Clarke hasn't a clue...sack him

[Hertsscot]

Lot of talk about dumping McTominay at the back. I don't think he should be there either but if we persist with three at the back I don't know who takes his place, Palmer? Gallagher? Would either be an improvement? Or go with three left footers in Cooper, McKenna and Tierney?

Wing backs, the only natural one is Tierney. If you use Forrest or Fraser you take away their ability to create in the final third.

[Parklife]

I do have faith that Clarke is a good manager and will get it right given time. However, last night tested that belief. 

After seeing us really struggle on Friday, with the players clearly uncomfortable and totally unsure of their roles both in attack and defence, to play the same way last night astounded me. Persisting with McTominay at CB when he's clearly uncomfortable there. All the while the midfield is totally lacking someone screening the back 4 and making tackles (something he can do well). 

Add to that we have our best player, Robertson, playing out of position and his attacking threat negated by having no wide midfielder ahead of him who would've ensured he isn't Getting doubled up on by defenders. 

Then in the middle of the park the players don't have a clue where they should be. We had the ridiculous situation where they weren't forward enough to adequately support and push beyond Dykes, yet also weren't deep enough to support the defence and prevent counter attacks. Fleck in particular was grim. Barely touched the ball all game. 

We might scrape a result vs Israel playing like this but Norway/Serbia will trash us. 

[Squirrelhumper]

8 hours ago, Taylor1996 said:

It's all about the players.

Scotland's strongest XI struggled against a patchwork Czech team. This isn't about systems, it's not about tactics or formations, it's not even about the managers.

The players are shockingly bad.

Wasn't our strongest 11, therein lies some of the issues.

No way Tierney or McGinn should have been on the bench.

Especially to shoehorn the likes of McTominay into defence.

[Squirrelhumper]

15 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

 

Wing backs, the only natural one is Tierney. If you use Forrest or Fraser you take away their ability to create in the final third.

Mental how he played that formation last night and dropped Tierney.

 

6 minutes ago, Parklife said:

I do have faith that Clarke is a good manager and will get it right given time. However, last night tested that belief. 

After seeing us really struggle on Friday, with the players clearly uncomfortable and totally unsure of their roles both in attack and defence, to play the same way last night astounded me. Persisting with McTominay at CB when he's clearly uncomfortable there. All the while the midfield is totally lacking someone screening the back 4 and making tackles (something he can do well). 

Add to that we have our best player, Robertson, playing out of position and his attacking threat negated by having no wide midfielder ahead of him who would've ensured he isn't Getting doubled up on by defenders. 

Then in the middle of the park the players don't have a clue where they should be. We had the ridiculous situation where they weren't forward enough to adequately support and push beyond Dykes, yet also weren't deep enough to support the defence and prevent counter attacks. Fleck in particular was grim. Barely touched the ball all game. 

We might scrape a result vs Israel playing like this but Norway/Serbia will trash us. 

Agreed

[vanderark14]

10 minutes ago, Parklife said:

I do have faith that Clarke is a good manager and will get it right given time. However, last night tested that belief. 

After seeing us really struggle on Friday, with the players clearly uncomfortable and totally unsure of their roles both in attack and defence, to play the same way last night astounded me. Persisting with McTominay at CB when he's clearly uncomfortable there. All the while the midfield is totally lacking someone screening the back 4 and making tackles (something he can do well). 

Add to that we have our best player, Robertson, playing out of position and his attacking threat negated by having no wide midfielder ahead of him who would've ensured he isn't Getting doubled up on by defenders. 

Then in the middle of the park the players don't have a clue where they should be. We had the ridiculous situation where they weren't forward enough to adequately support and push beyond Dykes, yet also weren't deep enough to support the defence and prevent counter attacks. Fleck in particular was grim. Barely touched the ball all game. 

We might scrape a result vs Israel playing like this but Norway/Serbia will trash us. 

Good post  agree 100%

[Morrisandmoo]

28 minutes ago, Parklife said:

I do have faith that Clarke is a good manager and will get it right given time. However, last night tested that belief. 

