Scotland's tipping point

[Tartan Chris]

Just having a look at some of the squads of team that made last 16 of the World cup:

Sweden squad has second choice keeper who plays for Swansea, in defence Filip Helander of Rangers, Lustig is still getting called up and they also have defenders from Brentford and Nottingham Forest.

Called up three players who play for Krasnodar in Russia. It's a long way from the days of Olof Mellberg, Larsson and Freddie Ljungberg but Swedes have fantastic mentality....

as do Switzerland. Regular qualifiers and again pretty much always get out of their group once at the competition. Now they do have some good players in defence but in final third you have Shaqiri who is bench warming at Liverpool, Xhaka who's a regular at Arsenal but pretty rubbish and their strikeforce consists of Drmic (bench warming at Norwich), Ajeti (back up at West Ham) and a Basle striker with one cap although he is 19.

It's generally a myth all the teams who make World cups and euros have 7-8 world class players at leading european clubs. They don't. Yes they'll be a star like a christan Eriksen but they'll be supported by journeyman players from weaker leads.

However most of these nations haven't had 20 + years of failure and all the negativity that resonates with it each time Scotland plays. They also don't generally crumble when they go 1 down in Kazhakstan.

End of the day you can argue how good certain players are but the task for Clarke is somehow make the team tough to score against and have a resilience about it. Not easy at all with the options but many nationals teams produce a tight unit with limited player selection (Iceland) so with a bit of good coaching and also belief and willingness from the players it can be done.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Tartan Chris

[csinclair]

45 minutes ago, Tartan Chris said:

Just having a look at some of the squads of team that made last 16 of the World cup:

Sweden squad has second choice keeper who plays for Swansea, in defence Filip Helander of Rangers, Lustig is still getting called up and they also have defenders from Brentford and Nottingham Forest.

Called up three players who play for Krasnodar in Russia. It's a long way from the days of Olof Mellberg, Larsson and Freddie Ljungberg but Swedes have fantastic mentality....

as do Switzerland. Regular qualifiers and again pretty much always get out of their group once at the competition. Now they do have some good players in defence but in final third you have Shaqiri who is bench warming at Liverpool, Xhaka who's a regular at Arsenal but pretty rubbish and their strikeforce consists of Drmic (bench warming at Norwich), Ajeti (back up at West Ham) and a Basle striker with one cap although he is 19.

It's generally a myth all the teams who make World cups and euros have 7-8 world class players at leading european clubs. They don't. Yes they'll be a star like a christan Eriksen but they'll be supported by journeyman players from weaker leads.

However most of these nations haven't had 20 + years of failure and all the negativity that resonates with it each time Scotland plays. They also don't generally crumble when they go 1 down in Kazhakstan.

End of the day you can argue how good certain players are but the task for Clarke is somehow make the team tough to score against and have a resilience about it. Not easy at all with the options but many nationals teams produce a tight unit with limited player selection (Iceland) so with a bit of good coaching and also belief and willingness from the players it can be done.

Scottish players are just weaker mentally after years of being slautered by their press and their fans

[Dave78]

2 hours ago, Tartan Chris said:

However most of these nations haven't had 20 + years of failure and all the negativity that resonates with it each time Scotland plays. They also don't generally crumble when they go 1 down in Kazhakstan.

It's not just 20 years of failure, it's longer than that. We've had the players to get out of the group stages of a major tournament, yet we've never done it.

Smaller and so-called lesser nations have.

The problem runs deeper than the last 2 decades.

 

2 hours ago, Tartan Chris said:

End of the day you can argue how good certain players are but the task for Clarke is somehow make the team tough to score against and have a resilience about it.

In the next couple of games i might be proven wrong, but i thought i saw the beginnings of this watching us play in Belgium. Especially in the first half. But maybe i was just seeing what i wanted to see.

 

1 hour ago, csinclair said:

Scottish players are just weaker mentally after years of being slautered by their press and their fans

We need to look deeper. It's not just as a result of fans/press criticism.

 

[kwhitelaw]

16 hours ago, The_Dark_Knight said:

I never thought that I would see the day that Scotland - a nation who invented (or at least was in the vicinity) football and a founder member of the sport - would be so bereft of talent that they'd have to go trawling through the third tier of English football. We're used to picking players from the Second tier of English football, and that was embarrassing enough, but to be in a position where we have to pick players from the English third tier. I think that's just a step too far for me.

