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Clarke hasn't a clue...sack him


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11 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.

3 players from Slavia Prague playing, who are the current Czech champions, and won 6-0 a week or two ago, so I would say this was a tricky side (maybe we did make them look better to a degree) who would have been on a par with the likes of Lithuania or Macedonia.

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9 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

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.

Its daft to expect fit players to play two games in three days? Thats bizarre because Wales managed to stick with a similar line up and subs for their two games but then again they take their international duty seriously. 

As I pointed out, Tierney isn't coming off the back of a long lay off. He played a hug part in their end to the season including a FA cup win and recent Community shield win. He isn't unfit, these are excuses for Clarke on a plate, him not selecting Tierney should be questioned and if he bent over at the request of Arteta, well for me he is not the right man for the job. 

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Just now, wanderer said:

3 players from Slavia Prague playing, who are the current Czech champions, and won 6-0 a week or two ago, so I would say this was a tricky side (maybe we did make them look better to a degree) who would have been on a par with the likes of Lithuania or Macedonia.

That Czech team would have been giving everything and some of them would know each other very well. They were sharper and more determined than any of our lot

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3 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

That Czech team would have been giving everything and some of them would know each other very well. They were sharper and more determined than any of our lot

Yep, they were nowhere near as ragtag as people were expecting them to be.

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11 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

That Czech team would have been giving everything and some of them would know each other very well. They were sharper and more determined than any of our lot

How many of our own lot would get into the original Czech squad?  Not too many I'd imagine.  Folk were assuming we'd be playing 11 training ground dummies.

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20 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

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. 

Definitely. In the last two games in particular we have lacked cohesion and been virtually redundant as an attacking force and have never been in control of either match against opponents that are certainly not better than us. That is terrifying. I can only put that down to two possibilities. Uncertainty with the formation or having patchy match sharpness throughout the squad due to the effect COVID-19 has had on football.

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5 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

We made them look good.

Maybe so, but you had 3 players from Slavia Prague alone, who will have bags of European experience (Slavia regularly make group stages of the Europa/Champions League and also made it to the quarter finals of the Europa League a season or two ago... they even drew away from home with Barcelona and Inter Milan last season) and with almost the full back line of the team playing for the one club, this is not a scrambled together bunch of guys who met each other 10 minutes before the kick off.

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3 minutes ago, wanderer said:

Maybe so, but you had 3 players from Slavia Prague alone, who will have bags of European experience (Slavia regularly make group stages of the Europa/Champions League and also made it to the quarter finals of the Europa League a season or two ago... they even drew away from home with Barcelona and Inter Milan last season) and with almost the full back line of the team playing for the one club, this is not a scrambled together bunch of guys who met each other 10 minutes before the kick off.

I do agree with the point here in that they were not a local pub team by a long shot. It does not, however, excuse how terrible our performance was. It lacked cohesion, purpose, pace, invention and organisation by comparison.

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19 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I do agree with the point here in that they were not a local pub team by a long shot. It does not, however, excuse how terrible our performance was. It lacked cohesion, purpose, pace, invention and organisation by comparison.

Agree, but I put that down to just the timing of these games, and the vast majority of our team not kicking a ball competitively since June/July.... so its really a mixture of that, Czech's being no mugs and to a degree Clarke's tactics and subs.

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Dreadful performance but we won the game against a team who had players who play at good clubs at a good level. 

The positives for me are;

We won the gane.

We know we can't play 352. Gave it a good try.

Israel will now be unsure how we will play against them in the important game which will make it harder for them to plan. I actually think this is a big reason Clarke experimented with his formation.

Come October I would hope that we would be reverting to 4231 with pace in wide areas and a lot more control of the ball than the last two games.

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1 hour ago, vanderark14 said:

Its daft to expect fit players to play two games in three days? Thats bizarre because Wales managed to stick with a similar line up and subs for their two games but then again they take their international duty seriously. 

As I pointed out, Tierney isn't coming off the back of a long lay off. He played a hug part in their end to the season including a FA cup win and recent Community shield win. He isn't unfit, these are excuses for Clarke on a plate, him not selecting Tierney should be questioned and if he bent over at the request of Arteta, well for me he is not the right man for the job. 

Yes its daft to expect players to play two games in three days when COVID-19 has totally fucked up pre-season training. Yes Tierney played a month or so ago but it has all been stacatto for him. Get fit for the restart in May for EPL and FA Cup until end of July beginning of August in what was intense stuff as most EPL teams were playing two games a week. Tierney had not played since the beginning of August so around five weeks of lack of match fitness so to expect him to be up to two matches in three days is wishful thinking. Wales stuck with a similar team probably because they have a settled style/formation and more limited resources than us so were more forced into less changes.

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6 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Yes its daft to expect players to play two games in three days when COVID-19 has totally fucked up pre-season training. Yes Tierney played a month or so ago but it has all been stacatto for him. Get fit for the restart in May for EPL and FA Cup until end of July beginning of August in what was intense stuff as most EPL teams were playing two games a week. Tierney had not played since the beginning of August so around five weeks of lack of match fitness so to expect him to be up to two matches in three days is wishful thinking. Wales stuck with a similar team probably because they have a settled style/formation and more limited resources than us so were more forced into less changes.

Tierney played in the Charity Shield just over a week ago (subbed pretty close to full time), and had played in the FA cup final about 3 weeks earlier (with a game v Milton Keynes in between), as said earlier, of all the players based in England, he has probably seen the most game time of late.

