Scotland vs Slovakia - Match Thread [11/10/2020] - Page 7 - TA specific - Tartan Army Message Board Jump to content

Scotland vs Slovakia - Match Thread [11/10/2020]


Clyde1998

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4 minutes ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

Some have said that being turgid and winning is what we're about at the moment, but tbh we played pretty decently tonight. Some good passages of passing between a number of players. We just need to create more solid chances

I agree, that game wasnt turgid or boring. The 2nd half in particular produced some very good passing moves. 

I guess some people think a good performance is all about dominating the opponent and peppering their goal.

Im still trying to figure how some people think Ryan Fraser was shite last night. 😂😂😂

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31 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Im still trying to figure how some people think Ryan Fraser was shite last night. 😂😂😂

Especially seeing as he was awarded motm. I can finally see progress being made in Clarke’s system. We have beaten depleted Israel and Slovakia sides with a depleted team of our own and face a depleted Czech side on Wednesday (although we’re not entirely sure how depleted as some test results are still unknown, last I saw), so it’s difficult to accurately gauge us in these strange times.

It is encouraging that we are on an unbeaten run and haven’t conceded in the last two, and seeing the highlights of Norway and Haarland destroying Romania last night, it underlines how we have a better chance against Serbia, who lost at home to Hungary. 

The Serbs have a talented squad full of good players, but they’re inconsistent. If we win or draw against the Czechs, who will be our biggest test so far in this unbeaten run, we’ll head to Belgrade with a lot of confidence. 
 

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So many comparisons can be made with what Clarke did with Killie. The pattern of last night's game especially, solid enough in the first half then much more vibrant and attacking in the second. Always felt at Killie that Clarke spent the first half sussing out the opposition and their weaknesses and then exploiting them in the second. 

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Definite improvements being made. 

I thought we were pretty good last night. Given we were without some key men, I don't think we can have much to criticise. We looked relatively solid at the back (Considine ❤️) and played some decent football going forward. We're still struggling to create chances but I'm hopeful that'll improve. Particularly with Christie to come back in and (hopefully) Griffiths returning too. 

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Much better last night, and just like in the Israel game, Fraser certainly added something to the midfield (felt he was maybe on a little to late v Israel) that has been missing from the last few games, also McBurnie looked the most lively I have seen him in a Scotland jersey (though did drive me nuts last few minutes with his time wasting, but I can see why he was doing it rather than going for the 2nd goal).

Feels like Clarke is making us harder to beat, and I suspect under him 1-0 wins and draws will probably become something of the norm against teams of a similar standard as us (unfortunately I think when it comes to bigger teams we still have a long way to go).

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15 minutes ago, wanderer said:

 

Feels like Clarke is making us harder to beat, and I suspect under him 1-0 wins and draws will probably become something of the norm against teams of a similar standard as us (unfortunately I think when it comes to bigger teams we still have a long way to go).

Although I don't think we'll see us lose 4-0 to Russia anytime soon. I'm expecting us to be a.lot tougher a nut to crack even for the big teams. 

 

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If you’d have said we’d go a year unbeaten after Russia away last year I’d have said no chance, no pleasantly surprised Clarke has got us more solid, even if we’ve been somewhat lucky at times but we’ve deserved a bit of that luck as well. 

Being hard to beat and breakdown is a massive improvement especially if we can play like that against the better teams. 

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30 minutes ago, Morrisandmoo said:

Although I don't think we'll see us lose 4-0 to Russia anytime soon. I'm expecting us to be a.lot tougher a nut to crack even for the big teams. 

 

I put that down as just a days day at the office with a poor team sent out (think we have seen the last of Mulgrew, Fleck has been nowhere near as influential in a Scotland shirt as most hoped/expected (good squad player, but one of so many in the team) and players who were really off form at the time, or guys like Snoddy out for one last role of the dice)... but I do suspect we will still seen a few more like that in years to come.

Media seem to be talking about our lack of shots on target, yet very few mentioning how much of a passenger Marshall has been in the last few games (made to work at times, but as you said, far cry from Moscow).

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12 hours ago, Clyde1998 said:

Just looking at the table there, a win against the Czechs on Wednesday (a huge ask) would put us four points clear with two to play - with a guarantee of the better head-to-head record, should we finish level on points.

