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Clarke hasn't a clue...sack him


0Neils40yarder

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7 hours ago, scotlad said:

As for Clarke, yeah, we could get rid but we've been here before, haven't we?  Changing the manager - again - doesn't address the more fundamental issues, namely the dearth of talent in goals, defence and attack.  However, a display as listless as the two we've just seen against opposition even slightly better and it could get very messy indeed.

Excellent point.

About 50/60 minutes into Monday's match, it just clicked! Watching the players struggling to control a basic ball, failing to make a simple pass, having to fully concentrate to make any kind of s pass, launching the ball when they were under even the slightest duress, as if they were facing a World XI, as opposed to a Czech D side.. It just struck me how bad these players really are

It really doesn't matter who the manager is. 

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20 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

That team certainly had more commitment and defensively it was better. It was well managed by Smith and mcleish as well. 

Although I wouldn't say it was necessarily better player wise than todays squad on paper. Better management and a solid defensive base is why it got results. 

Dude. 

Muuuchhh better players than today.  Don't even know where to begin.  (no not dickov😜

 

Ferguson, Hartley,  Miller,  Gordon,  mcullock, presley etc. 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, kiltedlegs said:

Dude. 

Muuuchhh better players than today.  Don't even know where to begin.  (no not dickov😜

 

Ferguson, Hartley,  Miller,  Gordon,  mcullock, presley etc. 

 

 

Ferguson was good, the rest you have mentioned are average at best. Infact even Ferguson wasn't the world beater he was made out to be. Would he get a game for man utd today like mctominay does. Hard to tell. 

Is Hartley better than mctominay, fleck, armstrong, christie. I wouldn't say so. Hartley played his career at average spl teams and was never good enough to permanently step up a level, he would never play for an epl side if he was around today. Mcculloch spent a large part of his career in the English second tier. Hes not a better player than fraser, even forrest is arguably a better player than mcculloch. Presley was shite as well, there's a reason he never played at a high level. 

Fair enough Miller is better than our strikers today barring Griffiths who is always unavailable. 

Our squad today has players at man utd, Liverpool and arsenal. We only had 1 player at a top club back in 2007 and that was fletcher. We have one of the best left backs in the world in robertson. 

The team back in 2007 had much more commitment to the cause and was well managed but player for player it wasn't any better than todays group. What we did have was a very strong and underrated centre back in davie weir and the team went out on the pitch with a do or die attitude which helped bridge the gap between us and the higher ranked countries. 

 

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On 9/10/2020 at 10:02 PM, Parklife said:

No one argues that Burley was a good Scotland manager. So not really sure what the point of your post was. 

No, but you said his sides attacked teams and were much better going forward (than the current team presumably). I don't think that was the case.

My recollection of Burley is that he talked a good game about playing an expansive style of football but in reality his teams delivered something more akin to the aimless, ponderous rubbish that the current side turned out against Israel and Czech Republic.

Burley never faced a San Marino style minnow, and even the very best of teams can have off days, but even so, I would have thought a manager whose teams attacked their opponents and went at teams might have seen them score more than 8 goals over the course of 14 games, especially when he arguably had better strikers at his disposal than Steve Clarke has.

That was the point of my post. 

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Took a few days away from here to reflect on things and try to gather some thoughts.

Firstly as much as I was content with 4 points from 6, the performances left a lot to be desired. The players were not fully up to speed fitness wise which is understandable but what wasn't was the lack of ambition, drive and commitment. These lads are talented players but they just don't battle like Scotland teams of 15+ years ago, who were very committed to the cause. It seems an optional extra for these lads, and their performances so often have smacked of not caring for Scotland.

As for the manager, he got it wrong in my mind in terms of the system. Last Autumn, you could see what he was trying to do in terms of a 4-3-3 system that was trying to be tight defensively but also encouraging wide attacking players to express themselves and get balls into the box. To rip 6 months of work up made no sense to me, as the way to fit Tierney in was left sided centre half in a 4 at the back.

There is nothing wrong with 3-5-2 as a system but we don't have 3 top quality centre halves, Robertson is uncomfortable at right wing back and it takes away a lot of our attacking threat from wide areas.

I would absolutely accept being bored to tears if the performances and results got us to a tournament but the performances last weekend were nowhere near tournament standard.

In my eyes, SC should go back to his tried and trusted in October so that our players are more comfortable in how they need to play.

Must admit to being more worried about Clarke than I was before the break but he is nowhere near a sack having not been beaten in 5 games. He just needs to believe in his team more and go for a system that helps get the best out of players who are comfortable with their roles.

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16 minutes ago, BucksburnDandy said:

There is nothing wrong with 3-5-2 as a system but we don't have 3 top quality centre halves, Robertson is uncomfortable at right wing back and it takes away a lot of our attacking threat from wide areas.

Yes, we don't have three quality center backs. That's exactly why we should play with a three. Roy Keane said that England played with a three, as it was a "strength in numbers" method. I've said the same thing.

