC, I couldn't care less, don't flatter yourself. Not my fault you lot get so precious about your poor wee lambs.

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Fletcher D is an intriguing idea and I'm drawn to it, but it does look a bit like trying to replicate what E***and have done with Southgate. Wales and Giggs looks like the same idea.

If it didn't work (and it is a risk) it could ruin Fletcher's management aspirations for ever. Likewise, Jack Ross, if we went down that route. Not many get jobs after being less than successful in charge of Scotland.

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1 hour ago, Squirrelhumper said:

Hi Pal, plenty of folk have the same opinion as me re McKenna, he's hardly done anything the past two games to change that opinion either.

As for AFC, I couldn't care less, don't flatter yourself. Not my fault you lot get so precious about your poor wee lambs.

couldn't care less about AFC but is very quick to comment on them and then says its Aberdeen fans who are the sensitive wee lambs. You couldn't make it up, of wait you just did,

 

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1 minute ago, vanderark14 said:

couldn't care less about AFC but is very quick to comment on them and then says its Aberdeen fans who are the sensitive wee lambs. You couldn't make it up, of wait you just did,

 

I commented on a player, you brought the AFC part up.

At no point did I mention Aberdeen.

Not me making stuff up here. McKenna isn't good enough with the ball at his feet for this level of football, sorry if that offends.

I hope he develops into a decent CH at International level but even against San Marino he looked awkward when players got tight on him.

 

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58 minutes ago, macy37 said:

You find it acceptable that we really struggled against the worst team in European football? Really struggled. 

Not really no but then again we've never done anything else against them. 

That performance wasn't special in that respect. It was actually pretty on par for Scotland. 

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All round awful.

Bain - Doesn't fill me with confidence when the balls around our area. Also still open to the possibility that he's a significant part of the reason our defense is suddenly porous even against low level opposition. Is he vocal enough?
O'Donnell - Thought he was poor. Offered little and gave away a lot of fouls.
Robertson - Poor. Offered little going forwards, none of his quality crosses and no going beyond Fraser. Felt like he was playing a containing game.. against San Marino.
Bates - Got caught with a runner in behind once. Not sure who organises out of our back line. Might be part of the problem.
McKenna - Also got caught with runners. Whether it's a lack of awareness or lasck of calls from the keeper, it needs to improve cos it's far to easy to open us up.
McGregor - Seemed within himself to me. Stray passes, sort of in no-mans land between being an anchoring fulcrum and being involved in forward play meaning he wasn't really anywhere.
McLean - Very, very average. Got the goal (which you'd hope anyone would have scored, free header) but other than that did little. Moved the ball around, but pretty ineffectually.
Armstrong - Seemed to want too many touches all the time. Which with the packed San Marino defense meant he lost the ball a lot. Of the midfield 3 he did the most to create things, but also missed a few simple chances. Not the Armstrong we're used to.
Russell - Bustled a lot. Not sure really what his strengths are. He's.. ok.. at most things. Probably wasn't the right player to start this game.
Fraser - Seemed reticent to take on his man. Was involved in most of our good stuff tho. One of the few who probably gets pass marks.
Paterson - Mystifying choice. Competed, i guess.

McNulty - Did enough to make me not want to see him get another cap. Missed simple chances. Looked like he stropped when we scored. Looks small, not particularly quick and if he's going to miss opportunities like that then he's worse than playing with 10.
McTominay - Looked great actually. Came on, drove the ball forward a few times, was always looking for a forward pass and added some physicality to our otherwise very toothless midfield. Should start every game.
Forrest - Should have started. Took people on, made the 2nd goal with his pace on the counter.

Burke - Languished on the bench despite being our best player in the previous game. Why?
Palmer - Felt a bit bad for him. Should have been given an opportunity again after the Kazakh disaster, so he could show the fans he can actually play. Instead, bombed out the side and will probably never be seen again. 10/10 for McLeish for mishandling that situation.
Fleck - Racked up a lot of air miles for absolutely nothing. Should have just pulled out like Bannan did. What a waste of time.