I don't blame Steve Clarke. He can only pick what's there. I don't blame our players, either, it's not their fault they generally aren't very good. I blame the domestic football clubs in Scotland as well as the SFA. It's clear that we aren't producing good players. We haven't had a real stream of top players since the what, 70's/80's. In the 90s the talent was drying up, but we still have players of the calibre of Colin Hendry, John Collins, Paul Lambert, Barry Ferguson, etc. Below that we produced players like Durie, Gallagher, Burley, etc. Who are our secondary players now? O'Donnell

Each squad announcement is more soul destroying than the last.

Scottish domestic clubs and the SFA as well as the entire footballing system have to be accountable for this.

It's alright people saying "Scotland is a small nation. Do you expect us to produce world class players?". No. I really don't. I except us to produce good players who play at a top level and who are good enough to navigate successfully through a qualification campaign. That isn't too much to hope for. I'm not exactly reaching for the stars with that one.

And the "Small nation" thing makes for a cute argument. Doesn't really cut any mustard when you look at the nuts and bolts, though. Denmark has about the same population as Scotland. Didn't stop them from winning Euro '92. As well as being 13th in the world. Croatia are smaller than Scotland by 2 million and yet they produce players that play for Inter Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc. As well as getting to a World Cup final and they're ranked 7th. Switzerland have 3 million more people than us, 11th in the world. I'm not even going to mention Uruguay who have 3.5million population and yet they won the World Cup twice and are 5th in the word... oh wait... I just did.  Hell, even Northern Ireland and Wales are in the top 30. With ROI just out of the 30.

There are so many apologetics within Scottish football, from the SFA, to the clubs and even to actual Scotland supporters. It's sickening. It's as if literally no one within the realms of Scottish football wants the national team to Improve. The SFA don't bring in a home grown rule because the clubs wouldn't like to be held responsible for having to coach their kids to a decent standard, and because the clubs pretty much vote in members of the SFA, such a rule will never happen.

I've never been more embarrassed being a Scotland supporter of almost 30 years. For me it's a tipping point. I stopped buying official merchandise about 6 years ago. The next step is stop going to matches.

Read it and weep:

Goalkeeper: 1 from English Championship, 2 English from League One.

Defenders: 2 from EPL, 3 from English Championship and 2 from SPL.

Midfield: 6 from EPL and 4 from SPL.

Strikers: 1 from EPL, 1 from English Championship, 1 from SPL and 1 from MLS.

Christ you're a ray of sunshine you are!

not read many of the replies but you mentioned Wales and N.I, they qualified for the last Euros (getting good results against much higher calibre opposition) using players from the Championship and League 1. So players from that level are more than capable of achieving results at international level.  IMO our problem has been a mixture of bad management and a defeatest attitude.

[SWMM82]

14 hours ago, Tartan Chris said:

Just having a look at some of the squads of team that made last 16 of the World cup:

Sweden squad has second choice keeper who plays for Swansea, in defence Filip Helander of Rangers, Lustig is still getting called up and they also have defenders from Brentford and Nottingham Forest.

Called up three players who play for Krasnodar in Russia. It's a long way from the days of Olof Mellberg, Larsson and Freddie Ljungberg but Swedes have fantastic mentality....

as do Switzerland. Regular qualifiers and again pretty much always get out of their group once at the competition. Now they do have some good players in defence but in final third you have Shaqiri who is bench warming at Liverpool, Xhaka who's a regular at Arsenal but pretty rubbish and their strikeforce consists of Drmic (bench warming at Norwich), Ajeti (back up at West Ham) and a Basle striker with one cap although he is 19.

It's generally a myth all the teams who make World cups and euros have 7-8 world class players at leading european clubs. They don't. Yes they'll be a star like a christan Eriksen but they'll be supported by journeyman players from weaker leads.

However most of these nations haven't had 20 + years of failure and all the negativity that resonates with it each time Scotland plays. They also don't generally crumble when they go 1 down in Kazhakstan.

End of the day you can argue how good certain players are but the task for Clarke is somehow make the team tough to score against and have a resilience about it. Not easy at all with the options but many nationals teams produce a tight unit with limited player selection (Iceland) so with a bit of good coaching and also belief and willingness from the players it can be done.

Good post. This inferiority complex we seem to have has become ingrained in us over time.

