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Squad changes for Cyprus


csinclair

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33 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Are other nations suffering as bad as we do with injuries/lack of commitment and players retiring?

Look at England, their players want to be there, they've even had the balls to tell one of their best players to fuck off home after an altercation with a team mate. NI, ROI and Wales all seem to have players willing to run through walls for their country but we don't.

Northern Ireland used to suffer terribly with withdrawals. i remember when i used to bet quite a bit betting against them on some S American end of season tour they had where they had a small number of Irish League players in their squad, they were that low on numbers. Doesn't seem to happen as often nowadays though.....

 I sort of raised this topic last week. Notables from England who "retired" have been Carragher and Vardy. Carragher a while ago, Vardy more recently and someone who would still be a squad pick now I think.Neither were first choice at the time.

Giggs used to duck Wales friendlies quite often, or that was the impression many had. Don't know the actual numbers. Maddison pulled out of the last England squad because he was unwell and went to the casino instead.

They certainly don't seem to have the same number of retirements or lack of commitment as we do. Injuries wise, I can't say. The big difference between them and us is that they have all been to major tournaments recently, we haven't.

Point I was trying to make previous week was that I don't think a lot of players don't see international football in the same way as fans view it, an honour. I think for some its a hinderance more than anything. That certainly seems to be the case with a lot of our squad and possibly the odd player at other home nations....but definitely not to the extent we suffer it.

 

Squirrelhumper but up a decent post about the large number of caps several players have across these nations. Yet at a time when its easier than even to pick up caps due to the number of games being played, our record cap holder is still Dalglish and our current squad might see Naismith make 50 this coming round of fixtures then its Forrest and Marshall on 32. Take our recent game v Belgium. Both Hazard and Witsel have more caps than Dalglish and someone like Lukaku is on 83 and only 26 year old.

 

 

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1 hour ago, vanderark14 said:

---------------------MArshall-------------------

O'dOnnell --Mckenna---Devlin----Taylor

--------------MCginn----Jack or MCgregor--------------

Forrest---------Armstrong----------Christie

---------Naismith or Burke----------

Not sure Palmer's done anything to deserve being dropped.
I'd be surprised if McGinn gets moved backwards after scoring 3 goals. Surely he stays in the CAM position behind the forward? Probably just swap him with Armstrong.
Would like to see Burke right and Shankland continue up top myself. Don't Naismith getting game time helps us at all.

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I posted this after the Russia match:

"We need continuity. A wee stat for you all. From Russia's starting 11 tonight, the number who have started the previous 6 qualifiers are 7, 9, 8, 9, 10, 8. Same stat for us 4, 3, 6, 4, 6, 5."

Admittedly, they haven't had a change of manager, but that would suggest their best players consistently turn up.

We can speculate all we want about individual player's motivation on here, but the reality is that many Scottish players (usually playing for English Premiership teams) use the international breaks as recovery time. That's a fact!

Clarke needs to prioritise a settled side, above all else. If that means some talented players, who he suspects hearts aren't in it, being left out of important games, then so be it. 

It's no wonder the lack of enthusiasm from the fans is at an all time low.

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30 minutes ago, wee-toon-red said:

I'd start Naismith and make him captain. The rest of them could learn a lot from his commitment and desire.

And it would be his 50th cap, something loads in the squad won’t get anywhere near in appearances. 

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As someone mentioned it appears big English clubs can bribe players into quitting altogether. In the fullness I could see the big champions league regular clubs breaking away to form their own compettion and as a condition banning their players from international call ups.

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4 hours ago, Catchart Circle said:

It will get worse should we fail to negotiate the play offs for the Euros.

I get the feeling a number of players are getting a bit fed up with the Scotland set up but are hanging on as there is still a reasonable chance of playing at a major tournament.

If that comes to pass I expect a number of them to call time on their international careers for good with the usual quote `to concentrate on their busy and demanding club schedule.'

If we fail via the playoffs then it’s time for Clarke to do what O’Neill did for NI, bring on the best young players from the U21s and start from scratch.  It will probably mean sacrificing the World Cup qualifiers and maybe even the next Euros but needs must. 

anyone under 30 who calls time on their international careers from this squad I say good riddance to them, they’re obviously not committed enough.

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52 minutes ago, ghtresa said:

"We need continuity. A wee stat for you all. From Russia's starting 11 tonight, the number who have started the previous 6 qualifiers are 7, 9, 8, 9, 10, 8. Same stat for us 4, 3, 6, 4, 6, 5."

Or..
When a team is doing well, as the Russians have been, you don't change the side much.
When you're doing poorly, as we have been, you do change the side.

Picking the same 11 when you're doing badly is stupid, no?

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4 minutes ago, andyD said:

Or..
When a team is doing well, as the Russians have been, you don't change the side much.
When you're doing poorly, as we have been, you do change the side.

Picking the same 11 when you're doing badly is stupid, no?

Surely the point is that at no time have we been close to fielding what is regarded as our best team for a variety of reasons. If you can pick your best team consistently, results will improve.

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9 minutes ago, ghtresa said:

Surely the point is that at no time have we been close to fielding what is regarded as our best team for a variety of reasons. If you can pick your best team consistently, results will improve.

Our best team would have McGregor, Robertson, Tierney, Souttar, Brown, McTominay, Fraser & Griffiths all in it. Possibly McArthur too.

And none of them will be on the park for the next 180 minutes of football. 

