Scotland starting XI vs Czech Republic

[daviebee]

FFS - PLEASE don't let that guy Haaland anywhere near a defence that contains Scott McTominay!

[Malcolm]

8 minutes ago, daviebee said:

FFS - PLEASE don't let that guy Haaland anywhere near a defence that contains Scott McTominay!

We would be pumped dry... probably one of our most humiliating ever nights of international football.

[Grim Jim]

Plenty said so far that I agree with, but did Clarke just underestimate the opposition, and not realise how fragile/unconfident his players were?

I'm also thinking of the Czechs being the Championship champions promoted to the SPL and banging in a few early wins (DUFC?) and us being Motherwell (sorry).

[HandofRhod]

The negativity on here is utterly ridiculous. From reading this feed you would think that Scotland got pumped tonight and hadn't won in years. 

If you want to know the problem with Scotland this is it here in a nutshell. 

No wonder some of the players struggle to bring a positive performance or replicate club form.

Mentality is such an important factor in international football, you just have to look at some of the "rubbish “teams that have massively overachieved to see that.

The negative reaction on here is massively over the top and is just wild! 

One muppet even said he didn’t want to qualify for the Euros in case we get beat there. Pathetic!

What a pathetic mentality to have. If that is how you think then maybe following competitive sports isn't for you. Maybe try plane spotting....

 

This negativity will be picked up, echoed, and exaggerated in the press and feed back to the players.

Any positivity, confidence or feel good factor will be attacked and destroyed.

These guys are not superstars with personal media teams to shield them from these comments.

Some of them will be on here themselves and if not their friends and family certainly will be. Remember Scotland is a small country.

 

Of course, there are areas we can improve and things we can do differently 

We started slowly in this game and took our foot off the gas after we scored both goals, letting them back into the game.

 

But there were some real positives to come out of this, 

·       5 games undefeated (4 wins) 

·       Top of Group B in the nations League having played the highest ranked team away.

(If we win group B and are promoted to Group A, then okay we might struggle in group A but because most of group A will qualify to the Euros through normal Qualification, even finishing bottom of group A might be enough to guarantee us qualification to Euro 2024 (I need to check this is correct))

·       Dykes looks like he can do a job in the no 9 position, an area we have been struggling with.

·       Christie has been solid at taking penalties

·       Marshall has looked solid in goals

·       Clarke has tried out a new formation and now will know where it does and doesn’t work.

·       We showed good character to come back from a goal down to win.  At the start of Clarkes reign losing the 1^st goal killed us.

·       We were the better team after they scored the 1^st up until dykes goal and the again we were on top at the start of the second half until our penalty.

·       We did create chances,

Christie shot blocked just before the pen, Patterson through near the end and Christie breaking away unfortunate not to either get a shot away or square to McGregor

 

Going into the Israel qualifier game there should only be immense positivity and a real feeling that we will beat them.

[Taylor1996]

One of the best posts I've ever read!

Agree 100%

It's like there's a mob here who don't even support Scotland.

There was a post a few weeks ago about a providing Scottish kid being handed a five year deal at Leed United, an EPL club. 

What was the reaction from one "Scotland fan"? "He'll be a tesco driver in a few years". Lovely comment about a 17 year old kid.

Nice. And the poster is called, hilariously enough, "Proud Scot".

With pride like that, who needs enemies.

[Texas Pete]

35 minutes ago, HandofRhod said:

The negativity on here is utterly ridiculous. From reading this feed you would think that Scotland got pumped tonight and hadn't won in years. 

If you want to know the problem with Scotland this is it here in a nutshell. 

No wonder some of the players struggle to bring a positive performance or replicate club form.

Mentality is such an important factor in international football, you just have to look at some of the "rubbish “teams that have massively overachieved to see that.

The negative reaction on here is massively over the top and is just wild! 

One muppet even said he didn’t want to qualify for the Euros in case we get beat there. Pathetic!

What a pathetic mentality to have. If that is how you think then maybe following competitive sports isn't for you. Maybe try plane spotting....

 

This negativity will be picked up, echoed, and exaggerated in the press and feed back to the players.

Any positivity, confidence or feel good factor will be attacked and destroyed.

These guys are not superstars with personal media teams to shield them from these comments.

Some of them will be on here themselves and if not their friends and family certainly will be. Remember Scotland is a small country.

 

Of course, there are areas we can improve and things we can do differently 

We started slowly in this game and took our foot off the gas after we scored both goals, letting them back into the game.

 

But there were some real positives to come out of this, 

·       5 games undefeated (4 wins) 

·       Top of Group B in the nations League having played the highest ranked team away.

(If we win group B and are promoted to Group A, then okay we might struggle in group A but because most of group A will qualify to the Euros through normal Qualification, even finishing bottom of group A might be enough to guarantee us qualification to Euro 2024 (I need to check this is correct))

·       Dykes looks like he can do a job in the no 9 position, an area we have been struggling with.