How many of us are guilty of, because I know I have been in the past, of dismissing our chances before a ball has even been kicked..... especially when we go away to the likes of Georgia and Kazakhstan. You can sense the tension on the pitch never mind in the stands. We must be the only nation that goes into these games already defeated.

Edited August 28, 2019 by SWMM82

[kwhitelaw]

1 hour ago, SWMM82 said:

Good post. This inferiority complex we seem to have has become ingrained in us over time.

How many of us are guilty of, because I know I have been in the past, of dismissing our chances before a ball has even been kicked..... especially when we go away to the likes of Georgia and Kazakhstan. You can sense the tension on the pitch never mind in the stands. We must be the only nation that goes into these games already defeated.

That's a general Scottish trait I'm personally sick of, and which I blame on negative connotations aimed at us such as "subsidy junkies" and "too wee, too stupid" (among others) for god knows how many generations now!  

I don't want to turn this thread into a Yes/No argument but it does make me wonder how our fortunes would have faired if we had a bit more belief in ourselves and we weren't shackled to a mob that do their best to make us feel inferior at every turn.

Edited August 28, 2019 by kwhitelaw

[N4Footsoldier]

I feel this whole end of days patter to be a bit tiresome. Generations of relative success or failure ebb and flow as part of time passing. We had a golden generation in the 70s as well as being respectable before then when football was nowhere near as widely played and watched. That said we're just over 10 years separated from almost (deservedly) dumping either France or Italy out of the Euros.

Realistically there's a slim chance for a country of our relative size to become near world-class in today's widely globalized football climate. Insert whatever socio-economic, cultural, organizational or political miscellaneous reasons for that you like. These things will always be subjective.

Might sound a bit do-eyed and naïve but I'm in the camp of supporting the team to dream of success.

 

[mrniaboc]

2 minutes ago, N4Footsoldier said:

I feel this whole end of days patter to be a bit tiresome. Generations of relative success or failure ebb and flow as part of time passing. We had a golden generation in the 70s as well as being respectable before then when football was nowhere near as widely played and watched. That said we're just over 10 years separated from almost (deservedly) dumping either France or Italy out of the Euros.

Realistically there's a slim chance for a country of our relative size to become near world-class in today's widely globalized football climate. Insert whatever socio-economic, cultural, organizational or political miscellaneous reasons for that you like. These things will always be subjective.

Might sound a bit do-eyed and naïve but I'm in the camp of supporting the team to dream of success.

 

Good stuff mate. If you do in fact live in the same hood as me as your username suggests I'll maybe get a chance to buy you a pint down the pub while actually supporting Scotland, rather than tearing them apart endlessly. 🍻

[N4Footsoldier]

7 minutes ago, mrniaboc said:

Good stuff mate. If you do in fact live in the same hood as me as your username suggests I'll maybe get a chance to buy you a pint down the pub while actually supporting Scotland, rather than tearing them apart endlessly. 🍻

Might take you up on that haha

[PASTA Mick]

I don't think we should be picking League 1 players but do accept that our keeper options are limited.

We do seem to have more EPL players in the squad than we have in any other time I can remember. Also, we have more players that play for the better teams and are amongst the best in the league. Robertson and Fraser are as good as anyone in their respective positions. McTominay and Tierney are both at top end clubs and still quite young.

The really annoying thing is that the appointment of McLeish has set us back years. Clarke has a job to do but I'm hopeful. 

[Clyde1998]

I think the SFA and SPFL need to have a look at what the domestic Scottish game should be. Realistically, our league cannot compete financially with even the English second tier anymore - with the exceptions of Celtic and Rangers. Our top two clubs are, at best, going to reach the Champions League group stages or the second knockout stage of the Europa League. Our best players are going to be leaving for England, or another top European league, at some point.

Therefore, the focus has to shift towards having the Scottish domestic scene as a breeding ground for young Scottish talent and prepare them for their inevitable move away from the Scottish game. The emphasis should be on promoting young Scottish talent ahead of purchasing a 29-year-old from elsewhere, who would, likely, be more expensive for clubs in terms of signing fees and wages and less likely to be sold for money in the future.

The SFA and SPFL have the power to introduce 'home-grown' rules to require clubs to play a certain number of players developed at the club or in Scotland, they have the power to introduce a minimum requirement for the number of young players in a matchday squad and they have the power to limit each club to a certain number of players which could be supplemented by each club's youth team.

Over time, this has the potential improve the standard of the Scottish game whilst increasing our talent pool for the national team.