McLeish - We didn't seem to have a game plan at all, there was no indication that we knew how we were going to win the game. We rolled the ball around and hoped an opening would come. We could have played a defensive mid, overloaded the fullbacks and played Forrest and Fraser to go past people, but we didn't. We could have looked to push San Marino back and delivery quality into the box, knowing that we're bigger and stronger than them and looked to win the game in the air. But we didn't. We just rolled it around with no idea how to approach the banks of 4 and 5, hence the 2nd goal only came when they felt like they might actually win the game and we hit them on the counter.
The players selected made little to no sense. The lack of a defensive mid meant the back 4 had to be reticent for fear of the counter. Forrest not starting was bizarre. Paterson starting ahead of 3 actual strikers was bizarre. Dropping Burke was bizarre. Chucking McNulty on felt like an act of an over-confident manager.. which seemed like the problem against the Kazakh's. Call-offs cease to be a defense of the performance when the manager picks a line-up like this from what's available.
All in all, we lacked a plan, we lacked confidence, we lacked motivation. I don't know what McLeish did in the build-up to this game, but none of it was evident on the pitch. From McLeish's interview, we played Kazakhstan on Thursday, the players had a day off on Friday and we travelled on Saturday. So they basically had a bit of the morning on Sunday to talk about the Kazakh game and prep for San Marino. That's pretty shocking imo.

I just don't see a point in continuing with McLeish. He's ineffectual. Our players aren't as bad as they've played the last 2 games, but they played how they played and the manager has to take responsibility for that. It's not like he's changed something or is trying something new, with new personnel, so there's no excuse for it. And there was zero reaction, to the Kazakh game, against San Marino. Just.. urgh. We're just wasting time and people's careers. Not to mention he's probably straight up ended the international careers of Shinnie and Palmer in 90 minutes, and then denied them the opportunity to put it right.

We're going nowhere, with no leadership, no plan and no hope of qualifying.
Negative goal difference after playing the two weakest teams in the group.
We're in a fight for 3rd instead of a fight for 2nd, and our qualification hopes are pinned on a Nations League play-off that we'll almost certainly lose give these performances.

Just waiting for McLeish to fail enough for the SFA to act now.
No hope of doing anything in games until after that happens.

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1 hour ago, andyD said:

All round awful.

Bain - Doesn't fill me with confidence when the balls around our area. Also still open to the possibility that he's a significant part of the reason our defense is suddenly porous even against low level opposition. Is he vocal enough?
O'Donnell - Thought he was poor. Offered little and gave away a lot of fouls.
Robertson - Poor. Offered little going forwards, none of his quality crosses and no going beyond Fraser. Felt like he was playing a containing game.. against San Marino.
Bates - Got caught with a runner in behind once. Not sure who organises out of our back line. Might be part of the problem.
McKenna - Also got caught with runners. Whether it's a lack of awareness or lasck of calls from the keeper, it needs to improve cos it's far to easy to open us up.
McGregor - Seemed within himself to me. Stray passes, sort of in no-mans land between being an anchoring fulcrum and being involved in forward play meaning he wasn't really anywhere.
McLean - Very, very average. Got the goal (which you'd hope anyone would have scored, free header) but other than that did little. Moved the ball around, but pretty ineffectually.
Armstrong - Seemed to want too many touches all the time. Which with the packed San Marino defense meant he lost the ball a lot. Of the midfield 3 he did the most to create things, but also missed a few simple chances. Not the Armstrong we're used to.
Russell - Bustled a lot. Not sure really what his strengths are. He's.. ok.. at most things. Probably wasn't the right player to start this game.
Fraser - Seemed reticent to take on his man. Was involved in most of our good stuff tho. One of the few who probably gets pass marks.
Paterson - Mystifying choice. Competed, i guess.

McNulty - Did enough to make me not want to see him get another cap. Missed simple chances. Looked like he stropped when we scored. Looks small, not particularly quick and if he's going to miss opportunities like that then he's worse than playing with 10.
McTominay - Looked great actually. Came on, drove the ball forward a few times, was always looking for a forward pass and added some physicality to our otherwise very toothless midfield. Should start every game.
Forrest - Should have started. Took people on, made the 2nd goal with his pace on the counter.

Burke - Languished on the bench despite being our best player in the previous game. Why?
Palmer - Felt a bit bad for him. Should have been given an opportunity again after the Kazakh disaster, so he could show the fans he can actually play. Instead, bombed out the side and will probably never be seen again. 10/10 for McLeish for mishandling that situation.
Fleck - Racked up a lot of air miles for absolutely nothing. Should have just pulled out like Bannan did. What a waste of time.