·       Christie has been solid at taking penalties

·       Marshall has looked solid in goals

·       Clarke has tried out a new formation and now will know where it does and doesn’t work.

·       We showed good character to come back from a goal down to win.  At the start of Clarkes reign losing the 1^st goal killed us.

·       We were the better team after they scored the 1^st up until dykes goal and the again we were on top at the start of the second half until our penalty.

·       We did create chances,

Christie shot blocked just before the pen, Patterson through near the end and Christie breaking away unfortunate not to either get a shot away or square to McGregor

 

Going into the Israel qualifier game there should only be immense positivity and a real feeling that we will beat them.

Nice to see some positivity on here for a change.

Getting into League A would almost certainly guarantee us a playoff for Euro 2024, not qualification.  

[ceudmilefailte]

2 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

Nice to see some positivity on here for a change.

Getting into League A would almost certainly guarantee us a playoff for Euro 2024, not qualification.  

Staying in league  B probably would too but some people think these are glorified friendly 

[scotlad]

5 hours ago, wanderer said:

He is not, think it’s just a case he was given a designated squad number which he carries into this game

You promised he wouldn't be playing in defence! 

The defence was predictably shambolic, but what surprised me was how disjointed the midfield was. Armstrong and the usually dependable McLean had their worst ever games for Scotland. Christie struck the penalty well but apart from that he was poor; Fleck took on the mantle of midfield Lord Lucan vacated by the rightly benched Callum McGregor. 

Palmer, outwith his fine cross for the first goal, was poor; Robertson battled hard and did his best to hold it all together - against a better side - like the proper Czech team, for instance, we'd have been toast though.  Paterson and McGinn were decent when they came on but once again, Dykes and Marshall were our best players.

Relived to get the win, obviously, but jeezo, I've seen Scotland play better than that and lose games.

[romanticscot]

For clarification, the 2021 nations League won't have any play off - there isn't a EURO until 2024, so play off spots won't be until the 2022 Nation's league, we don't want to go up to A and have a ton of thrashings which hurt our points, we want to push on to be a pot 2 team if possible that means staying secure in B. If we win all our games etc and move up to A then fair enough. 

[mccaughey85]

1 hour ago, HandofRhod said:

The negativity on here is utterly ridiculous. From reading this feed you would think that Scotland got pumped tonight and hadn't won in years. 

If you want to know the problem with Scotland this is it here in a nutshell. 

No wonder some of the players struggle to bring a positive performance or replicate club form.

Mentality is such an important factor in international football, you just have to look at some of the "rubbish “teams that have massively overachieved to see that.

The negative reaction on here is massively over the top and is just wild! 

One muppet even said he didn’t want to qualify for the Euros in case we get beat there. Pathetic!

What a pathetic mentality to have. If that is how you think then maybe following competitive sports isn't for you. Maybe try plane spotting....

 

This negativity will be picked up, echoed, and exaggerated in the press and feed back to the players.

Any positivity, confidence or feel good factor will be attacked and destroyed.

These guys are not superstars with personal media teams to shield them from these comments.

Some of them will be on here themselves and if not their friends and family certainly will be. Remember Scotland is a small country.

 

Of course, there are areas we can improve and things we can do differently 

We started slowly in this game and took our foot off the gas after we scored both goals, letting them back into the game.

 

But there were some real positives to come out of this, 

·       5 games undefeated (4 wins) 

·       Top of Group B in the nations League having played the highest ranked team away.

(If we win group B and are promoted to Group A, then okay we might struggle in group A but because most of group A will qualify to the Euros through normal Qualification, even finishing bottom of group A might be enough to guarantee us qualification to Euro 2024 (I need to check this is correct))

·       Dykes looks like he can do a job in the no 9 position, an area we have been struggling with.

·       Christie has been solid at taking penalties

·       Marshall has looked solid in goals

·       Clarke has tried out a new formation and now will know where it does and doesn’t work.

·       We showed good character to come back from a goal down to win.  At the start of Clarkes reign losing the 1^st goal killed us.

·       We were the better team after they scored the 1^st up until dykes goal and the again we were on top at the start of the second half until our penalty.

·       We did create chances,

Christie shot blocked just before the pen, Patterson through near the end and Christie breaking away unfortunate not to either get a shot away or square to McGregor

 

Going into the Israel qualifier game there should only be immense positivity and a real feeling that we will beat them.

Its nice to be positive but theres a fine line between being positive and being deluded. We were very poor in both games, especially tonight considering the opposition.

The Czechs had 19 goal attempts to our 6 and 8 corners to our 0(not sure I have ever seen that before). Marshall saved us big time and we got a soft pen to win. We were not the better team tonight, we should of drawn or lost this game. We looked terrible against a makeshift team flung together at the last minute. 

We will probably scrape past Israel but theres very little chance of us beating Norway or serbia. 

