Wales and the two Irelands

[Third Lanark]

Now, I've mentioned this before and once again, these 3 neighbours of ours have out-performed Scotland with their results this week. Wales even pulled off a winner in the 94th minute. Could anyone have seen us doing that? I refuse to believe that they all care more for their respective countries than our players do, so what's the reason? They sure don't have better players to choose from, with maybe Bale being the exception. We can pick 7 or 8 players from the EPL while Wales think nothing of drafting in promising youngsters who have hardly made their first team debuts, such as Wilson. I wonder if we shouldn't start to call up those promising younger group players and get them integrated asap.

At any rate, they are all above us in the Fifa rankings so they must be doing something right.

 

[PASTA Mick]

1 minute ago, Third Lanark said:

Now, I've mentioned this before and once again, these 3 neighbours of ours have out-performed Scotland with their results this week. Wales even pulled off a winner in the 94th minute. Could anyone have seen us doing that? I refuse to believe that they all care more for their respective countries than our players do, so what's the reason? They sure don't have better players to choose from, with maybe Bale being the exception. We can pick 7 or 8 players from the EPL while Wales think nothing of drafting in promising youngsters who have hardly made their first team debuts, such as Wilson. I wonder if we shouldn't start to call up those promising younger group players and get them integrated asap.

At any rate, they are all above us in the Fifa rankings so they must be doing something right.

 

I think the biggest difference between us and Wales and Rep. of Ireland is that whilst we usually produce similar quality of player, they have both had a few that are just a bit better than what we've had, and they always seem to have a better balance of where their better players are.  They have also had top players that can win games with something special.  If we'd had a Bale or a Robbie Keane, we'd have qualified for a few competitions.  

[wanderer]

I think we have the better players than Northern Ireland, but main thing is they have a system that works for them.

Man for man there is not much between us and the Republic of Ireland (after Robbie Keane quit they went through a long period of poor results, and even now their results are all over the place) and with Wales when you have a player like Bale at your disposal, sometimes that all you need (we do not even have one player close to that standard).

[Third Lanark]

4 minutes ago, PASTA Mick said:

I think the biggest difference between us and Wales and Rep. of Ireland is that whilst we usually produce similar quality of player, they have both had a few that are just a bit better than what we've had, and they always seem to have a better balance of where their better players are.  They have also had top players that can win games with something special.  If we'd had a Bale or a Robbie Keane, we'd have qualified for a few competitions.  

Agree to an extent but I'm really talking about right now. Bale has hardly played and RoI have had to do without Robbie for some time now, while NI has 36 year old Steve Davis.

[vanderark14]

They have more players who give a fuck and they are happy to give debuts to promising youngsters. 

 

[PASTA Mick]

5 minutes ago, Third Lanark said:

Agree to an extent but I'm really talking about right now. Bale has hardly played and RoI have had to do without Robbie for some time now, while NI has 36 year old Steve Davis.

Forwards like Vokes and Long are much better than what we've been able to select over the last few years. 

I think both squads are better than ours. 

[kwhitelaw]

All 3 imo have a much better balance of squad whereas we have no decent right back, all our CBs (in this squad) are lefties, no real goal scorer and we're trying to shoehorn in 2 world class left backs into the team to the detriment of both.

The main thing I'm clinging onto for the time being is that before he was getting decent results, Michael O'Neill had a horrible record while trying to find the right system for NI, I'm hoping Clarke is going through a similar time and will eventually crack it.  Add in some promising youngsters and we could have a future squad to match the like of Wales and ROI

[wanderer]

8 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

They have more players who give a fuck and they are happy to give debuts to promising youngsters. 

 

Wales do not actually have that young a side, and any "promising" youngsters they have, its more to get them capped and tied down before England come sniffing (ie Matondo, Ampadu, James, Morrel etc....) with Ampadu probably the exception (I would compare that when Strachan took Robertson to Poland with no interest in playing him, but took one look and cahnged his mind)

But they are a good example where when you get that "club feel" to a side and it pays off.

Edited September 7, 2020 by wanderer

[PASTA Mick]

I do also wonder whether we suffer from having a stronger league than Wale, N Ireland and Rep of Ireland.  Our league is strong enough that we are happy to pick players from it, but probably not strong enough to fully prepare players for international football.  I don't know for sure but I guess the vast majority of players for the two Irish teams and Wales are selected from English clubs sides.  Does this have an impact? 

[ceudmilefailte]

If you have three groups of comparable players the pivotal point is the manager. Football is a team sport so in my opinion the managers input is about 15% of the end result .

Enough said

[vanderark14]

5 minutes ago, PASTA Mick said:

I do also wonder whether we suffer from having a stronger league than Wale, N Ireland and Rep of Ireland.  Our league is strong enough that we are happy to pick players from it, but probably not strong enough to fully prepare players for international football.  I don't know for sure but I guess the vast majority of players for the two Irish teams and Wales are selected from English clubs sides.  Does this have an impact? 

I think you are on to something here too. 

[kwhitelaw]

2 minutes ago, PASTA Mick said:

I do also wonder whether we suffer from having a stronger league than Wale, N Ireland and Rep of Ireland.  Our league is strong enough that we are happy to pick players from it, but probably not strong enough to fully prepare players for international football.  I don't know for sure but I guess the vast majority of players for the two Irish teams and Wales are selected from English clubs sides.  Does this have an impact? 