After seeing us really struggle on Friday, with the players clearly uncomfortable and totally unsure of their roles both in attack and defence, to play the same way last night astounded me. Persisting with McTominay at CB when he's clearly uncomfortable there. All the while the midfield is totally lacking someone screening the back 4 and making tackles (something he can do well). 

Add to that we have our best player, Robertson, playing out of position and his attacking threat negated by having no wide midfielder ahead of him who would've ensured he isn't Getting doubled up on by defenders. 

Then in the middle of the park the players don't have a clue where they should be. We had the ridiculous situation where they weren't forward enough to adequately support and push beyond Dykes, yet also weren't deep enough to support the defence and prevent counter attacks. Fleck in particular was grim. Barely touched the ball all game. 

We might scrape a result vs Israel playing like this but Norway/Serbia will trash us. 

Agree also. The issue is that I am less concerned about giving the manager time (which I ordinarily would be supportive of) and more concerned with doing everything possible to try to qualify for a home tournament - at the expense of everything else (including long term development). 

The last two games have significantly undermined that objective. And it's all Clarke's fault. 

If he fails to qualify, it remains to be seen whether I, and the rest of Scotland, can put their anger and dissapointment aside and look (again) to the future with Clarke at the helm. 

I don't think people yet grasp how horrible failing to qualify for this is going to feel. Especially, when we don't give it our best shot. 

[wanderer]

Becoming very reminiscent of George Burley (only difference is Clarke is at least getting some results.....).

Still prepared to give him time, but his tactics and subs in the last two games have been very odd to say the least.

He had the benefit that he came in to the job with a nightmare run of games (Belgium (a) - Russia (h) - Belgium (h) - Russia (a) etc) but he did start getting a little momentum going, but feels like that went out the window these two games.

We made Israel look much better than they actually are, and that Czech side was a complete shambles (especially at the back) yet we made them look like the first team (I was expecting a game like what we would expect v someone like Lithuania or Macedonia, but we made hard work of it due to our own mess up's).

Subs were completely wrong, last nights game was crying out for Burke and Tierney to come on and press them for the 3rd goal, yet felt like Clarke got cold feet when they started putting the pressure on us in the last 15 minutes, and looked like he just wanted to hold on at 2-1 until the final whistle.

McTominay is wasted at the back and clearly not comfortable playing there. Fair enough give it another shot after the Israel game, but he was making Palmer, Cooper and McKenna (who I thought all played really well) look bad as they were having to all cover for him, and should have been a case of going to 4-5-1 after they had scored with Palmer-Cooper-Mckenna-Robertson at the back.

SFA are not seriously going to entertain the notion of sacking him any time soon, and while I think he will continue to ground out results, any time we come up against a good standard nation, its going to result in losing by at least 3 goals. 

[ghtresa]

I am totally behind Clarke. Is he the best manager in the world? No. Is he the best we can attract right now? Probably. Does he need more time? Definitely. 

I have to be honest and say last night really concerned me though. I'm not against 3 at the back, but surely only if Tierney plays. Also, keeping McTominay there for the full 90 minutes and not changing formation when we were being outplayed shows a worrying lack of flexibility. 

Either he is throwing Israel the world's biggest curveball with our formation and lineup before next month or he appears to lack the ability to impact the match in play by changing tactics.

Despite the positivity at the start of my post, both possibilities concern me.

[Orraloon]

We were on a decent run of 3 wins in a row with a fairly settled team and more importantly a settled formation. We scored 11 goals in 3 games. Ok, 6 of them were against San Marino but 5 goals against the other two is a pretty decent return There were obvious weaknesses but at least we had started getting decent results. Some players from that run might not have been available for the last two games ( most importantly - Naismith) but there was no need to change the formation that was showing signs of starting to work. 

He changed the formation to shoe  KT into the system. Clearly didn't work against Israel. He tried it again last night, only this time he didn't even fukin play KT. What the fuk is going on inside that guy's head?

 

[gkm_vancouver]

Dropping Tierney must have been due to an agreement with Arteta and proneness to injury. McT at CB is still a mystery. Palmer has played CB at Sheff Wed. Perhaps he just wanted to give everyone a game for fear others doing  McBurnie? 