Robertson suspended, so Taylor will almost certainly come in. With some of the substitutions and how a lot of the player were looking towards the end, perhaps some players aren't as tired from Thursday as we may have thought and we may be able to play as close to full strength as possible.

Heard Clarke say he may be looking to bring in another defender as cover. Will need to be left-sided to cover Robertson, Considine and Taylor. Been racking my brains to think of one and the only one I can think of is Hanlon of Hibs.

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16 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

If you’d have said we’d go a year unbeaten after Russia away last year I’d have said no chance, no pleasantly surprised Clarke has got us more solid, even if we’ve been somewhat lucky at times but we’ve deserved a bit of that luck as well. 

Being hard to beat and breakdown is a massive improvement especially if we can play like that against the better teams. 

Clarke has been rather unlucky.

He came in at the 11th hour to a team with its head down, and then had to go into a nightmare run of games (Belgium (A) - Russia (H) - Belgium (H) - Russia (A)) and on top of this been unlucky with injuries, players off form at club level and Griffiths unavailable. 

With each game that passes now we do seem to be getting some more and more improvement.

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1 hour ago, wanderer said:

Clarke has been rather unlucky.

He came in at the 11th hour to a team with its head down, and then had to go into a nightmare run of games (Belgium (A) - Russia (H) - Belgium (H) - Russia (A)) and on top of this been unlucky with injuries, players off form at club level and Griffiths unavailable. 

With each game that passes now we do seem to be getting some more and more improvement.

I've only seen improvement in one game so far. Israel, Czech Rep and israel games were all about the same level of pishness, IMO.

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1 minute ago, Orraloon said:

I've only seen improvement in one game so far. Israel, Czech Rep and israel games were all about the same level of pishness, IMO.

First Israel game I think we tried to put to many players in the team who had not kicked a ball in months, and it showed (out of the English based players, only Tierney played a decent amount of games in the build up, and you could probably still count that on one hand), Czech game I will give something on a pass on (similar reason, but also we did not know what Czech side we were facing, and any game plan went totally out the window), but both those games were with a eye on the Israel game last week (sharpness over the last two games were night and day compared to last month, especially last night).

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12 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

I've only seen improvement in one game so far. Israel, Czech Rep and israel games were all about the same level of pishness, IMO.

Its amazing what a 1 nil victory over Slovakia can do to ppls confidence on here. I think if we follow up last nights victory with a good performance v Czech Republic on Wednesday then we will have a proper reason to be hopeful. 

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I do worry we've gone straight from over-done despair to 'all's well' without stopping at a reality check-in. When that happens you can slump back down again with just one match.

Slovakia were poor last night but we did really well to remain solid and take full control in the second half. They didn't have enough in attack for me to change my mind that McTominay isn't  a centre back and we did lack some dynamism. Without anyone ahead of him, we don't get the most out of Robertson and we generally lacked width.

Overall though things are looking brighter. We had key players out that instantly make us more vibrant and maybe those youngsters are coming through.  The McCrories, Gilmour, Turnbull, Campbell etc have the potential to be better than what we have.

Just wish the attack on players would end. Considine, ODonnell and Fraser all played well but I saw all of them get stick that was unnecessary.

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Much improved performance, but not getting carried away as this was one game. Bonus is that we still have players like Tierney, Armstrong, Christie, Cooper to come back. Whether the Serbia game is too soon for Griffiths remains to be seen but a great option to have if he is called up.

Hopefully Fraser will continue to turn up as I am in no doubt he is better than Forest.

Main thing is having as close to a fully fit squad as possible for the Serbia match then it's game on.

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2 hours ago, SkyBlueScot said:

I do worry we've gone straight from over-done despair to 'all's well' without stopping at a reality check-in. When that happens you can slump back down again with just one match.

Slovakia were poor last night but we did really well to remain solid and take full control in the second half. They didn't have enough in attack for me to change my mind that McTominay isn't  a centre back and we did lack some dynamism. Without anyone ahead of him, we don't get the most out of Robertson and we generally lacked width.

Overall though things are looking brighter. We had key players out that instantly make us more vibrant and maybe those youngsters are coming through.  The McCrories, Gilmour, Turnbull, Campbell etc have the potential to be better than what we have.

