Liam Cooper

[andyD]

Well, that was awful. Can we agree that he should be dropped down the list behind Devlin, Bates Hanley, Lindsey Findlay and hell, even Jack Hendry!

Mistakes for the both the goals.

The first is largely Cooper's fault.. I can only assume he he doesn't see Golovin coming, which is an embarrassing lack of awareness.
McTominay's with his name, Robertson's with his man.. Cooper steps up off Golovin to pressure McTominay's man for no apparent reason and it's just dinked in to Golovin who's now wide open. Robertson gets across, and yes, fluffs his clearance.. but the situation never happens if Cooper just stayed with Golovin instead of running off after someone else's man. Defenses can't operate if the players don't play their part in the whole.. and Cooper abandoned his task to try and do someone elses when it wasn't required.

For the 2nd goal, McGregor and Fraser conspire to give the ball away.. Cooper 100% sees Golovin coming this time, but rather than angle to go with the runner, he squares up to the passer. I can only assume he thought he could cut out the pass somehow, but as soon as he's square he's screwed. He's not 10ft wide, so the pass is easy and Golovin leaves him for dead as Cooper can't get moving after squaring up. It's an easy cross under no pressure for Golovin as a result.

All round it was an embarrassingly poor display.
I've seen enough to draw a line thru his name.

[PASTA Mick]

He is a really poor player - I've been saying it for years. 

Sad state of affairs that Mulgrew is still our best CB. 

[romanticscot]

Mulgrew I felt was our best player on Friday night(perhaps a 6), but is he the best taker of a free kick we had?  I think if we have Snodgrass starting today then he may be better. 

[Tartan_McCole]

31 minutes ago, andyD said:

Robertson gets across, and yes, fluffs his clearance.. but the situation never happens if Cooper just stayed with Golovin instead of running off after someone else's man.

While I agree about your general point about him being rotten, I dare say he's sitting somewhere thinking if only Robertson cleared it properly.

[andyD]

27 minutes ago, Tartan_McCole said:

While I agree about your general point about him being rotten, I dare say he's sitting somewhere thinking if only Robertson cleared it properly.

"..then he would have covered my ass"?

[ceudmilefailte]

Was wondering how long the anti cooper thread would take. Surprised no one has brought the McBurie one up yet.

Neither were as good or as bad as any one the pitch

[runningtings]

I thought Cooper did ok against a giant of a man. Maybe it was different on the telly for the armchair fans though.

[Tartan_McCole]

17 hours ago, andyD said:

"..then he would have covered my ass"?

Up for debate. If Cooper done his job then it would have been him covering Robertsons error. In case it sounds like I'm making a case for him, I am not. Believe me

[andyD]

17 hours ago, runningtings said:

I thought Cooper did ok against a giant of a man. Maybe it was different on the telly for the armchair fans though.

Cooper barely went near Dzyuba, Mulgrew was handling him all night. Cooper spent the night not picking up Golovin.

Maybe seeing it on the telly made it clearer what people were doing and where.

[andyD]

17 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Was wondering how long the anti cooper thread would take. Surprised no one has brought the McBurie one up yet.

Neither were as good or as bad as any one the pitch

Don't think McBurnie did well or badly, he had next to nothing to work with.

Cooper however was at fault for both goals. Where the line between realistic assessment of events, and 'anti-cooper'?
If either of the things i pointed out wrong or slanted?

Thought he was poor again last night, tho poor against Belgium is different to me from poor against Russia. Yet to see what he adds tho.

[BremnerLorimerGray]

Cooper is rotten.  He's rotten for Leeds so it isn't a surprise that he is a million miles away from the standard of International football.

[mccaughey85]

Overall I didn't think cooper was too bad, fact is we have no centre backs that are able to compete at international level. 

[wanderer]

Think Cooper was always somewhat doomed to failure coming into these two games.