[Caledonian Craig]

16 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

We were on a decent run of 3 wins in a row with a fairly settled team and more importantly a settled formation. We scored 11 goals in 3 games. Ok, 6 of them were against San Marino but 5 goals against the other two is a pretty decent return There were obvious weaknesses but at least we had started getting decent results. Some players from that run might not have been available for the last two games ( most importantly - Naismith) but there was no need to change the formation that was showing signs of starting to work. 

He changed the formation to shoe  KT into the system. Clearly didn't work against Israel. He tried it again last night, only this time he didn't even fukin play KT. What the fuk is going on inside that guy's head?

 

I'd agree with this.

The only reason we played 3 at the back was to fit Tierney and Robertson into the same side against Israel. No Tierney last night so absolutely no need for it.

Lets look at facts here. We have played Israel twice at home in the last two years with roughly the same sides out on the pitch in both matches. Which match did we impress more in? The one we won 3-2 as we at least looked decent in attack and not playing three at the back unlike the other night. We have now played two games on the bounce with three at the back and looked shambolic and lacking any cutting edge or fluency in attack. Prior to that we won three matches on the bounce and scored plenty of goals so why change a system that the players were getting comfortable with? We need stability and when we get a winning formula we should stick with it. 

[Parklife]

56 minutes ago, wanderer said:

Becoming very reminiscent of George Burley (only difference is Clarke is at least getting some results.....).

One of the worst takes ever. Didn't read on after this. 

Under Burley we attacked and went at teams. We were more shambolic defensively but much better going forward. 

[slasher]

3 at the back is actually a very decent system for teams like us if you have the players to execute it, we don't. It's debatable whether we have 2 competent centre backs never mind 3. We don't have any players used to operating successfully as wing backs either. 

I don't actually mind Clarke using these 2 games to experiment with it though. Hopefully he's learned that it's just not going to work for us at the moment. More of a concern for me was how poor our midfield functioned. After all, thats supposed to be the strongest area of the side. Of all the midfielders who played only Ryan Jack gave a decent account of himself but he wasn't great either. Of all the things that need sorted for next month that's the biggest issue for me, that and returning to a back 4.

Edited September 8, 2020 by slasher

[Malcolm]

To me the only possible reason is that he was either experiment8ng or had an agreement with club manager.  Neither acceptable to me in competitive games.

[slasher]

27 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

To me the only possible reason is that he was either experiment8ng or had an agreement with club manager.  Neither acceptable to me in competitive games.

Nations League matches are friendlies in all but name 🙄

[Caledonian Craig]

2 hours ago, gkm_vancouver said:

Dropping Tierney must have been due to an agreement with Arteta and proneness to injury. McT at CB is still a mystery. Palmer has played CB at Sheff Wed. Perhaps he just wanted to give everyone a game for fear others doing  McBurnie? 

Nah I don't buy it.

What must be understood is that for Tierney the season hasn't started yet so he has not reached full fitness where he can be comfortable playing two matches in three days hence the team selection last night where McGinn (in the same boat) also did not play. Also explains why Armstrong only played one of the two games as did McLean. The only one playing in the EPL who played both matches was the skipper Andy Robertson and McTominay who was a pivotal part in this three at the back abhorration...err ...experiment.

[vanderark14]

8 minutes ago, slasher said:

Nations League matches are friendlies in all but name 🙄

I disagree, its competitive football with a chance of promotion and valuable ranking points

3 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Nah I don't buy it.

What must be understood is that for Tierney the season hasn't started yet so he has not reached full fitness where he can be comfortable playing two matches in three days hence the team selection last night where McGinn (in the same boat) also did not play. Also explains why Armstrong only played one of the two games as did McLean. The only one playing in the EPL who played both matches was the skipper Andy Robertson and McTominay who was a pivotal part in this three at the back abhorration...err ...experiment.

Arsenal played an FA cup final on the 1st of August, for weeks before that Tierney was getting glowing reviews for his great performances. I was excited to see him back but I don't buy the fitness argument with Tierney.

 

We need to stop looking for excuses for these players and the manager and start questioning their commitment and desire for Scotland

[wanderer]

9 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Nah I don't buy it.

