Scotland V Croatia Match Thread - Page 22 - TA specific - Tartan Army Message Board Jump to content

Scotland V Croatia Match Thread


Caledonian Craig

Recommended Posts

8 minutes ago, biffer said:

Ok. I believe we had more than 40 shots at goal over three games and scored once. It’s pretty obvious what the problem is.

There’s a big but here though. For most of my lifetime watching Scotland at tournaments, we’ve been thinking about who was retiring and how we’d replace them at the end of the tournament. Most of this team is here for at least 6 more years. If we find a reasonable goalscorer then we’ll be really fucking dangerous. Doesn’t need to be world class, not a two goals from three chances like Modric, just take one out of six. Even one out of eight we would have scored five goals in those three games.

I genuinely think we’re better place now than we have been since the mid eighties.

You're absolutely right. We don't need a Bale or a Lewandowski. All we need is a competent poacher. As I said earlier, I feel so sorry for Robertson. He must have put in 20 quality crosses at least over the tournament. Virtually every other team at this tournament would have converted a handful of his crosses.

But we are a damn good team. The progress we've made over past 2 years is rapid. Plus it looks like both Gilmour and Patterson are obvious long term replacements in the starting 11 that will improve us even more. Turnbull can't be too far behind, though it's ashame he never got any minutes this tournament.

I swear Scotland is cursed with strikers. We really have been desperately unlucky for decades up front.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 601
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

We scored 1 goal and conceded 5, all in our own ground 

We qualified via nations league,  in qualifying group proper got served up by russia

In world cup qualifiers we started by dropping points v Austria at home and Israel away 

We're just miles off it still, we need better players

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Bino's said:

We scored 1 goal and conceded 5, all in our own ground 

We qualified via nations league,  in qualifying group proper got served up by russia

In world cup qualifiers we started by dropping points v Austria at home and Israel away 

We're just miles off it still, we need better players

Or a better manager or a different formation 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


 

4 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

I don't wont to sound smug, but I was just as happy before we scored as it was obvious plan a wasn't working and major changes had to be made at half time to fix it. Once we got the equaliser  it was just a matter of time before we were behind again and how little time we would have left to fix it. And I have witness's to prove I said that at half time.

I believe you , Taylor1997 🙂

I think you mean you were just as frustrated before we scored, I doubt you were happy. But I dont disagree we were on the back foot a lot of the night. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Bino's said:

We scored 1 goal and conceded 5, all in our own ground 

We qualified via nations league,  in qualifying group proper got served up by russia

In world cup qualifiers we started by dropping points v Austria at home and Israel away 

We're just miles off it still, we need better players

This needs be be pinned.

Everything else doesn’t matter. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Or a better manager or a different formation 

The manager had to play a left back and central midfielder in defence,  despite the fact they can't defend 

Cause he trusted our actual centre halfs so little 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Fraser barely plays for Newcastle and didn’t start a game for us 

and yet looked threatening in his 20 minutes and has scored 3 great goals against Czech Republic, Israel and Faroes prior to tourney - underused. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:


 

I believe you , Taylor1997 🙂

I think you mean you were just as frustrated before we scored, I doubt you were happy. But I dont disagree we were on the back foot a lot of the night. 

Not too sure what i mean any more.................

I think before they scored it was obvious we wouldn't win, after they scored it was obvious  we wouldn't win, after we scored we were back to were we started were it was obvious we wouldn't win.

It might have been better to go in one down and have 45 minutes to fix things rather than think things were going ok and end up with 20 minutes to sort them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, gkm_vancouver said:

and yet looked threatening in his 20 minutes and has scored 3 great goals against Czech Republic, Israel and Faroes prior to tourney - underused. 

Yeh i don't understand why he never started games unless he was unfit. Clarke really underused fraser

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Scot1

At the end of the day, we will not improve as a nation, in a football sense, until we become better in possession. 
We give the ball away far too easily and at this level that’s no good. Obviously with the emergence of Gilmour, we will surely retain possession more. But we need to stop going back to front so quickly.Move teams around, stretch them, drag them out of position through possession and passing. That’s what Croatia did tonight very well. 

Edited by Scot1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Not too sure what i mean any more.................

I think before they scored it was obvious we wouldn't win, after they scored it was obvious  we wouldn't win, after we scored we were back to were we started were it was obvious we wouldn't win.

It might have been better to go in one down and have 45 minutes to fix things rather than think things were going ok and end up with 20 minutes to sort them

Yip, as much as it was great for confidence to go in at half time having just evened the score, I said to my husband ‘ I hope to god we dont think this evens things up as it really doesn’t’.

They really were just better than us , particularly as we cannot find a way to score. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Scot1 said:

At the end of the day, we will not improve as a nation, in a football sense, until we become better in possession. 
We give the ball away far too easily and at this level that’s no good. Obviously with the emergence of Gilmour, we will surely retain possession more. But we need to stop going back to front so quickly.Move teams around, stretch them, drag them out of position through possession and passing. That’s what Croatia did tonight very well. 