Clarke has basically spoke him up since the minute he was through the door, and this is after the previous two Scotland managers have had him in squads and deemed him not even good enough to make the bench, so he was always going to need to put in a shift in these two games (if it had been Cyprus and Kazakhstan we played this week, then he might have got away with it and time to settle in, but he was put straight into the deep end from the off).

[0Neils40yarder]

I actually thought he done not too badly last night

[mccaughey85]

1 minute ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

I actually thought he done not too badly last night

You could of swapped cooper for any of our centre backs and I am confident we still would of lost 4 nil. It was a mismatch all over the pitch and reality is we would always struggle against Belgium.

[mccaughey85]

7 minutes ago, BremnerLorimerGray said:

Cooper is rotten.  He's rotten for Leeds so it isn't a surprise that he is a million miles away from the standard of International football.

Problem is do we have anyone significantly better. I don't think we have.

[Bino's]

25 minutes ago, andyD said:

Don't think McBurnie did well or badly, he had next to nothing to work with.

Cooper however was at fault for both goals. Where the line between realistic assessment of events, and 'anti-cooper'?
If either of the things i pointed out wrong or slanted?

Thought he was poor again last night, tho poor against Belgium is different to me from poor against Russia. Yet to see what he adds tho.

Robertson was at fault for the first Russia goal

McGregor the second

O'Donnell was at fault for the first and last Belgian goal

McLean the second

And Mulgrew was simply out jumped by a better player for the third

[mccaughey85]

1 minute ago, Bino's said:

Robertson was at fault for the first Russia goal

McGregor the second

O'Donnell was at fault for the first and last Belgian goal

McLean the second

And Mulgrew was simply out jumped by a better player for the third

I think mulgrew did ok over the two games. I would happy keep him and try somebody alongside him like souttar or McKenna.

[daviebee]

25 minutes ago, Bino's said:

Robertson was at fault for the first Russia goal

McGregor the second

O'Donnell was at fault for the first and last Belgian goal

McLean the second

And Mulgrew was simply out jumped by a better player for the third

Utter nonsense.

1st goal: O'Donnell was challenging  Mertens.  Who was covering the runs of De Bruyne and Lukaku when Robertson got left 2 v 1?

4th goal: O'Donnell came across to challenge Lukaku as the 2 centre-halves got totally done with a  simple ball over the top.

See for yourself:

 

 

[andyD]

51 minutes ago, Bino's said:

Robertson was at fault for the first Russia goal

McGregor the second

O'Donnell was at fault for the first and last Belgian goal

McLean the second

And Mulgrew was simply out jumped by a better player for the third

1) And Robertson was having to come across to try and tackle Cooper's man because? Oh yeah, because Cooper had left him alone in the area to go chasing the ball for no reason. Not saying Robertson played no part, but Robertson wouldn't be there trying to do that if Cooper had just marked his man.

2) McGregor caused us to loose the ball, yeah. But McGregor didn't let Cooper man run free and slip the cross in, did he?

3) Wrong and wrong. That's a desperate bit of blame assignment there. O'Donnell covered the run of Lukaku that Cooper had somehow not seen.. so it's O'Donnell's fault when Cooper stands around instead of picking up the man in the position O'Donnell vacated. Genius interpretation of events to be fair!

4) Yep, McLean was asleep for the Vermaelen goal. Really no excuse for that.

5) Well, 'out jumped' is an odd term considering Alderweireld didn't jump, but i think we kind of agree.

So Cooper's only be the main culprit in 3 goals in our last 2 games. Swap the name Cooper for Hanley.. now imagine the pelters he'd be getting. Weird eh.

[ParisInAKilt]

Blaming individual defenders is fairly short sighted, even if they aren’t the best it must be one of the hardest gigs in international football with almost zero protection 

[Yorkie]

1 hour ago, BremnerLorimerGray said:

Cooper is rotten.  He's rotten for Leeds so it isn't a surprise that he is a million miles away from the standard of International football.

No he isn't rotten for Leeds. He's decent for Leeds. English Championship team of the year last year.

