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Your 23 Man Scotland Team for the next set of games?


Guest ElChris04

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14 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Thought he was OK against Russia and you can't judge any ones ability on the Belgium game.

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but..

For Russia's equalizer, it's basically all Cooper's fault.
He leaves Golovin to close down Ionov who is already tracked by McTominay. No need to do it at all. That let's Golovin have a free run unmarked into the area. Ionov dinks the ball thru to him and chaos ensues. Robertson tries to get across to cover and  that's why the ball breaks to Dzyuba.
If Cooper just marked his man and did nothing else then I'm 100% sure we don't concede there. No idea what he was thinking leaving arguably Russia's most dangers player unmarked. Pure crazy imo.

For their winner, Cooper is the guy best positioned to deal with it. McTominay correctly hands off Golovin to Cooper, as McTominay has to pressure the ball carrier (no one else can). As Golovin runs towards him (obviously going to run past him) Cooper squares up to the ball. That's just stupid. By doing that he's instantly lost. Any ball past, he wont stand a chance of getting there. It really is the basic of defending. So he squares up.. the ball's rolled thru and Golovin gets there comfortably, no pressure, time to look up and pick out the cross.
If Cooper just stayed side on, he would have been able to get back and contest the thru ball, maybe even see it out as Golovin is tiny by comparison.

So for me both goals were down to Cooper. And both because of really basic errors.

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