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2 Wins away...


GaryWood34

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12 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

I think the most obvious reason that our percentages have dropped is that we have got much, much worse.

However, I'd assume that home win percentages are down in football in general, as the game gets more and more defensive, and counter-attacking 4-5-1 away from home is a much easier art form than coming out and attacking and breaking teams down when you are the home team, who have higher expectations/pressure of gaining the three points.

 

I think as other people mentioned, there are plenty of non-big teams who have taken points off us at home recently. I think that you are mistaken in that assertion. If we look at a ten year time frame, it's Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Wales, Macedonia, Serbia, and Czech Republic. That's seven slip-ups in the last five campaigns, WITHOUT including any of the 'big teams.' We've dropped points every single time against the big team, on top of that, so that takes us up to 12 home slip-ups in the past 5 campaigns. That is a fairly horrible record, the opposite of your claim in fact.

Apologies mate, I think I'm maybe not making my point clearly.

I'm not trying to say we have an absolutely amazing home record. Otherwise we would probably be qualifying all the time. What I'm saying is that our home record against teams of the standard that we will be playing in the upcoming playoffs makes a case against sheer pessimism. I don't think we will qualify, but I think it's a lot less doom and gloom than many are making out. We will not get this good a chance again any time soon.

Finally, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to say Russia are not a top team. They very recently got to the quarter finals of a world cup, only going out on penalties to the eventual runners up. Also, Wales were on the start of a path that led them into the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings and the semi finals of the Euros when they beat us.

Just trying to spread a little glimmer of optimism. 

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3 hours ago, mrniaboc said:

Apologies mate, I think I'm maybe not making my point clearly.

I'm not trying to say we have an absolutely amazing home record. Otherwise we would probably be qualifying all the time. What I'm saying is that our home record against teams of the standard that we will be playing in the upcoming playoffs makes a case against sheer pessimism. I don't think we will qualify, but I think it's a lot less doom and gloom than many are making out. We will not get this good a chance again any time soon.

Finally, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to say Russia are not a top team. They very recently got to the quarter finals of a world cup, only going out on penalties to the eventual runners up. Also, Wales were on the start of a path that led them into the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings and the semi finals of the Euros when they beat us.

Just trying to spread a little glimmer of optimism. 

I feel losing to Serbia, Poland, Russia is not a real shame, maybe I just am too pessimistic about our side but the reality is Serbia normally is strong on paper, Poland have been solid the past 5 years. Russia is always at the big tournaments, they may not be a top 10 side in the world but they have a good history of beating strong sides and making tournaments. I guess it's a lot to do with the fact these sides have players regularly in the UCL Group Stage/Knockout rounds or going far in Europa League. More high pressure high stake matches meaning they are less likely to crumble under pressure. 

I will be shocked if we qualify! 

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4 hours ago, dohadeer said:

Ok, I think I understand now.....

IF we had taken full points against the bottom two seeds, on top of any other points we actually accumulated in other matches, we would have at least reached the playoffs.

 

Researching this now makes for several unbelievable statistics!

Firstly, in the 11 qualifying campaigns since 1998, when we last qualified, we have only taken a maximum 12 points against the bottom two seeds in our group on one occasion. Now, international football is tricky, and I certainly wouldn't expect us to always beat the bottom two seeds, especially away. Some of the bottom two seeds we have faced in that time have been teams who turned out to be very good. However, I'd expect us to take the maximum 12 points more than once in 11 campaigns! That is a horrific performance.

The only manager who achieved the feat was Craig Brown, in the qualifying campaign for World Cup 2002. The campaign was still unsuccessful though, and we didn't even reach the playoffs. Vogts, Smith, McLeish during both his tenures, Burley, Levein and Strachan all suffered not only slip-ups against at least one of the bottom two seeds in the group, but amazingly they've all suffered defeats against at least one of the bottom two seeds!

Next amazing stat is that, these results against the bottom two seeds made a difference to whether we failed to qualify/made the playoffs/qualified automatically on SEVEN occasions out of the 9 relevant qualifying groups where we slipped up against the bottom teams. 

Amazingly, if we had won all games against the bottom two seeds, and we added those results to our actual results in the other group games, instead of only having two playoffs to show for those 9 qualifying campaigns in question, we'd have 6 playoffs and 2 automatic qualifications!

Unbelievable, and I'm not sure why this hasn't been more widely spoken about!

Good read, thanks. I actually posted a thread here a few months back about our record against Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, Pot 4 etc sides. Can't remember the name of the thread but it also digs into what you said more extensively. 