What must be understood is that for Tierney the season hasn't started yet so he has not reached full fitness where he can be comfortable playing two matches in three days hence the team selection last night where McGinn (in the same boat) also did not play. Also explains why Armstrong only played one of the two games as did McLean. The only one playing in the EPL who played both matches was the skipper Andy Robertson and McTominay who was a pivotal part in this three at the back abhorration...err ...experiment.

Out of all the English based players, Tierney has probably had the most game time over the last month and a half in competitive matches, with the FA cup semi-finals and final last month, and then the Charity Shield last week.

I think next month when the likes of Cooper, Robertson, McGinn (especailly him!), Tierney, McTominay, Palmer etc.... all have 3/4 weeks of game time under their belts, it will be more pleasing from a Scotland point of view.

 

[dezmondo]

Does Clarke realise that winning this nations league group gives us a very good chance of a play off for the World Cup? Why he would experiment given this or why anyone would think its OK to experiment in these past 2 matches is beyond me. 

[wanderer]

1 minute ago, dezmondo said:

Does Clarke realise that winning this nations league group gives us a very good chance of a play off for the World Cup? Why he would experiment given this or why anyone would think its OK to experiment in these past 2 matches is beyond me. 

Most likely answer is because we have a chance of making the Euro's next year if we beat Israel next month at home (can only assume he was not wanting to give to much away, and if anything Israel will now be questioning will he play 3 at the back again or not now he has done it in 2 games).

[Caledonian Craig]

4 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

I disagree, its competitive football with a chance of promotion and valuable ranking points

Arsenal played an FA cup final on the 1st of August, for weeks before that Tierney was getting glowing reviews for his great performances. I was excited to see him back but I don't buy the fitness argument with Tierney.

 

We need to stop looking for excuses for these players and the manager and start questioning their commitment and desire for Scotland

It's not a matter of making excuses just pure logic and sensibility.

To expect/demand players play two matches in three days despite their physical condition is being daft. The manager has to assess all of this and that is why we saw the changes we did. The pandemic hasn't helped with preparation as seasons and pre-seasons have been totally fucked up but at the end of the day everyone is in the same boat and we still manage to appear less well-prepared than our opponents.

Also we do not know if Tierney picked up a little niggle too which made Clarke wary about picking him.

[ParisInAKilt]

It’s a real concern that the Czech team put together at the last minute looked more of a cohesive unit than we did. 

[Caledonian Craig]

Just now, ParisInAKilt said:

It’s a real concern that the Czech team put together at the last minute looked more of a cohesive unit than we did. 

I had heard though that the goalkeeper, centre backs and player just in front of back four all played for the same club so they had no knitting together to do. Not sure if there were any other parts of the team that had connections like that.

[ParisInAKilt]

3 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I had heard though that the goalkeeper, centre backs and player just in front of back four all played for the same club so they had no knitting together to do. Not sure if there were any other parts of the team that had connections like that.

Think the keeper, left back and centre half play together, the rest all different teams. Not sure about midfield and attack. Think my point is more that even after all this time, we don’t look comfortable as a team, granted covid had affected things but it’s still a concern. This isn’t just an issue we’ve had under Clarke mind you. 

[er yir macaroon]

4 hours ago, Parklife said:

I do have faith that Clarke is a good manager and will get it right given time. However, last night tested that belief. 

After seeing us really struggle on Friday, with the players clearly uncomfortable and totally unsure of their roles both in attack and defence, to play the same way last night astounded me. Persisting with McTominay at CB when he's clearly uncomfortable there. All the while the midfield is totally lacking someone screening the back 4 and making tackles (something he can do well). 

Add to that we have our best player, Robertson, playing out of position and his attacking threat negated by having no wide midfielder ahead of him who would've ensured he isn't Getting doubled up on by defenders. 

Then in the middle of the park the players don't have a clue where they should be. We had the ridiculous situation where they weren't forward enough to adequately support and push beyond Dykes, yet also weren't deep enough to support the defence and prevent counter attacks. Fleck in particular was grim. Barely touched the ball all game. 

We might scrape a result vs Israel playing like this but Norway/Serbia will trash us. 

Excellent post. If only Barrie McKay could be accommodated somewhere I think we’d be back in business.