Just wish the attack on players would end. Considine, ODonnell and Fraser all played well but I saw all of them get stick that was unnecessary.

Of course we need to be careful about going to the other extreme, but there's clearly been improvement under Clarke - especially in the last few matches.

The Czechs, assuming they have a full strength side out, will be the strongest opponents we've faced since Russia and are probably at the same level as Serbia. Stats wise, Israel appear to have been somewhat better than the Czechs last night, although the Czechs were defending a lead and probably sat back.

Based on the fact we didn't make many changes from Thursday to Sunday, we may not need to make many on Wednesday - other than perhaps changing the midfield and having to replace Robertson. As long as the centre-backs are able to play, there's no reason to change it there for the next game and I think the Dykes-Fraser combination up top has potential.

The younger players coming through are a huge positive, as there's been periods we've had no real talent coming through the ranks that make you think things will improve.

Attacking players doesn't make sense. As long as they're giving their all, they can't help their current ability - if they're the best option for the position/role they play, then we should get behind them and try to give them the confidence to perform at their best.

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3 hours ago, SkyBlueScot said:

I do worry we've gone straight from over-done despair to 'all's well' without stopping at a reality check-in. When that happens you can slump back down again with just one match.

Slovakia were poor last night but we did really well to remain solid and take full control in the second half. They didn't have enough in attack for me to change my mind that McTominay isn't  a centre back and we did lack some dynamism. Without anyone ahead of him, we don't get the most out of Robertson and we generally lacked width.

Overall though things are looking brighter. We had key players out that instantly make us more vibrant and maybe those youngsters are coming through.  The McCrories, Gilmour, Turnbull, Campbell etc have the potential to be better than what we have.

Just wish the attack on players would end. Considine, ODonnell and Fraser all played well but I saw all of them get stick that was unnecessary.

Yeh everyones gone from despairing at our performances to believing we are improving massively all because we beat Israel in a penalty shoot out and beat Slovakia 1 nil. 

We are looking decent and defensively we look excellent. This Czech game will be a chance to see if we are genuinely moving in the right direction or its just a false dawn.

The players have taken alot of stick and rightly so. We have been pretty poor this last couple of years so a bit of improvement should be expected. Fraser hasn't exactly turned up for squads and o donnell has been shit in matches he's played. 

I wouldn't say the young players we have coming through are a particulary special group Tbf. I would actually say 4 years ago was a more promising batch when we had Tierney, robertson, Burke, mctominay, fraser, christie, Mcginn coming through. The only player out of our youth teams who I reckon will defo be a star is Gilmour and maybe Turnbull. Apart from those two I can't name an u22 player who I can be certain will definitely play epl level football. 

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22 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

I wouldn't say the young players we have coming through are a particulary special group Tbf. I would actually say 4 years ago was a more promising batch when we had Tierney, robertson, Burke, mctominay, fraser, christie, Mcginn coming through. The only player out of our youth teams who I reckon will defo be a star is Gilmour and maybe Turnbull. Apart from those two I can't name an u22 player who I can be certain will definitely play epl level football. 

I think your memory is playing tricks on you...

  • Tierney (23, no u21 caps)
  • Burke (23, 9 u21 caps)
  • McTominay (23, no u21 caps)
  • Christie (25, 9 u21 caps)
  • McGinn (25, 6 u21 caps)
  • Robertson (26, 4 u21 caps)
  • Fraser (26, 10 u21 caps)

You'll do well to find any under 21 squad that included more than any 2 of them at the same time.

You are looking at 2-4 players from each age group becoming regulars.  There are easily 2-4 in this lot that will be regulars over the next 10 years - one of which has the potential to be a star for us.  

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2 minutes ago, PASTA Mick said:

I think your memory is playing tricks on you...

  • Tierney (23, no u21 caps)
  • Burke (23, 9 u21 caps)
  • McTominay (23, no u21 caps)
  • Christie (25, 9 u21 caps)
  • McGinn (25, 6 u21 caps)
  • Robertson (26, 4 u21 caps)
  • Fraser (26, 10 u21 caps)

You'll do well to find any under 21 squad that included more than any 2 of them at the same time.