No business making tournaments if you can't be consistent though. Need to get the job done regularly, that's what I feel some people don't realise about some of these nations that we think we can get past because they are not a "big" nation. Their are plenty of teams that make tournaments, go on occasional runs at a major tournament. It creates/breeds mental toughness and winning. 

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5 hours ago, mrniaboc said:

Apologies mate, I think I'm maybe not making my point clearly.

I'm not trying to say we have an absolutely amazing home record. Otherwise we would probably be qualifying all the time. What I'm saying is that our home record against teams of the standard that we will be playing in the upcoming playoffs makes a case against sheer pessimism. I don't think we will qualify, but I think it's a lot less doom and gloom than many are making out. We will not get this good a chance again any time soon.

Finally, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to say Russia are not a top team. They very recently got to the quarter finals of a world cup, only going out on penalties to the eventual runners up. Also, Wales were on the start of a path that led them into the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings and the semi finals of the Euros when they beat us.

Just trying to spread a little glimmer of optimism. 

I think that's about 3 negatives in there, so I think you are saying that Russia ARE a top team?

Wales came out of pot 6 when they beat us home and away. That's how bad they had become. Their only other win in that campaign was at home to Macedonia. They were pretty pish back then but still managed to beat us twice.

 

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16 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

 

Wales came out of pot 6 when they beat us home and away. That's how bad they had become. Their only other win in that campaign was at home to Macedonia. They were pretty pish back then but still managed to beat us twice.

 

The game in Cardiff was a watershed moment for them I think. In the build up to that game Coleman was struggling and the general feeling among the Wales fans that day was that Scoltand would win comfortably and Coleman would get the bullet.

Two late goals from Bale and they never really looked back.

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45 minutes ago, Lion Rampant said:

The game in Cardiff was a watershed moment for them I think. In the build up to that game Coleman was struggling and the general feeling among the Wales fans that day was that Scoltand would win comfortably and Coleman would get the bullet.

Two late goals from Bale and they never really looked back.

Not to mention a disallowed goal that would have made it 2 nil, which was a garbage decision in and of itself. 

Fine margins, and so on. 

Anyway; for me the ideal draw would be Isreal; a known quantity that we beat at Hampden in the recent past under a previous, much maligned and badly disorganised regime.  We are a better side now than we were then, with some good players to come back. For my money Cyprus are a better side than Isreal, based purely on watching the four games we have had with both teams in the last wee  period. 

I don't think there is a great deal to fear from the pother possible opponents, but they look the weakest to me and, frankly, we have a good working knowledge of them already. 

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16 minutes ago, AndyDD said:

Not to mention a disallowed goal that would have made it 2 nil, which was a garbage decision in and of itself. 

Fine margins, and so on. 

Anyway; for me the ideal draw would be Isreal; a known quantity that we beat at Hampden in the recent past under a previous, much maligned and badly disorganised regime.  We are a better side now than we were then, with some good players to come back. For my money Cyprus are a better side than Isreal, based purely on watching the four games we have had with both teams in the last wee  period. 

I don't think there is a great deal to fear from the pother possible opponents, but they look the weakest to me and, frankly, we have a good working knowledge of them already. 

Israel would be my preference also, Bulgaria second.

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1 hour ago, Lion Rampant said:

The game in Cardiff was a watershed moment for them I think. In the build up to that game Coleman was struggling and the general feeling among the Wales fans that day was that Scoltand would win comfortably and Coleman would get the bullet.

Two late goals from Bale and they never really looked back.

That might have given them a wee spark of hope but they only won two more games after that and one of them was at Hampden. They got an easier draw in the next campaign and whilst they weren't brilliant they managed to build a team around their top players (who always seemed to turn up) and do enough to qualify. I think their real turning point was when they beat Belgium in Cardiff and started to realise that they were good enough to beat anybody if they had a good day. That was their only really impressive win until they got to the 2016 finals, when they went on a great run.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Orraloon said:

That might have given them a wee spark of hope but they only won two more games after that and one of them was at Hampden. They got an easier draw in the next campaign and whilst they weren't brilliant they managed to build a team around their top players (who always seemed to turn up) and do enough to qualify. I think their real turning point was when they beat Belgium in Cardiff and started to realise that they were good enough to beat anybody if they had a good day. That was their only really impressive win until they got to the 2016 finals, when they went on a great run.

 

 

Yeah, fair point but I think had we won that game then Coleman would likely have got sacked and they could have been back at square one.

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1 minute ago, Lion Rampant said:

Israel would be my preference also, Bulgaria second.

Me too. 

If we do get Israel that could be a big pressure game for Clarke. If we didn't win that game then it would be difficult to argue (although some still would) that Clarke is a better manager than McLeish.