That of course, should go hand in hand with ensuring that the existing players are able to beat teams like Georgia or Kazakhstan on a consistent basis and give everything for the national team.

[scotlad]

22 hours ago, Tartan Chris said:

Just having a look at some of the squads of team that made last 16 of the World cup:

Sweden squad has second choice keeper who plays for Swansea, in defence Filip Helander of Rangers, Lustig is still getting called up and they also have defenders from Brentford and Nottingham Forest.

Called up three players who play for Krasnodar in Russia. It's a long way from the days of Olof Mellberg, Larsson and Freddie Ljungberg but Swedes have fantastic mentality....

as do Switzerland. Regular qualifiers and again pretty much always get out of their group once at the competition. Now they do have some good players in defence but in final third you have Shaqiri who is bench warming at Liverpool, Xhaka who's a regular at Arsenal but pretty rubbish and their strikeforce consists of Drmic (bench warming at Norwich), Ajeti (back up at West Ham) and a Basle striker with one cap although he is 19.

It's generally a myth all the teams who make World cups and euros have 7-8 world class players at leading european clubs. They don't. Yes they'll be a star like a christan Eriksen but they'll be supported by journeyman players from weaker leads.

However most of these nations haven't had 20 + years of failure and all the negativity that resonates with it each time Scotland plays. They also don't generally crumble when they go 1 down in Kazhakstan.

End of the day you can argue how good certain players are but the task for Clarke is somehow make the team tough to score against and have a resilience about it. Not easy at all with the options but many nationals teams produce a tight unit with limited player selection (Iceland) so with a bit of good coaching and also belief and willingness from the players it can be done.

Sweden, who exceeded all expectations at the 2018 WC, have a first choice keeper who plays for Roma.  They have first choice defenders who play for Manchester Utd and Werder Bremen (and ask yourself why Celtic and Rangers, the only clubs in Scotland with any kind of financial clout, signed Lustig and Helander instead of Scottish alternatives).  Sweden also have midfielders who play in the Bundesliga, Lige 1 and Serie A and forwards who play in Bundesliga and La Liga.

While we do have a decent midfield, we have a journeyman goalkeeper who plays for a struggling English Championship team, English Championship standard centre halves and in the last game we played our forward line was led by a winger who couldn't get a game for an English Championship team.  Two of his main rivals for his position played for Kilmarnock and Hibs (on loan from Reading where he couldnae get a game).

If we had attackers who played for clubs Arsenal and Liverpool, like Switzerland do, people on here would be creaming themselves!  Having a few players from the SPFL or the English second tier is fine if they are just making up the numbers but if the core of your team is made up mainly of players of that standard then you're going to struggle to qualify for anything.

[scotlad]

22 hours ago, csinclair said:

Scottish players are just weaker mentally after years of being slautered by their press and their fans

I think part of the reason for them being slaughtered is unrealistic expectations are heaped upon them.

[mccaughey85]

On 8/27/2019 at 3:28 PM, The_Dark_Knight said:

I never thought that I would see the day that Scotland - a nation who invented (or at least was in the vicinity) football and a founder member of the sport - would be so bereft of talent that they'd have to go trawling through the third tier of English football. We're used to picking players from the Second tier of English football, and that was embarrassing enough, but to be in a position where we have to pick players from the English third tier. I think that's just a step too far for me.

I don't blame Steve Clarke. He can only pick what's there. I don't blame our players, either, it's not their fault they generally aren't very good. I blame the domestic football clubs in Scotland as well as the SFA. It's clear that we aren't producing good players. We haven't had a real stream of top players since the what, 70's/80's. In the 90s the talent was drying up, but we still have players of the calibre of Colin Hendry, John Collins, Paul Lambert, Barry Ferguson, etc. Below that we produced players like Durie, Gallagher, Burley, etc. Who are our secondary players now? O'Donnell

Each squad announcement is more soul destroying than the last.

Scottish domestic clubs and the SFA as well as the entire footballing system have to be accountable for this.

It's alright people saying "Scotland is a small nation. Do you expect us to produce world class players?". No. I really don't. I except us to produce good players who play at a top level and who are good enough to navigate successfully through a qualification campaign. That isn't too much to hope for. I'm not exactly reaching for the stars with that one.