He's just one of a bunch of centre backs that Scotland have available (Devlin, Souttar, Hanley, Lindsay, McKenna etc) who are all of a relatively similar level - limited. Doesn't really matter which of these gets played but I wish Clarke would pick a centre back pairing and just stick with it. Only way you're going to get a better product in central defence is by letting a couple of those guys get used to playing alongside one another over a series of games.

[andyD]

30 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

 I wish Clarke would pick a centre back pairing and just stick with it. Only way you're going to get a better product in central defence is by letting a couple of those guys get used to playing alongside one another over a series of games.

To be fair to Clarke his hands were tied for this double header. But for 4 injuries, Cooper wouldn't have been in the squad at all let alone the 11.

[andyD]

33 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Blaming individual defenders is fairly short sighted, even if they aren’t the best it must be one of the hardest gigs in international football with almost zero protection 

Can't argue that they're well protected, our midfield disolved in both games, with only McTominay showing up and he was overwhelmed as a result in both games.

But.. and there's a big but.. there are errors which should not happen. e.g. McLean just not bothering to mark Vermaelen. There's zero excuse for that. Before the ball comes in, McLean looks over his shoulder, seems Vermaelen and i guess thinks "it's ok, he's back there somewhere" and then watches the ball until it's in the back of the net. He's not close to his man, he's not goalside of his man, he just knows he's somewhere that McLean can't see him.. and he's happy with that as the situation. That's not acceptable play.

Similarly, Cooper stepping up off Golovin for Dzyuba's goal.. Did he not see him? If he saw him it's a crazy thing to do, and if he didn't see him then.. well.. that's appalling awareness, and awareness is half your job as a defender. If it was one mistake, ok. But squaring up instead of going with your runner (as he did for Russia's second) is schoolboy stuff. Seeing that O'Donnell has covered your man that you let go, and not making the effort to cover O'Donnell's man is schoolboy stuff.  Another incident off the top of my head was when he nudged a clearance out to Tielemans on the edge of the area which should have then been punished.

These aren't failures of the team, leaving him exposed, they're individual things. Things he could personally do better, and should have done better. Contrast that with Robertson for Belgium's opener.. he's screwed at that point. 2v1 and while he tries to position himself correctly, de Bruyne's good enough to make that lay off with ease. There's no error by Robertson there.

[ParisInAKilt]

3 minutes ago, andyD said:

Can't argue that they're well protected, our midfield disolved in both games, with only McTominay showing up and he was overwhelmed as a result in both games.

But.. and there's a big but.. there are errors which should not happen. e.g. McLean just not bothering to mark Vermaelen. There's zero excuse for that. Before the ball comes in, McLean looks over his shoulder, seems Vermaelen and i guess thinks "it's ok, he's back there somewhere" and then watches the ball until it's in the back of the net. He's not close to his man, he's not goalside of his man, he just knows he's somewhere that McLean can't see him.. and he's happy with that as the situation. That's not acceptable play.

Similarly, Cooper stepping up off Golovin for Dzyuba's goal.. Did he not see him? If he saw him it's a crazy thing to do, and if he didn't see him then.. well.. that's appalling awareness, and awareness is half your job as a defender. If it was one mistake, ok. But squaring up instead of going with your runner (as he did for Russia's second) is schoolboy stuff. Seeing that O'Donnell has covered your man that you let go, and not making the effort to cover O'Donnell's man is schoolboy stuff.  Another incident off the top of my head was when he nudged a clearance out to Tielemans on the edge of the area which should have then been punished.

These aren't failures of the team, leaving him exposed, they're individual things. Things he could personally do better, and should have done better. Contrast that with Robertson for Belgium's opener.. he's screwed at that point. 2v1 and while he tries to position himself correctly, de Bruyne's good enough to make that lay off with ease. There's no error by Robertson there.

We’ve been making similar individual errors for as long as I’ve been watching us. 

I think now I’m at the stage of just accepting we’re shite but might pull off the occasional upset and have no place at an international tournament. 

Edited September 10, 2019 by ParisInAKilt