Sheffield United's back three has a market value of £22.95m. That would pay for 1/3 of Virgil Van Dijk. And yet, for the majority of the season Sheffield United were in the top half of the table, and would've qualified for Europe if they didn't come back looking sluggish after the restart.

Robertson? You mean, left wingback? He said that he's uncomfortable playing left wingback. Not entirely what he means. If you look at the Liverpool heatmap he spends 80% of the season playing as a left wingback/winger.

I must apologize to Steve Clarke. Before the previous two matches, I called him a dinosaur. He isn't.

Look. People can say that "Scotland are most comfortable with four at the back" till they're blue in the face. There's a valid reason why Strachan, McLeish and now Clarke have been willing to ditch the four at the back system. Let's hope Clarke does what the other two didn't, and stick to the three for a few years, irrespective of results/performances. If he does, he has my backing.

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Vogts, Smith, McLeish, Burley, Levein and Strachan all failed to qualify for major tournaments. If the clubs are not coaching players to the highest standards, there is only so much a manager can do. Instead of changing managers, we should be asking why we're not producing players like Messi, Ronaldo, Zidane etc? MacGillivray, playing in the third tier of English football, has been in a Scotland squad. What does that say about the quality of player the Scottish clubs are bringing through?

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8 minutes ago, Arbroath1320 said:

Vogts, Smith, McLeish, Burley, Levein and Strachan all failed to qualify for major tournaments. If the clubs are not coaching players to the highest standards, there is only so much a manager can do. Instead of changing managers, we should be asking why we're not producing players like Messi, Ronaldo, Zidane etc? MacGillivray, playing in the third tier of English football, has been in a Scotland squad. What does that say about the quality of player the Scottish clubs are bringing through?

Countries our size tend not to produce squads of top class players. Uruguay and Croatia seem to manage it but the vast majority have similar standard of player to us. That's not saying we shouldn't be producing some better players. We need to overhaul the system and get kids playing football like they used to. We should invest massive amounts of money into indoor football centres with coaches who run sessions every night. I think Iceland created loads of indoor football centres to try and combat the fact that weather is not great for playing outside. 

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2 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Countries our size tend not to produce squads of top class players. Uruguay and Croatia seem to manage it but the vast majority have similar standard of player to us. That's not saying we shouldn't be producing some better players. We need to overhaul the system and get kids playing football like they used to. We should invest massive amounts of money into indoor football centres with coaches who run sessions every night. I think Iceland created loads of indoor football centres to try and combat the fact that weather is not great for playing outside. 

 

This is exactly the case.  I read a few years back that Scotland then had only two full size indoor pitches whereas Sweden had hundreds.  too many kids on xbox and not enough kicking a ball after school.  when I were a lad, you would kick a ball every day after school rain, wind or shine... now its rare that I see kids kicking a ball and everything seems to have to be organised.

 

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3 hours ago, Arbroath1320 said:

Vogts, Smith, McLeish, Burley, Levein and Strachan all failed to qualify for major tournaments. If the clubs are not coaching players to the highest standards, there is only so much a manager can do. Instead of changing managers, we should be asking why we're not producing players like Messi, Ronaldo, Zidane etc? MacGillivray, playing in the third tier of English football, has been in a Scotland squad. What does that say about the quality of player the Scottish clubs are bringing through?

This is not just about failing to qualify, we have not put together one decent performance since Clarke took over.

After watching the first 20 minutes of our games against Russian and Belgium you knew we had no chance.{maybe half an hour against Russia?)

If we get past Israel and then somehow manage to get a result in the final which we probably wont deserve, we will qualify for a 24 team major tournament. Pretty sure we will be humiliated there unless we get to hand pick our finals group. And don't forget it was McLeish that got us this far thanks to two of our best performances in ages.

Who's to say any of the first five managers wouldn't have got us there under the same circumstances, at least they got occasional decent performances and results.

 

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1 hour ago, Malcolm said:

 

This is exactly the case.  I read a few years back that Scotland then had only two full size indoor pitches whereas Sweden had hundreds.  too many kids on xbox and not enough kicking a ball after school.  when I were a lad, you would kick a ball every day after school rain, wind or shine... now its rare that I see kids kicking a ball and everything seems to have to be organised.

 

Read somewhere that the many Icelandic facilities were run and maintained by the local community and that the parents played a major part in that.

It's not just the kids fault.

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12 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

This is not just about failing to qualify, we have not put together one decent performance since Clarke took over.

After watching the first 20 minutes of our games against Russian and Belgium you knew we had no chance.{maybe half an hour against Russia?)

If we get past Israel and then somehow manage to get a result in the final which we probably wont deserve, we will qualify for a 24 team major tournament. Pretty sure we will be humiliated there unless we get to hand pick our finals group. And don't forget it was McLeish that got us this far thanks to two of our best performances in ages.

Who's to say any of the first five managers wouldn't have got us there under the same circumstances, at least they got occasional decent performances and results.

 

Hand pick our finals group? The draw was made 10 months ago - we’re in with England, Croatia and Czech Rep (IF we get there). 

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15 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

This is not just about failing to qualify, we have not put together one decent performance since Clarke took over.