An interesting point, which you could argue gives all 3 the incentive to pick younger players not regularly starting with their EPL or ECL clubs whereas we fill our squad with dross that are clearly not up to international level rather than taking a punt on a younger player like Gilmour for example

[PASTA Mick]

Just now, kwhitelaw said:

An interesting point, which you could argue gives all 3 the incentive to pick younger players not regularly starting with their EPL or ECL clubs whereas we fill our squad with dross that are clearly not up to international level rather than taking a punt on a younger player like Gilmour for example

Most of the players playing in the same league does make it a bit easier to work out the levels players are at.  Someone like O'Donnell wouldn't have (m)any caps if he'd stayed in England.  Some of the Celtic players might have less caps...or they might have improved their game by being better tested more often.  

[Texas Pete]

11 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

If you have three groups of comparable players the pivotal point is the manager. Football is a team sport so in my opinion the managers input is about 15% of the end result .

Enough said

A lot of it is down to confidence and having a winning mentality as well which the manager has a huge bearing on.

If we had qualified for Euro 2016 for example we would have got a huge boost and we would probably have done better in a lot if our games since. 

We could really be doing with getting to the Euros next year as difficult as that will be. 

[Toepoke]

3 hours ago, PASTA Mick said:

I do also wonder whether we suffer from having a stronger league than Wale, N Ireland and Rep of Ireland.  Our league is strong enough that we are happy to pick players from it, but probably not strong enough to fully prepare players for international football.  I don't know for sure but I guess the vast majority of players for the two Irish teams and Wales are selected from English clubs sides.  Does this have an impact? 

In the Welsh case having teams like Cardiff and Swansea getting access to English Premier millions and spending a fortune on youth development must be beneficial. 

 

[kiltedlegs]

All the British Isle teams have my support... Except England 

[JECK]

You’d have to say it’s not only us struggling. Wales only winning in injury time yesterday I believe. Ni taking a pounding and Republic beaten as well 

[kiltedlegs]

Norway will be at the euros. 

They look good. 

 

Imagine our players going there.. Laughable. 

[Tartan Chris]

Both Irelands look pretty bad atm, ROI rebuilding with younger players but still struggling to score and look like they've lost that defensive solidity they've had for last few years. Norn Iron will massively miss Michael O'Neill, no idea who this Barraclough guy is but huge act to follow.

Still at least they've both had recent tournaments to enjoy.

[Texas Pete]

2 hours ago, kiltedlegs said:

Norway will be at the euros. 

They look good. 

 

Imagine our players going there.. Laughable. 

Norway will likely qualify but anything can happen in one off games. 

There will be plenty of poor to average teams at the Euros next year. 

[Tartan Chris]

8 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

They have more players who give a fuck and they are happy to give debuts to promising youngsters. 

 

Yep looking at their squads if you add the average amount of caps up from the regular squad members it would be far higher than Scotland. Of course Wales give players their debuts far earlier but Northern Ireland have Davis with well over 100 caps and Johnny Evans is on 90 odd caps.

Considering bar the last few years Northern Ireland were s*** for the first 10 years of both players international careers it shows how much they love playing for their country, neither called off injured too much.

And with Wales you have Bale far more interested in playing for them than Real Madrid and others playing for good premier league clubs break their necks to get to the international get togethers.

No one in the Scotland squad is even close to 50 caps despite most of the squad being in 25-30 age range. Forrest has 34 caps and he's 29 now.

I really think too many of the present set up simply find playing for Scotland an ordeal coming from succesful premier league clubs so you get so many pull outs. Until you change the mentality around the training camp and get some more togetherness and spirit within the group the team will remain in the tournament wilderness. Finding a few decent defenders would help aswell.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Tartan Chris

[Diamond Scot]

8 hours ago, PASTA Mick said:

I do also wonder whether we suffer from having a stronger league than Wale, N Ireland and Rep of Ireland.  Our league is strong enough that we are happy to pick players from it, but probably not strong enough to fully prepare players for international football.  I don't know for sure but I guess the vast majority of players for the two Irish teams and Wales are selected from English clubs sides.  Does this have an impact? 

I think this factor is majorly overlooked. We have 2 massive clubs who can pay really good money and players can become "legends", win trophys and play in Europe.

Take a player like Scott Brown or Barry Ferguson. If they were from Scandanavia they would get to around 20 and clearly be good players. They would earn 5k max at the biggest clubs, playing front of around 15 thousand fans max and would have the the choice of staying and doing the same or moving to a bigger league where they would earn much more for much bigger teams in a much more famous league in front of fans up to 50 or 60 thousand. At 20 they are the right age to develop further and "may" make the leap from good to very good or exceptional.

Brown and Ferguson on the other hand can play for the Old Firm, earn 30k per week in front of 50 thousand fans, media circus ofnan entire country making them feel like they are at huge clubs. Theres no rush to move and by the time they do they are likely to be over 25 or late 20s at which point the scope for development is dramatically reduced.

Its not the fault of the Old Firm or anybody else. Even the players. Its just an almost unique situation that is to the detriment of our game.

 

[McTeeko]

17 hours ago, PASTA Mick said:

I do also wonder whether we suffer from having a stronger league than Wale, N Ireland and Rep of Ireland.  Our league is strong enough that we are happy to pick players from it, but probably not strong enough to fully prepare players for international football.  I don't know for sure but I guess the vast majority of players for the two Irish teams and Wales are selected from English clubs sides.  Does this have an impact? 

That’s a very good point. 

[kiltedlegs]

we need to blood youngers.

 

look at Hicky at Hearts.  more of them please.

 

 

[ThistleWhistle]

Was flicking in the car last night and heard on TalkSport that it was the first time since playing ROI in 2000 we'd come back to win a game.  Wasn't sure if that was just away from home or simply the first time in 20 years we'd come from behind but it's still pretty crap either way.