 

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1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

I think that's about 3 negatives in there, so I think you are saying that Russia ARE a top team?

Wales came out of pot 6 when they beat us home and away. That's how bad they had become. Their only other win in that campaign was at home to Macedonia. They were pretty pish back then but still managed to beat us twice.

 

Meant to say "would", not "wouldn't". But yes. 

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3 minutes ago, Lion Rampant said:

Yeah, fair point but I think had we won that game then Coleman would likely have got sacked and they could have been back at square one.

Aye, I think you're right. He would have gone.

With a new manager they might not have beaten us at Hampden, been in a lower pot for 2016 qualifying and got a tougher group? We might not have seen Bale at a major finals? Fine margins, right enough. :lol:

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5 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Me too. 

If we do get Israel that could be a big pressure game for Clarke. If we didn't win that game then it would be difficult to argue (although some still would) that Clarke is a better manager than McLeish.

 

It would definitely bring into question his suitability to this job, as it would be hard to argue it wasn't a clear example of regression. 

But the McLeish who managed Scotland the second time around is not the same guy who used to be a manager of some considerable talent and the shambolic decision to appoint him put an unfair stain on the reputation of one of our best ever players and someone who was a solid enough manager in his short lived first spell. Current day McLeish is not as good at football management as Steve Clarke. I don't ultimately think that could be in any sensible dispute, no matter what. 

 

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16 minutes ago, AndyDD said:

It would definitely bring into question his suitability to this job, as it would be hard to argue it wasn't a clear example of regression. 

But the McLeish who managed Scotland the second time around is not the same guy who used to be a manager of some considerable talent and the shambolic decision to appoint him put an unfair stain on the reputation of one of our best ever players and someone who was a solid enough manager in his short lived first spell. Current day McLeish is not as good at football management as Steve Clarke. I don't ultimately think that could be in any sensible dispute, no matter what. 

 

Well, let's see. Hopefully we get Israel and it can be put to the test. ;)

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1 hour ago, AndyDD said:

It would definitely bring into question his suitability to this job, as it would be hard to argue it wasn't a clear example of regression. 

But the McLeish who managed Scotland the second time around is not the same guy who used to be a manager of some considerable talent and the shambolic decision to appoint him put an unfair stain on the reputation of one of our best ever players and someone who was a solid enough manager in his short lived first spell. Current day McLeish is not as good at football management as Steve Clarke. I don't ultimately think that could be in any sensible dispute, no matter what. 

 

I think that this kind of highlights another reason why we are in the terrible position we find ourselves in. In the last 20 years, since Craig Brown, we have flown through different managerial regimes, at a serious rate of knots. To suggest that one result can show whether we have progressed or regressed is a bit crazy, as anything can happen in 90 minutes of football.

Steve Clarke is quite clearly the best available and interested Scottish manager for the job, regardless of whether we lose to Israel, or go on and qualify. Fans with overly high expectations, who think that the grass is always greener, and changing the manager will solve everything, are a huge problem with football in general currently. Obviously, as a team who has on the whole under-achieved for 20 years, our fans are going to have more opportunities than most to be discontented, and to want the manager to change.

In my opinion, when you appoint an international manager, you should appoint the best available manager from your country, someone who has a proven track record, and a long career, with success at several different teams. You should then give them 8 years, (4 campaigns), to do what they can do with the national team, and longer if they are successful obviously. There are so few international matches, and campaigns are so short, that they can turn on things like luck of the draw, key decisions, injuries, a fortunate deflection etc, etc. It's therefore crazy to be judging managers on such short campaigns, they have to be given time to make a difference.

Obviously some wise-crackers on here will say 'imagine what state we'd be in if Levein was given 8 years,' or some similar comment against whichever manager they personally disliked. However, the point is, appoint the person who has the best credentials for the job, and then give them time to do the job. Judge them after a fair amount of time, not on individual matches.

I blame our fans for hounding out managers so quickly, as yet another reason why we are in a 20-year free fall. The 'grass is always greener' merchants managed to get Strachan swapped for McLeish, when we were actually at one of our highest points of the past 20 years. That sums up how much damage these people have done to our team.

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3 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

I think that this kind of highlights another reason why we are in the terrible position we find ourselves in. In the last 20 years, since Craig Brown, we have flown through different managerial regimes, at a serious rate of knots. To suggest that one result can show whether we have progressed or regressed is a bit crazy, as anything can happen in 90 minutes of football.