After watching the first 20 minutes of our games against Russian and Belgium you knew we had no chance.{maybe half an hour against Russia?)

If we get past Israel and then somehow manage to get a result in the final which we probably wont deserve, we will qualify for a 24 team major tournament. Pretty sure we will be humiliated there unless we get to hand pick our finals group. And don't forget it was McLeish that got us this far thanks to two of our best performances in ages.

Who's to say any of the first five managers wouldn't have got us there under the same circumstances, at least they got occasional decent performances and results.

 

Thats the spirit. 🙄

If we get there we deserve to be there. Its one year away too which allows us to prepare more. The players who come across as unmotivated will be up for it too. You can bet your arse the likes of Fraser and Tierney will not have any niggles or knocks for euro 2021. 

Mckenna will have another year under his belt and he looks to have his head screwed back on, Gilmour will hopefully be getting more game time......... 

Its a cliche but a year is a long time in football

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21 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

This is not just about failing to qualify, we have not put together one decent performance since Clarke took over.

After watching the first 20 minutes of our games against Russian and Belgium you knew we had no chance.{maybe half an hour against Russia?)

If we get past Israel and then somehow manage to get a result in the final which we probably wont deserve, we will qualify for a 24 team major tournament. Pretty sure we will be humiliated there unless we get to hand pick our finals group. And don't forget it was McLeish that got us this far thanks to two of our best performances in ages.

Who's to say any of the first five managers wouldn't have got us there under the same circumstances, at least they got occasional decent performances and results.

 

Kazakhstan was a decent performance. 

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45 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Kazakhstan was a decent performance. 

Sorry but that's the country that lost at home to Cyprus in the qualifiers. And and even let San Marino score.

We seem to think Kazakhstan are a good side because they destroyed us. Bottom line you can't call beating very weak teams much of a performance. On paper the win in Cyprus was a better performance.

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53 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Thats the spirit. 🙄

If we get there we deserve to be there. Its one year away too which allows us to prepare more. The players who come across as unmotivated will be up for it too. You can bet your arse the likes of Fraser and Tierney will not have any niggles or knocks for euro 2021. 

Mckenna will have another year under his belt and he looks to have his head screwed back on, Gilmour will hopefully be getting more game time......... 

Its a cliche but a year is a long time in football

Do you think we are unique in thinking our players will be better and more motivated in a years time? Thread is about the manager and I can't see any reason for the players to be more motivated. Some of our players might be better but some of them are in decline.

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Have a look at our database of players.

Our squad is English Championship/League One/SPL level.

People can go on about us having EPL players (We have 15), but all but four of those players could easily get relegated.

It's time we stopped blaming the manager for not being good enough. The fact of the matter is the players are not good enough.

Watching the Czech match shocked me into realizing just how bad the majority of our players are. They looked scared/confused by the sight of the football. We had 28 more passes than a Czech league select side and we shared possession.

It's time to stop blaming the manager. He's working with what he's got, unfortunately, he hasn't got much.

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1 hour ago, Taylor1996 said:

Have a look at our database of players.

Our squad is English Championship/League One/SPL level.

People can go on about us having EPL players (We have 15), but all but four of those players could easily get relegated.

It's time we stopped blaming the manager for not being good enough. The fact of the matter is the players are not good enough.

Watching the Czech match shocked me into realizing just how bad the majority of our players are. They looked scared/confused by the sight of the football. We had 28 more passes than a Czech league select side and we shared possession.

It's time to stop blaming the manager. He's working with what he's got, unfortunately, he hasn't got much.

£20,000,000 players dont get relegated they just get a move to a better team.

McBurnie's safe.

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30 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

£20,000,000 players dont get relegated they just get a move to a better team.

McBurnie's safe.

It's not written in stone.

Watford spent £18.4m on Andre Gray, he'll be playing in the Championship this season. Same with Ismaila Sarr, Watford bought him for £27 last season, and yet he's still a Championship player.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The quotes I seen today attributed to Mr Clarke concern me...he has stated that he hasnt seen any matches in the flesh since the season started and that he thinks watching players on the TV is every bit as good as watching them from the stands.

 

Added to the fact he has called Ryan Jack up despite him being injured for the past 3 weeks, and the absolutely crazy decision  to include SOD and Declan Gallacher in the squad, despite being tragically shite for Motherwell this season defies belief.

Edited by 0Neils40yarder
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55 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

The quotes I seen today attributed to Mr Clarke concern me...he has stated that he hasnt seen any matches in the flesh since the season started and that he thinks watching players on the TV is every bit as good as watching them from the stands.

 

Added to the fact he has called Ryan Jack up despite him being injured for the past 3 weeks, and the absolutely crazy decision  to include SOD and Declan Gallacher in the squad, despite being tragically shite for Motherwell this season defies belief.

Yep the Ryan Jack inclusion a strange one for me. Haven’t Rangers said he’s a doubt for old firm game. During the last fixtures it turned out Clarke and the player had not communicated with each other. Slightly concerning it could happen again imo.

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