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8 minutes ago, ProudScot said:

Our best team would have McGregor, Robertson, Tierney, Souttar, Brown, McTominay, Fraser & Griffiths all in it. Possibly McArthur too.

And none of them will be on the park for the next 180 minutes of football. 

mcarthur is no loss at all, there is no way he would be getting in the side if he was still available with the other options we have, armstrong who is a far superior player would be lucky to start just now. Souttar is still to prove himself capable of playing international football. 

Edited by LewisEDI
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Just now, ghtresa said:

Surely the point is that at no time have we been close to fielding what is regarded as our best team for a variety of reasons. If you can pick your best team consistently, results will improve.

Maybe, you'd have to look into it imo.

We've had a few absentees, up top and at centerback.
but we've rotated center mid and the wings like crazy, for no obvious reason.
That's highlighted by people thinking Fraser's pulled out a lot, when he's been available the last 10 games, just hasn't been put on the park for some unknown reason.

The midfield 5 for Clarke's games:

Cyprus (H) - Forrest, Fraser, McGinn, McGregor, McLean (Bench: Armstrong, Cairney, McTominay, Russell)
Belgium (A) - Armstrong, McGregor, McLean, McTominay, Russell (Bench: Forrest, Fraser, McGinn, Shinnie)
Russia (H) - Forrest, Fraser, McGinn, McGregor, McTominay (Bench: Armstrong, Christie, Russell, Snodgrass)
Belgium (H) - Christie, McGregor, McLean, McTominay, Snodgrass (Bench: Armstrong, Forrest, Fraser, McGinn, Russell)
Russia (A) - Fleck, Fraser, McGinn, McGregor, Snodgrass (Bench: Armstrong, Christie, Forrest, Russell)
San Marino - Forrest, Fraser, McGinn, McGregor, McLean (Bench: Armstrong, Fraser, Morgan, Russell)

So we've not played the same 5 twice in a row, tho we could have a bunch of times.
We've chopped and changed every game until we came around full circle.. the first time Clarke's played the same midfield 5 as a previous game was against San Marino.. same 5 as Cyprus.

Doesn't make much sense to me. It's not been enforced changes..
And not that it matters, but i don't think any of them are the 5 i'd have picked from the players in the squad.

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18 minutes ago, csinclair said:

With our side now I'd be tempted to go with
 

                     Marshall
Palmer  Devlin    McKenna  Taylor

           McGregor  McGinn

Forrest        Naismith     Christie    

                   Shankland

Another person pulling McGinn out of attacking mid and puting him in defensive mid.. after he's scored a hattrick. I'm really curious why.

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2 minutes ago, andyD said:

Another person pulling McGinn out of attacking mid and puting him in defensive mid.. after he's scored a hattrick. I'm really curious why.

To be honest, even with the pullouts, against a side like Cyprus I'd expect us to be the more dominant side with McGinn pushing further forward.

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3 minutes ago, csinclair said:

To be honest, even with the pullouts, against a side like Cyprus I'd expect us to be the more dominant side with McGinn pushing further forward.

Based on..?

When we played them at home we won with a lucky goal in the 89th minute.
They had 47% possession and the same number of shots on target as us (6).

I don't see it being a walk in the park a la San Marino.

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1 hour ago, McTeeko said:

And it would be his 50th cap, something loads in the squad won’t get anywhere near in appearances. 

50 caps is nothing in international football. Its embarrissing how few caps a lot of our players have

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1 hour ago, andyD said:

Not sure Palmer's done anything to deserve being dropped.
I'd be surprised if McGinn gets moved backwards after scoring 3 goals. Surely he stays in the CAM position behind the forward? Probably just swap him with Armstrong.
Would like to see Burke right and Shankland continue up top myself. Don't Naismith getting game time helps us at all.

Naismith adds commitment and desire, he will give everything and we will need a leader like him. to be honest You could pop each forward's name in a ball and pick one at random, there's not much between them for the starting birth. They all have at least one attribute

Shankland - the finisher

Burke - strong powerful

Naismith - experience, commitment and a leader

McBurnie - erm, he has a beard

Can we morph them together?

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3 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

50 caps is nothing in international football. Its embarrissing how few caps a lot of our players have

Had a lot of retirements in the last few years because of players getting past 30.
54 - Gordon
42 - McGregor
50 - Alan Hutton
80 - Darren Fletcher
55 - Scott Brown

During that period we went thru spats of not playing a lot of friendlies, so caps were a little bit thin on the ground.

For the last few years we've been particularly poor, so we've chopped and changed managers and they've chopped and changed players to an extent too.

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5 minutes ago, andyD said:

Had a lot of retirements in the last few years because of players getting past 30.
54 - Gordon
42 - McGregor
50 - Alan Hutton
80 - Darren Fletcher
55 - Scott Brown

During that period we went thru spats of not playing a lot of friendlies, so caps were a little bit thin on the ground.

For the last few years we've been particularly poor, so we've chopped and changed managers and they've chopped and changed players to an extent too.

Gordon, Hutton and Fletcher would probably each had another 20+ caps had they not had serious injuries or illness in their careers. Remember that Fletcher and Gordon both looked at one point like their careers would be finished prematurely.  McGregor would also have had a lot more caps but for Gordon and Marshall to a lesser extent.

The reality is were in a bit of a transitional period right now with a lot of younger players coming though.

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