Steve Clarke is quite clearly the best available and interested Scottish manager for the job, regardless of whether we lose to Israel, or go on and qualify. Fans with overly high expectations, who think that the grass is always greener, and changing the manager will solve everything, are a huge problem with football in general currently. Obviously, as a team who has on the whole under-achieved for 20 years, our fans are going to have more opportunities than most to be discontented, and to want the manager to change.

In my opinion, when you appoint an international manager, you should appoint the best available manager from your country, someone who has a proven track record, and a long career, with success at several different teams. You should then give them 8 years, (4 campaigns), to do what they can do with the national team, and longer if they are successful obviously. There are so few international matches, and campaigns are so short, that they can turn on things like luck of the draw, key decisions, injuries, a fortunate deflection etc, etc. It's therefore crazy to be judging managers on such short campaigns, they have to be given time to make a difference.

Obviously some wise-crackers on here will say 'imagine what state we'd be in if Levein was given 8 years,' or some similar comment against whichever manager they personally disliked. However, the point is, appoint the person who has the best credentials for the job, and then give them time to do the job. Judge them after a fair amount of time, not on individual matches.

I blame our fans for hounding out managers so quickly, as yet another reason why we are in a 20-year free fall. The 'grass is always greener' merchants managed to get Strachan swapped for McLeish, when we were actually at one of our highest points of the past 20 years. That sums up how much damage these people have done to our team.

@Farcity, you are spot on with this one. It’s him alright. 😂

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10 hours ago, mrniaboc said:

Apologies mate, I think I'm maybe not making my point clearly.

I'm not trying to say we have an absolutely amazing home record. Otherwise we would probably be qualifying all the time. What I'm saying is that our home record against teams of the standard that we will be playing in the upcoming playoffs makes a case against sheer pessimism. I don't think we will qualify, but I think it's a lot less doom and gloom than many are making out. We will not get this good a chance again any time soon.

Finally, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to say Russia are not a top team. They very recently got to the quarter finals of a world cup, only going out on penalties to the eventual runners up. Also, Wales were on the start of a path that led them into the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings and the semi finals of the Euros when they beat us.

Just trying to spread a little glimmer of optimism. 

Yes, we have a great (undeserved) chance of qualifying.

However, as shown, our home record is pretty abysmal.

12 slip-ups in 24 qualifiers. 12 in 20 when you sensibly remove Liechtenstein, Gibraltar, Malta and San Marino from the statistics, (although we almost managed to slip up against Liechtenstein as well!)

 

I see what point you're trying to make, and agree that we have a good chance of qualifying, but please don't kid yourself that our home record is anything but very poor. I didn't realise how bad it was until I put down the cold, hard facts. It probably seems respectable, in terms of months and years, because international matches are so far apart, it seems like we don't slip up that often! I probably thought the same. However, we've dropped points in 50% of our home qualifiers in the last 10 years. 60% if you remove the teams mentioned above, who pretty much nobody drops points against.

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4 minutes ago, WCTA said:

@Farcity, you are spot on with this one. It’s him alright. 😂

I'm guessing that you're suggesting I'm another poster?

I've only ever had this account, and I've had it for about 15 years. I'm assuming I've given a similar viewpoint to someone else, is that what you're saying? Just coincidence I'm afraid, sorry to disappoint you.

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3 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

I think that this kind of highlights another reason why we are in the terrible position we find ourselves in. In the last 20 years, since Craig Brown, we have flown through different managerial regimes, at a serious rate of knots. To suggest that one result can show whether we have progressed or regressed is a bit crazy, as anything can happen in 90 minutes of football.

Steve Clarke is quite clearly the best available and interested Scottish manager for the job, regardless of whether we lose to Israel, or go on and qualify. Fans with overly high expectations, who think that the grass is always greener, and changing the manager will solve everything, are a huge problem with football in general currently. Obviously, as a team who has on the whole under-achieved for 20 years, our fans are going to have more opportunities than most to be discontented, and to want the manager to change.

In my opinion, when you appoint an international manager, you should appoint the best available manager from your country, someone who has a proven track record, and a long career, with success at several different teams. You should then give them 8 years, (4 campaigns), to do what they can do with the national team, and longer if they are successful obviously. There are so few international matches, and campaigns are so short, that they can turn on things like luck of the draw, key decisions, injuries, a fortunate deflection etc, etc. It's therefore crazy to be judging managers on such short campaigns, they have to be given time to make a difference.

Obviously some wise-crackers on here will say 'imagine what state we'd be in if Levein was given 8 years,' or some similar comment against whichever manager they personally disliked. However, the point is, appoint the person who has the best credentials for the job, and then give them time to do the job. Judge them after a fair amount of time, not on individual matches.