You are looking at 2-4 players from each age group becoming regulars.  There are easily 2-4 in this lot that will be regulars over the next 10 years - one of which has the potential to be a star for us.  

I never said they were all in the u21 squad together, guys like Tierney, mctominay and Robertson didn't play much u21s because they were fast tracked. We don't have many players in the current u21s or u19s who I can see being fast tracked. 

4 years ago we had a group(maybe 5/6) of players who were aged between 19-22 who were destined to be important international players for us regardless of whether they had played in our youth teams or not. 

I can only name gilmour and maybe Turnbull who are u22 that I think for certain will become important international players for us. 

I actually think that the batch of players we have now in the national squad who are aged between 23-26 were a really good batch of players that came through. How often will we produce a batch of 6 or 7 players who are good enough to play in the epl with 3 playing for top 6 sides. I hope this group of young players do the same but I think it's unlikely. 

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2 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

I never said they were all in the u21 squad together, guys like Tierney, mctominay and Robertson didn't play much u21s because they were fast tracked. We don't have many players in the current u21s or u19s who I can see being fast tracked. 

4 years ago we had a group(maybe 5/6) of players who were aged between 19-22 who were destined to be important international players for us regardless of whether they had played in our youth teams or not. 

I can only name gilmour and maybe Turnbull who are u22 that I think for certain will become important international players for us. 

I actually think that the batch of players we have now in the national squad who are aged between 23-26 were a really good batch of players that came through. How often will we produce a batch of 6 or 7 players who are good enough to play in the epl with 3 playing for top 6 sides. I hope this group of young players do the same but I think it's unlikely. 

Both sides to this discussion are valid. The 21-26-year-olds needed a bit of experience and now have that. For most players, it takes 15-20 caps to properly settle at international level. Haaland and players like him are the exception. Quite possibly Gilmour could be in that category, too. We’ll find out over the next year or so.

Turnbull, Hornby, Patterson, Ashby, McIntyre, Johnson, McCrorie x2, Campbell, Porteous, Mayo and a few others in the current U21s could all become regulars in the senior squad in the next few years, which is encouraging. 
 

We are now on the cusp of seeing the benefits - hopefully- of the Performance Schools. Gilmour’s peers are the first year and we now have many more clubs buying or seriously interested in our young talent, such as Morrison and Hepburn at Bayern, Hickey at Bologna, Fiorini, Adam plus a few others at Man City, King at Rangers etc.
 

It is still unfulfilled talent, yes, but our prospects are looking better than they have for a long time.

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23 minutes ago, RabtheBruce said:

Both sides to this discussion are valid. The 21-26-year-olds needed a bit of experience and now have that. For most players, it takes 15-20 caps to properly settle at international level. Haaland and players like him are the exception. Quite possibly Gilmour could be in that category, too. We’ll find out over the next year or so.

Turnbull, Hornby, Patterson, Ashby, McIntyre, Johnson, McCrorie x2, Campbell, Porteous, Mayo and a few others in the current U21s could all become regulars in the senior squad in the next few years, which is encouraging. 
 

We are now on the cusp of seeing the benefits - hopefully- of the Performance Schools. Gilmour’s peers are the first year and we now have many more clubs buying or seriously interested in our young talent, such as Morrison and Hepburn at Bayern, Hickey at Bologna, Fiorini, Adam plus a few others at Man City, King at Rangers etc.
 

It is still unfulfilled talent, yes, but our prospects are looking better than they have for a long time.

Yeh I get what your saying but I would say 4 years ago we had a about 5 or 6 young players aged 22 or under who you could tell where going to be epl standard players and would be first team regulars in the Scotland team. Fraser, mctominay, Burke, Tierney, Robertson where guys that were clearly special talents by our standards so much so that Tierney, robertson and mctominay basically skipped the u21s and went straight to the first team. 

The list of players you mentioned are good players but I only see Gilmour and Turnbull being guaranteed epl level players in the future. If you compare that with previous group then it's clear that they where a good batch of young players by our standards. 

Its all very well reeling off young players at big European clubs but it means very little when you look at the past players we have had in the youth setups of top clubs. Guys like sammut, mackay Stevens and Harvey St clair, harper etc 

Being at a big club means very little. Better getting first team experience imo. 

 

 

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