And the "Small nation" thing makes for a cute argument. Doesn't really cut any mustard when you look at the nuts and bolts, though. Denmark has about the same population as Scotland. Didn't stop them from winning Euro '92. As well as being 13th in the world. Croatia are smaller than Scotland by 2 million and yet they produce players that play for Inter Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc. As well as getting to a World Cup final and they're ranked 7th. Switzerland have 3 million more people than us, 11th in the world. I'm not even going to mention Uruguay who have 3.5million population and yet they won the World Cup twice and are 5th in the word... oh wait... I just did.  Hell, even Northern Ireland and Wales are in the top 30. With ROI just out of the 30.

There are so many apologetics within Scottish football, from the SFA, to the clubs and even to actual Scotland supporters. It's sickening. It's as if literally no one within the realms of Scottish football wants the national team to Improve. The SFA don't bring in a home grown rule because the clubs wouldn't like to be held responsible for having to coach their kids to a decent standard, and because the clubs pretty much vote in members of the SFA, such a rule will never happen.

I've never been more embarrassed being a Scotland supporter of almost 30 years. For me it's a tipping point. I stopped buying official merchandise about 6 years ago. The next step is stop going to matches.

Read it and weep:

Goalkeeper: 1 from English Championship, 2 English from League One.

Defenders: 2 from EPL, 3 from English Championship and 2 from SPL.

Midfield: 6 from EPL and 4 from SPL.

Strikers: 1 from EPL, 1 from English Championship, 1 from SPL and 1 from MLS.

You have named about 5 small countries who do well and produce top class players and two of those countries(Denmark and Switzerland) don't produce alot more better players than we do. You mention ROI, Northern Ireland and Wales being high in the rankings but they don't have better players than us(apart from bale) and generally don't produce better players than us. What they have is good management that has allowed them to punch above their weight. Same with Iceland. Your expectations player wise is ridiculous, it's a bit like expecting hibs or hearts to sign world class players or to suddenly produce world class players.

What I can agree with is that we should be looking to improve Scottish football as we need to produce a larger pool of better players that can cut it at epl level. Currently we don't have enough players of this quality and we need to produce more. An overhaul of the game would be good with us copying Dutch and German philosophies. 

Anyways the squad that has been picked is no worse than our other squads from the past 20 years so I don't understand the shock. Expecting us to suddenly start producing top class players because a couple of other small countries do is unrealistic.

[belfast billy]

My son lives in gosport and I go see him regularly he has a season ticket for Portsmouth so I see them quite often . I’ve watched mcgilveray in action and if he’s in goal I’ll have no qualms decent keeper 

[todd]

7 hours ago, belfast billy said:

My son lives in gosport and I go see him regularly he has a season ticket for Portsmouth so I see them quite often . I’ve watched mcgilveray in action and if he’s in goal I’ll have no qualms decent keeper 

He could also end up being the most misspelled player in Scotlands history 😄

[ceudmilefailte]

21 hours ago, PASTA Mick said:

I don't think we should be picking League 1 players but do accept that our keeper options are limited.

We do seem to have more EPL players in the squad than we have in any other time I can remember. Also, we have more players that play for the better teams and are amongst the best in the league. Robertson and Fraser are as good as anyone in their respective positions. McTominay and Tierney are both at top end clubs and still quite young.

The really annoying thing is that the appointment of McLeish has set us back years. Clarke has a job to do but I'm hopeful. 

I thought that too but who was keeping Boyd and Adams out when they were EPL regulars?

[Tartan Chris]

On 8/28/2019 at 10:53 PM, scotlad said:

Sweden, who exceeded all expectations at the 2018 WC, have a first choice keeper who plays for Roma.  They have first choice defenders who play for Manchester Utd and Werder Bremen (and ask yourself why Celtic and Rangers, the only clubs in Scotland with any kind of financial clout, signed Lustig and Helander instead of Scottish alternatives).  Sweden also have midfielders who play in the Bundesliga, Lige 1 and Serie A and forwards who play in Bundesliga and La Liga.

While we do have a decent midfield, we have a journeyman goalkeeper who plays for a struggling English Championship team, English Championship standard centre halves and in the last game we played our forward line was led by a winger who couldn't get a game for an English Championship team.  Two of his main rivals for his position played for Kilmarnock and Hibs (on loan from Reading where he couldnae get a game).

If we had attackers who played for clubs Arsenal and Liverpool, like Switzerland do, people on here would be creaming themselves!  Having a few players from the SPFL or the English second tier is fine if they are just making up the numbers but if the core of your team is made up mainly of players of that standard then you're going to struggle to qualify for anything.