I blame our fans for hounding out managers so quickly, as yet another reason why we are in a 20-year free fall. The 'grass is always greener' merchants managed to get Strachan swapped for McLeish, when we were actually at one of our highest points of the past 20 years. That sums up how much damage these people have done to our team.

I'd not be sacking Clarke under those circumstances, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think his position won't be brought into question in such a scenario. 

Of course it will. 

My hope is that he stays the course and Maxwell is strong enough to retain him regardless of this questioning and scrutiny. 

Having a blanket rule of giving 8 years, though, is a bit silly. Two campaigns would be more reasonable, but if we make a bad appointment and stick to it out of bloody mindedness when there are better options available we would be making a mistake. 

It was a mistake to get rid of Strachan in my view, but not a mistake to get rid of Levein. A hard and fast rule is going to tie your hands and I think a balance can be achieved between giving a reasonable crack at the whip to grow something and refusing to remove someone until they have had 4 campaigns, even if the fans and many players have chucked it. Even if it is obvious that the ship is sinking and won't refloat itself. 

Had we not swapped out Strachan for Mcleish I do wonder where we'd be. On the flipside I wonder if Strachan could have gotten us over the line had he been brought in to replace Levein at an earlier juncture. Or where we would be if Clarke had been appointed instead of McLeish. 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

I'm guessing that you're suggesting I'm another poster?

I've only ever had this account, and I've had it for about 15 years. I'm assuming I've given a similar viewpoint to someone else, is that what you're saying? Just coincidence I'm afraid, sorry to disappoint you.

Nah, it's just you grammar is too good

 

11 minutes ago, WCTA said:

@Farcity, you are spot on with this one. It’s him alright. 😂

Pretty impressive if this was 15 years in the making, he did join in 2005.

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9 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

Yes, we have a great (undeserved) chance of qualifying.

However, as shown, our home record is pretty abysmal.

12 slip-ups in 24 qualifiers. 12 in 20 when you sensibly remove Liechtenstein, Gibraltar, Malta and San Marino from the statistics, (although we almost managed to slip up against Liechtenstein as well!)

 

I see what point you're trying to make, and agree that we have a good chance of qualifying, but please don't kid yourself that our home record is anything but very poor. I didn't realise how bad it was until I put down the cold, hard facts. It probably seems respectable, in terms of months and years, because international matches are so far apart, it seems like we don't slip up that often! I probably thought the same. However, we've dropped points in 50% of our home qualifiers in the last 10 years. 60% if you remove the teams mentioned above, who pretty much nobody drops points against.

It's a little biased to remove the bottom seeds and not do the same for the top seeds when talking about points we are sensibly meant to be able to win. 

It would be interesting to compare our home stats in the last few years to the away stats of Bulgaria, Romania, Israel, Hungary, Serbia, and Norway. Just wish I had the time to pull all those stats! 

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21 minutes ago, dohadeer said:

I think that this kind of highlights another reason why we are in the terrible position we find ourselves in. In the last 20 years, since Craig Brown, we have flown through different managerial regimes, at a serious rate of knots. To suggest that one result can show whether we have progressed or regressed is a bit crazy, as anything can happen in 90 minutes of football.

Steve Clarke is quite clearly the best available and interested Scottish manager for the job, regardless of whether we lose to Israel, or go on and qualify. Fans with overly high expectations, who think that the grass is always greener, and changing the manager will solve everything, are a huge problem with football in general currently. Obviously, as a team who has on the whole under-achieved for 20 years, our fans are going to have more opportunities than most to be discontented, and to want the manager to change.

In my opinion, when you appoint an international manager, you should appoint the best available manager from your country, someone who has a proven track record, and a long career, with success at several different teams. You should then give them 8 years, (4 campaigns), to do what they can do with the national team, and longer if they are successful obviously. There are so few international matches, and campaigns are so short, that they can turn on things like luck of the draw, key decisions, injuries, a fortunate deflection etc, etc. It's therefore crazy to be judging managers on such short campaigns, they have to be given time to make a difference.

Obviously some wise-crackers on here will say 'imagine what state we'd be in if Levein was given 8 years,' or some similar comment against whichever manager they personally disliked. However, the point is, appoint the person who has the best credentials for the job, and then give them time to do the job. Judge them after a fair amount of time, not on individual matches.

I blame our fans for hounding out managers so quickly, as yet another reason why we are in a 20-year free fall. The 'grass is always greener' merchants managed to get Strachan swapped for McLeish, when we were actually at one of our highest points of the past 20 years. That sums up how much damage these people have done to our team.

And yet most folk seemed happy enough for McLeish to be sacked on the back of one bad result.

 

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