I am a very positive person when it comes to the scotland team and I believe we have the players to qualify for the euros but we have psychological problems and management problems that means we are not getting the best out of our squads. The likes of NI and Iceland have worse players than us but get results. Even Wales excluding bale are quite average but they get results. 

Its good that we have got 4 pts but lets not kid ourselves that it's been anything other than down to luck and a bit of decent defending. 

[Texas Pete]

21 minutes ago, romanticscot said:

For clarification, the 2021 nations League won't have any play off - there isn't a EURO until 2024, so play off spots won't be until the 2022 Nation's league, we don't want to go up to A and have a ton of thrashings which hurt our points, we want to push on to be a pot 2 team if possible that means staying secure in B. If we win all our games etc and move up to A then fair enough. 

Eh?

The playoffs for Euro 2021 are next month and November. We are playing in them. 

If we get promoted to League A for Nations League 2022 we would almost be guaranteed a playoff for Euro 2024. 

[romanticscot]

Let me explain, If we go to League A, we will get hammered and plumet down the FIFA rankings and for what? No reason, we have a play off for EURO 2020 because of how we were in the Nations League 19, the Nations league 2021 are pointless there's no backdoor for anything, the Nations League  2022 will potentially have EURO 2024 play off back doors, we want our ranking to keep inching forward in the fortunate event we make it into a Pot 2 placement - a ton of losses wont help that scenario.  Its possible even the Nations league 2022 has no carrot either, but the 2023 one.  

Edited September 8, 2020 by romanticscot

[Texas Pete]

27 minutes ago, romanticscot said:

Let me explain, If we go to League A, we will get hammered and plumet down the FIFA rankings and for what? No reason, we have a play off for EURO 2020 because of how we were in the Nations League 19, the Nations league 2021 are pointless there's no backdoor for anything, the Nations League  2022 will potentially have EURO 2024 play off back doors, we want our ranking to keep inching forward in the fortunate event we make it into a Pot 2 placement - a ton of losses wont help that scenario.  Its possible even the Nations league 2022 has no carrot either, but the 2023 one.  

That doesn’t really make sense. 

Firstly, if we win our current Nations League group we would have a chance of making the World Cup 2022 playoffs. 

Secondly, if we end up in League A then our ranking will probably go up. If we get hammered and then relegated we would still be in League B with a similar ranking to what we have now.

Playing to stay in League B is a bit like Dundee not wanting to get into the premier league because they’ll get beat most weeks. 

The Nations league is also not an annual competition. The group stages are only every 2 years. 

[romanticscot]

I didn't realise it was only every two years, I don't think if we go up and get hammered we will land around where we are but I get your point on the World Cup play off - That I completely overlooked. Yes, we should be playing to top our group. 

[Caledonian Craig]

I am normally an optimist with Scotland and always look on the bright side but lets not beat around the bush about last night - it was beyond awful.

Yes we won but how we managed that I will never know. Stats do not lie. They had more shots on goal than us (much more), looked far more fluent and incisive than us on the break, had tonnes more corners and free-kicks in and around the penalty box and hit the post twice. That says it all. That was a team with virtually no international experience cobbled together in the last 48 hours prior to the match. Anyone who tries to excusevthat Scotland performance are part of our problem willing to settle for utter mediocrity.

In terms of fitness, technique, work ethic, defensive capabilities and all-round skills we looked like a Sunday league team against a Czech C team. That is totally unacceptable and very worrying.

The only positives from last night was the result, Dykes bagging his first goal and David Marshall's showing that saved us from a thrashing.

[er yir macaroon]

In the cold light of day it was still a poor performance. I do think the quality of the opposition is being over-analysed. If we were to throw an SPFL-English Championship select together I don’t think it would be as glaringly obvious as some might think. We won a game against good players who knew each other well, albeit we were quite fortunate to do so. 

I hate three at the back using our current squad of players and I hope we don’t see it again until we have players capable of excelling at it. 

[Third Lanark]

16 hours ago, mariokempes56 said:

Gonna say again. Why in mct at the back ? He is so obviously uncomfortable there. 

I'll tell you why. Because we can't have 3 left-footed centre backs and the only other CB's we have who are right-footed are Gallagher and Liam Palmer who has and could play there. Do you think either of those would be better than McTom?

[Texas Pete]

2 hours ago, Third Lanark said:

I'll tell you why. Because we can't have 3 left-footed centre backs and the only other CB's we have who are right-footed are Gallagher and Liam Palmer who has and could play there. Do you think either of those would be better than McTom?

My first question would be if Gallagher and Palmer (who isn’t really a CB to be fair but does play there sometimes) aren’t good enough then why are they in the squad at all? 

My second question is if we don’t have the players to play 3 at the back and need to play a midfielder there where he looked like a fish out of water, why is Clarke even contemplating this system at all? 

Even if McTominay gets better at CB what if he gets injured? Clarke will either need to play another player there or revert back to a back 4 at short notice when folk are used to playing the new system.