It's not really the core though....you could fix 11 around Tierney, Robertson, McTominey, McGinn and Fraser just about who are all good standard premier league players and then add inform Celtic players. Yes still weak in 3-4 areas but that's the life of 90% of international teams, Holland for example are really struggling upfront atm which is frustrating for them with world class defence and midfield.

You say Sweden there but Robin Olsen was rubbish for Roma last season, dropped and now apparently joining Calgiari who will be fighting relegation. Their likely CB partner for Lindelof is Pontus Jansson....CB for Brentford.

Upfront Quaison has 13 goals in 65 games for Mainz and Marcus Berg a few years back scored 5 goals in 50 odd games for Hamburg. Guidetti has scored 16 goals in 105 games for two La Liga clubs.

What Sweden have is organisation and simple belief they will just qualify. This worked well for Scotland in the 90s. Pretty sure I saw a stat a few years back that said over 60% of international games are decided by set piece goals. No surprise when even a top team like Portugal with one of the greatest players ever play in a defensive style and are very hard to score against.

[scotlad]

2 hours ago, Tartan Chris said:

It's not really the core though....you could fix 11 around Tierney, Robertson, McTominey, McGinn and Fraser just about who are all good standard premier league players and then add inform Celtic players. Yes still weak in 3-4 areas but that's the life of 90% of international teams, Holland for example are really struggling upfront atm which is frustrating for them with world class defence and midfield.

You say Sweden there but Robin Olsen was rubbish for Roma last season, dropped and now apparently joining Calgiari who will be fighting relegation. Their likely CB partner for Lindelof is Pontus Jansson....CB for Brentford.

Upfront Quaison has 13 goals in 65 games for Mainz and Marcus Berg a few years back scored 5 goals in 50 odd games for Hamburg. Guidetti has scored 16 goals in 105 games for two La Liga clubs.

What Sweden have is organisation and simple belief they will just qualify. This worked well for Scotland in the 90s. Pretty sure I saw a stat a few years back that said over 60% of international games are decided by set piece goals. No surprise when even a top team like Portugal with one of the greatest players ever play in a defensive style and are very hard to score against.

None of those Scotland players are centre halves or strikers though. Those are key positions. If you can't score against your opponents and/or stop them from scoring against you you'll struggle to achieve anything.

Craig Brown got us to back to back finals in the 90s and we only conceded 6 goals over two qualifying campaigns. That wasn't just because his teams were organised, it's because he built his defence around Colin Hendry (EPL winner with Blackburn) and Colin Calderwood (regular for Spurs). Behind them Brown had the choice of two excellent goalies (on their day), in Andy Goram and Jim Leighton.

Brown's teams were characterised as being defensive but he still had players like Scott Booth, Kevin Gallacher and Ally McCoist who could score at international level. We have no central defenders or strikers of that calibre now (with the possible exception of Leigh Griffiths, when he's on form). Once those players started to age, we stopped qualifying.

People on here often point to Northern Ireland but their defence was made up mainly of EPL regulars when they made the last Euros.

I don't like being negative and I hope I'm proved wrong but I just don't think we have the right balance of personnel to qualify at the moment. If our defence and attack was as good as our midfield I'd be a lot sunnier though.

[DaveyDenoon]

On 8/29/2019 at 1:37 PM, todd said:

He could also end up being the most misspelled player in Scotlands history 😄

He’ll have to go some to overtake Kenny Dalgleish

[Tartan Chris]

4 hours ago, scotlad said:

None of those Scotland players are centre halves or strikers though. Those are key positions. If you can't score against your opponents and/or stop them from scoring against you you'll struggle to achieve anything.

Craig Brown got us to back to back finals in the 90s and we only conceded 6 goals over two qualifying campaigns. That wasn't just because his teams were organised, it's because he built his defence around Colin Hendry (EPL winner with Blackburn) and Colin Calderwood (regular for Spurs). Behind them Brown had the choice of two excellent goalies (on their day), in Andy Goram and Jim Leighton.

Brown's teams were characterised as being defensive but he still had players like Scott Booth, Kevin Gallacher and Ally McCoist who could score at international level. We have no central defenders or strikers of that calibre now (with the possible exception of Leigh Griffiths, when he's on form). Once those players started to age, we stopped qualifying.

People on here often point to Northern Ireland but their defence was made up mainly of EPL regulars when they made the last Euros.