McLeish - We didn't seem to have a game plan at all, there was no indication that we knew how we were going to win the game. We rolled the ball around and hoped an opening would come. We could have played a defensive mid, overloaded the fullbacks and played Forrest and Fraser to go past people, but we didn't. We could have looked to push San Marino back and delivery quality into the box, knowing that we're bigger and stronger than them and looked to win the game in the air. But we didn't. We just rolled it around with no idea how to approach the banks of 4 and 5, hence the 2nd goal only came when they felt like they might actually win the game and we hit them on the counter.
The players selected made little to no sense. The lack of a defensive mid meant the back 4 had to be reticent for fear of the counter. Forrest not starting was bizarre. Paterson starting ahead of 3 actual strikers was bizarre. Dropping Burke was bizarre. Chucking McNulty on felt like an act of an over-confident manager.. which seemed like the problem against the Kazakh's. Call-offs cease to be a defense of the performance when the manager picks a line-up like this from what's available.
All in all, we lacked a plan, we lacked confidence, we lacked motivation. I don't know what McLeish did in the build-up to this game, but none of it was evident on the pitch. From McLeish's interview, we played Kazakhstan on Thursday, the players had a day off on Friday and we travelled on Saturday. So they basically had a bit of the morning on Sunday to talk about the Kazakh game and prep for San Marino. That's pretty shocking imo.

I just don't see a point in continuing with McLeish. He's ineffectual. Our players aren't as bad as they've played the last 2 games, but they played how they played and the manager has to take responsibility for that. It's not like he's changed something or is trying something new, with new personnel, so there's no excuse for it. And there was zero reaction, to the Kazakh game, against San Marino. Just.. urgh. We're just wasting time and people's careers. Not to mention he's probably straight up ended the international careers of Shinnie and Palmer in 90 minutes, and then denied them the opportunity to put it right.

We're going nowhere, with no leadership, no plan and no hope of qualifying.
Negative goal difference after playing the two weakest teams in the group.
We're in a fight for 3rd instead of a fight for 2nd, and our qualification hopes are pinned on a Nations League play-off that we'll almost certainly lose give these performances.

Just waiting for McLeish to fail enough for the SFA to act now.
No hope of doing anything in games until after that happens.

Aye not a lot to disagree with there. 

McTominay’s touch, passing and general speed of thought was on another’s level to anyone else in midfield. 

Sadly this is déjàvu in terms of the manager, knowing we won’t progress under him but having to wait for bad results before the SFA will act. 

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22 hours ago, macy37 said:

There was plenty cunts stood clapping that shameful performance this evening....

The section  I was standing everyone was booing and shouting abuse at the SFA. However in other areas they were clapping at the end and I just cannot understand why.

Ok, I felt the players made an effort last night even though they were shite and huffed and puffed , and I can understand fans perhaps not booing, but absolutely no way did they deserve to be clapped. Ffs who out there actually thought that performance was acceptable, it really beggars belief. 

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5 hours ago, andyD said:

All round awful.

Bain - Doesn't fill me with confidence when the balls around our area. Also still open to the possibility that he's a significant part of the reason our defense is suddenly porous even against low level opposition. Is he vocal enough?
O'Donnell - Thought he was poor. Offered little and gave away a lot of fouls.
Robertson - Poor. Offered little going forwards, none of his quality crosses and no going beyond Fraser. Felt like he was playing a containing game.. against San Marino.
Bates - Got caught with a runner in behind once. Not sure who organises out of our back line. Might be part of the problem.
McKenna - Also got caught with runners. Whether it's a lack of awareness or lasck of calls from the keeper, it needs to improve cos it's far to easy to open us up.
McGregor - Seemed within himself to me. Stray passes, sort of in no-mans land between being an anchoring fulcrum and being involved in forward play meaning he wasn't really anywhere.
McLean - Very, very average. Got the goal (which you'd hope anyone would have scored, free header) but other than that did little. Moved the ball around, but pretty ineffectually.
Armstrong - Seemed to want too many touches all the time. Which with the packed San Marino defense meant he lost the ball a lot. Of the midfield 3 he did the most to create things, but also missed a few simple chances. Not the Armstrong we're used to.
Russell - Bustled a lot. Not sure really what his strengths are. He's.. ok.. at most things. Probably wasn't the right player to start this game.
Fraser - Seemed reticent to take on his man. Was involved in most of our good stuff tho. One of the few who probably gets pass marks.
Paterson - Mystifying choice. Competed, i guess.

McNulty - Did enough to make me not want to see him get another cap. Missed simple chances. Looked like he stropped when we scored. Looks small, not particularly quick and if he's going to miss opportunities like that then he's worse than playing with 10.
McTominay - Looked great actually. Came on, drove the ball forward a few times, was always looking for a forward pass and added some physicality to our otherwise very toothless midfield. Should start every game.
Forrest - Should have started. Took people on, made the 2nd goal with his pace on the counter.