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2 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

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

 

 

Exactly what chance does the manager get to try out tactical /personnel changes if not in these matches? I get they offer some convoluted back door route to qualification but ultimately we'll only get there if we're good enough. 

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Just now, wanderer said:

Tierney played in the Charity Shield just over a week ago (subbed pretty close to full time), and had played in the FA cup final about 3 weeks earlier (with a game v Milton Keynes in between)

Yes but that is not two games in three days. Totally different ask. It follows a pattern too as I pointed out before as in one game only for EPL players Armstrong, McGinn (okay came on as sub last night), McLean, Cooper, Palmer and Fleck. Clarke has had the squad together and assessed fitness levels and obviously worked to a plan with regards team selections. I don't buy the media hype that he was ordered to only play player X once etc.

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2 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Yes but that is not two games in three days. Totally different ask. It follows a pattern too as I pointed out before as in one game only for EPL players Armstrong, McGinn (okay came on as sub last night), McLean, Cooper, Palmer and Fleck. Clarke has had the squad together and assessed fitness levels and obviously worked to a plan with regards team selections. I don't buy the media hype that he was ordered to only play player X once etc.

Gut feeling is Clarke was treating this more as a training camp, rather than two Nations League games (that is the thing that surprised me the most that nobody pulled out for the Czech game, when usually its call off's galore).

There is probably a element of the answer to your question within that.

Knee jerk reaction to the poor game last night, but I suspect that plan all along with to get as many of the squad playing as possible (from the looks of things, bar the two keepers, I make it that only Gallagher, SoD and Taylor were the only ones that saw zero game time, from a outfield squad of 20 players, only 3 not seeing any action is probably a sign of what Clarke thought about these two games.

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4 minutes ago, slasher said:

Exactly what chance does the manager get to try out tactical /personnel changes if not in these matches? I get they offer some convoluted back door route to qualification but ultimately we'll only get there if we're good enough. 

It's been said before  we had a run of games in our Euro qualifying group that would have been against competitive nations.

We will have plenty chances to experiment, once qualification is impossible .

It's not just the possible back door entry to future tournys is the avoidance of playing the real dross of Europe in the next Nations League

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1 minute ago, wanderer said:

Gut feeling is Clarke was treating this more as a training camp, rather than two Nations League games (that is the thing that surprised me the most that nobody pulled out for the Czech game, when usually its call off's galore).

There is probably a element of the answer to your question within that.

Knee jerk reaction to the poor game last night, but I suspect that plan all along with to get as many of the squad playing as possible (from the looks of things, bar the two keepers, I make it that only Gallagher, SoD and Taylor were the only ones that saw zero game time, from a outfield squad of 20 players, only 3 not seeing any action is probably a sign of what Clarke thought about these two games.

I'd agree with that. There are always these conspiracy theories which do more harm than good and usually come from media speculation borne out of precious little facts.

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9 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

It's been said before  we had a run of games in our Euro qualifying group that would have been against competitive nations.

We will have plenty chances to experiment, once qualification is impossible .

It's not just the possible back door entry to future tournys is the avoidance of playing the real dross of Europe in the next Nations League

We are the real dross 🤣

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4 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I'd agree with that. There are always these conspiracy theories which do more harm than good and usually come from media speculation borne out of precious little facts.

Yep.

My take on it was that he was satisfied enough with Tierney playing in a back 3, that he used the second game to give McTominay a second chance to show what he can do, but use the chance to try Cooper and McKenna together.

If we are to take anything from that, IF he goes 3 at the back again next month, it will most likely be Cooper-McKenna-Tierney.... and then a case of getting our midfield to resemble something what we are more used to (clearly his mind is made up on McGinn, Chrsitie and McGregor, but a case who out of Jack, Fleck and McLean joins them.

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2 hours ago, slasher said:

Nations League matches are friendlies in all but name 🙄

I hope other countries are looking at the matches that way.

With the realignment to 16 teams for leagues A/B/C, League B now presumably gives out #2, #3 and #4 seeds for Euro qualifying depending on where you finish in the group (or overall ranking to be more precise). Get relegated from this group and we're pot 4 at best for the 2024 Euro quali. We'll also have to contend with the ranking point loss that will inevitably bring.

The Nations League is everything to us I'm afraid.

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7 minutes ago, wanderer said:

Yep.

My take on it was that he was satisfied enough with Tierney playing in a back 3, that he used the second game to give McTominay a second chance to show what he can do, but use the chance to try Cooper and McKenna together.

If we are to take anything from that, IF he goes 3 at the back again next month, it will most likely be Cooper-McKenna-Tierney.... and then a case of getting our midfield to resemble something what we are more used to (clearly his mind is made up on McGinn, Chrsitie and McGregor, but a case who out of Jack, Fleck and McLean joins them.

You for got McTominay , 

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8 minutes ago, paper_lion said:

I hope other countries are looking at the matches that way.

With the realignment to 16 teams for leagues A/B/C, League B now presumably gives out #2, #3 and #4 seeds for Euro qualifying depending on where you finish in the group (or overall ranking to be more precise). Get relegated from this group and we're pot 4 at best for the 2024 Euro quali. We'll also have to contend with the ranking point loss that will inevitably bring.

The Nations League is everything to us I'm afraid.

We hear this every campaign about how crucial it is to be in this pot and not that one. Let the manager do his job as he sees it and if he fails he will get the same treatment as every other yin. 

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