I don't like being negative and I hope I'm proved wrong but I just don't think we have the right balance of personnel to qualify at the moment. If our defence and attack was as good as our midfield I'd be a lot sunnier though.

I can't deny the CB option are p*** poor. However you can still organise mediocre defenders into a solid unit which is a Clarke strength given the defensive records of clubs he's previous managed (West Brom were decent defensively under his watch). Full back options aren't too bad either so that's a plus.

McBurnie is going to be the best goalscorer for quite a while. Already scored loads in championship for two different clubs and already opened his account in the prem. Need to get his head right for international football but I have high hopes once he settles into international football.

[todd]

17 hours ago, DaveyDenoon said:

He’ll have to go some to overtake Kenny Dalgleish

😄Yeah, its astonishing how many people get that one wrong

[belfast billy]

On 8/27/2019 at 7:30 PM, Texas Pete said:

Wigan have lost a lot of goals so that will always count against a keeper’s stats whether he’s to blame for them or not. 

I know how you love your stats but I always take them with a pinch of salt, especially for keepers. 

Marshall has normally done well for Scotland so I won’t be too worried if he starts the next two games. 

Not sure how I’ll feel if he gets injured though. McLaughlin is a decent keeper from what I’ve seen of him but not quite the same level as what we’re used to. 

I have no clue about McGillivary as I’ve never seen him play. 

My son is a Pompey season ticket holder and jive watched mcgilveray a few times he is a decent keeper 

[tartanmartin]

On 8/27/2019 at 3:28 PM, The_Dark_Knight said:

I never thought that I would see the day that Scotland - a nation who invented (or at least was in the vicinity) football and a founder member of the sport - would be so bereft of talent that they'd have to go trawling through the third tier of English football. We're used to picking players from the Second tier of English football, and that was embarrassing enough, but to be in a position where we have to pick players from the English third tier. I think that's just a step too far for me.

I don't blame Steve Clarke. He can only pick what's there. I don't blame our players, either, it's not their fault they generally aren't very good. I blame the domestic football clubs in Scotland as well as the SFA. It's clear that we aren't producing good players. We haven't had a real stream of top players since the what, 70's/80's. In the 90s the talent was drying up, but we still have players of the calibre of Colin Hendry, John Collins, Paul Lambert, Barry Ferguson, etc. Below that we produced players like Durie, Gallagher, Burley, etc. Who are our secondary players now? O'Donnell

Each squad announcement is more soul destroying than the last.

Scottish domestic clubs and the SFA as well as the entire footballing system have to be accountable for this.

It's alright people saying "Scotland is a small nation. Do you expect us to produce world class players?". No. I really don't. I except us to produce good players who play at a top level and who are good enough to navigate successfully through a qualification campaign. That isn't too much to hope for. I'm not exactly reaching for the stars with that one.

And the "Small nation" thing makes for a cute argument. Doesn't really cut any mustard when you look at the nuts and bolts, though. Denmark has about the same population as Scotland. Didn't stop them from winning Euro '92. As well as being 13th in the world. Croatia are smaller than Scotland by 2 million and yet they produce players that play for Inter Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc. As well as getting to a World Cup final and they're ranked 7th. Switzerland have 3 million more people than us, 11th in the world. I'm not even going to mention Uruguay who have 3.5million population and yet they won the World Cup twice and are 5th in the word... oh wait... I just did.  Hell, even Northern Ireland and Wales are in the top 30. With ROI just out of the 30.

There are so many apologetics within Scottish football, from the SFA, to the clubs and even to actual Scotland supporters. It's sickening. It's as if literally no one within the realms of Scottish football wants the national team to Improve. The SFA don't bring in a home grown rule because the clubs wouldn't like to be held responsible for having to coach their kids to a decent standard, and because the clubs pretty much vote in members of the SFA, such a rule will never happen.

I've never been more embarrassed being a Scotland supporter of almost 30 years. For me it's a tipping point. I stopped buying official merchandise about 6 years ago. The next step is stop going to matches.

Read it and weep:

Goalkeeper: 1 from English Championship, 2 English from League One.

Defenders: 2 from EPL, 3 from English Championship and 2 from SPL.

Midfield: 6 from EPL and 4 from SPL.

Strikers: 1 from EPL, 1 from English Championship, 1 from SPL and 1 from MLS.

Just like all the "anglos" from the 70s and 80s.  hopefully those successful times are just around the corner again - yippee!