Burke - Languished on the bench despite being our best player in the previous game. Why?
Palmer - Felt a bit bad for him. Should have been given an opportunity again after the Kazakh disaster, so he could show the fans he can actually play. Instead, bombed out the side and will probably never be seen again. 10/10 for McLeish for mishandling that situation.
Fleck - Racked up a lot of air miles for absolutely nothing. Should have just pulled out like Bannan did. What a waste of time.

McLeish - We didn't seem to have a game plan at all, there was no indication that we knew how we were going to win the game. We rolled the ball around and hoped an opening would come. We could have played a defensive mid, overloaded the fullbacks and played Forrest and Fraser to go past people, but we didn't. We could have looked to push San Marino back and delivery quality into the box, knowing that we're bigger and stronger than them and looked to win the game in the air. But we didn't. We just rolled it around with no idea how to approach the banks of 4 and 5, hence the 2nd goal only came when they felt like they might actually win the game and we hit them on the counter.
The players selected made little to no sense. The lack of a defensive mid meant the back 4 had to be reticent for fear of the counter. Forrest not starting was bizarre. Paterson starting ahead of 3 actual strikers was bizarre. Dropping Burke was bizarre. Chucking McNulty on felt like an act of an over-confident manager.. which seemed like the problem against the Kazakh's. Call-offs cease to be a defense of the performance when the manager picks a line-up like this from what's available.
All in all, we lacked a plan, we lacked confidence, we lacked motivation. I don't know what McLeish did in the build-up to this game, but none of it was evident on the pitch. From McLeish's interview, we played Kazakhstan on Thursday, the players had a day off on Friday and we travelled on Saturday. So they basically had a bit of the morning on Sunday to talk about the Kazakh game and prep for San Marino. That's pretty shocking imo.

I just don't see a point in continuing with McLeish. He's ineffectual. Our players aren't as bad as they've played the last 2 games, but they played how they played and the manager has to take responsibility for that. It's not like he's changed something or is trying something new, with new personnel, so there's no excuse for it. And there was zero reaction, to the Kazakh game, against San Marino. Just.. urgh. We're just wasting time and people's careers. Not to mention he's probably straight up ended the international careers of Shinnie and Palmer in 90 minutes, and then denied them the opportunity to put it right.

We're going nowhere, with no leadership, no plan and no hope of qualifying.
Negative goal difference after playing the two weakest teams in the group.
We're in a fight for 3rd instead of a fight for 2nd, and our qualification hopes are pinned on a Nations League play-off that we'll almost certainly lose give these performances.

Just waiting for McLeish to fail enough for the SFA to act now.
No hope of doing anything in games until after that happens.

That is bang on. Well done. 

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10 minutes ago, csinclair said:

I do find it interesting how much more fragile Bates & McKenna have looked in these games compared to the previous 2. All I can think is maybe McGregor was better at organisation than Bain?

I don’t think there was much problem in San Marino apart from being desperate not to give away a penalty. In Kazakhstan one problem was definitely a lack of a sitting midfielder. McTominay should have played that role. 

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10 hours ago, RenfrewBlue said:

Yes. And we've never beaten them by more than 2-0 away from home. 

Most of the hand wringing about this game is leftover angst from Thursday. 

The San Marino result was good by our own, long established standards. 

It's called realism. 

I think this is fair comment.  OK maybe not "good" but "reasonable" or "sufficient" by our own standards (except if San Marino must have got worse in world terms than before).

That's to say, if we'd sneaked a 0-1 away win in Astana, we'd be not exactly overjoyed but comfortable enough with 0-2 away.

But that's just the result to say nothing of the performance. The performance was hardly a fitting "apology" to make up for the Kazakh game.

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6 minutes ago, exile said:

I think this is fair comment.  OK maybe not "good" but "reasonable" or "sufficient" by our own standards (except if San Marino must have got worse in world terms than before).

That's to say, if we'd sneaked a 0-1 away win in Astana, we'd be not exactly overjoyed but comfortable enough with 0-2 away.

But that's just the result to say nothing of the performance. The performance was hardly a fitting "apology" to make up for the Kazakh game.

I dont think theres any result against San Marino which could have been deemed  an apology.

An apology would be winning the next double header, extremely unlikely but it's the only way to make up for this pish start

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8 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Worringly against San Marino we played with no right sided attack. 

The laboured performance would have been easier to stomach if we’d beaten Kazakhstan. 

Not only that, but we seemed to have no strategy with set pieces, a key part of the modern game. Where is our free kick specialist or penalty taker?

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