This has been obvious since i was a bairn, and folk have been saying it since then. It's always been our weakness. 

We've made great strides though...

Problem is, the opposition have too

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Scot1

Our right hand side, regardless of formation needs to be rethought, we don’t have any offence down our right and the opposition knows it. 
On a positive note, Gilmour looks top quality 

Hanley looks good

McGregor has a future in the squad. 
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Scot1
1 minute ago, Dave78 said:

This has been obvious since i was a bairn, and folk have been saying it since then. It's always been our weakness. 

We've made great strides though...

Problem is, the opposition have too

It’s got to be a mentality issue, because there were times in all the 3 games where we knocked the ball around nicely. Obviously when Gilmour was playing, but even in the other 2 games. We just need more composure on the ball. Hopefully experience like tonight will have a positive impact on the players, management etc, going forward. There are times to go direct, but not as often as we do. 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Scot1 said:

It’s got to be a mentality issue, because there were times in all the 3 games where we knocked the ball around nicely. Obviously when Gilmour was playing, but even in the other 2 games. We just need more composure on the ball. Hopefully experience like tonight will have a positive impact on the players, management etc, going forward. There are times to go direct, but not as often as we do. 
 

I think we need to go back to playing 1 extra attacking midfielder with 1 of Adams/Dykes/Nisbet. We've created loads of chances all over the team, only for the 2 at the top to fail to bury the chances. 

Fraser, Christie, Forrest, Turnbull all barely got a chance. Such a waste of talent at our disposal. It seems desperately unfair that Dykes and Adams got so much time on the pitch, when some of our best players are waiting in the wings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Scot1
2 minutes ago, Tartan blood said:

I think we need to go back to playing 1 extra attacking midfielder with 1 of Adams/Dykes/Nisbet. We've created loads of chances all over the team, only for the 2 at the top to fail to bury the chances. 

Fraser, Christie, Forrest, Turnbull all barely got a chance. Such a waste of talent at our disposal. It seems desperately unfair that Dykes and Adams got so much time on the pitch, when some of our best players are waiting in the wings.

I’d personally go to a back 4, that allows another midfielder / attacker to be played instead of a centre half. It also allows most, if not all of the squad to play in their natural / familiar positions 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Scot1 said:

I’d personally go to a back 4, that allows another midfielder / attacker to be played instead of a centre half. It also allows most, if not all of the squad to play in their natural / familiar positions 

Where is Tierney going then?

I'm fine with a back 5. It's the set up of the 5 in front that is the issue. There is way too much reliance on McGinn to do everything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Scot1
13 minutes ago, Tartan blood said:

Where is Tierney going then?

I'm fine with a back 5. It's the set up of the 5 in front that is the issue. There is way too much reliance on McGinn to do everything.

If you play 4/4/2

Tierney Gilmour McGinn McTominay

That would be my midfield 4

with Robbo and Patterson as fullbacks giving us width

Edited by Scot1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Think I'm leaving here for an extended period. There's a heavy amount of nutters on here. Don't blame folk venting especially the night but FFS.

My final 2 cents:

1. We are not good enough and were by far the worst team in our group. Rode our luck getting there but TBH qualifying is our high water mark.

2. There's too much blind loyalty in the fanbase and the thought that we can do better than expected - see the pre-tournament predictions thread as a case study.

3. The manager is a half decent club manager. However: 1 decent result (draw) with some tactical wins against our biggest rival is fine. But also 2 games where he's totally blew it. Tonight - sit off and let Modric dictate the pace of the game, persist with underperforming Armstrong (awful tonight), Not replacing beatliee SOD + Dykes. An off form Christie starting in our first match...

We have some decent young players coming through which gives us future hope but we also continually persist with some haddies that are clearly not good enough. I wish Steve Clarke all the best and it's a tough gig - you can only pish with the tadger given to you. But i feel he is somewhat out his depth and too ponderous to make changes when things are not working.

Onwards and upwards hopefully. Keep the faith 💙

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't believe folk are saying 'ah well, they have better players than us', like that's an excuse for getting beat. FFS, if that was the case then let's not bother ever playing a game of football again and just award the win to the team with the better players!

Does anyone actually remember we beat a better Croatia side home and away with a poorer Scotland team previously?? 

Too many folk (not exclusively here) accepting we got to a tournament and tried our best. No wonder our nation continues to flounder with attitudes like this. We shouldn't be accepting it, we should be asking questions. Questions like why can Wales progress through the knockout stages? Why can Iceland at the last tournament over perform? Why should we accept that a country like Croatia with a similar population are better than us?

Anyone who thinks progress is being made is deluded. Our results have been terrible for years. Have a look for yourself and you'll see we've hardly beaten anyone of note over 90 minutes in 5 years. We are absolutely under performing! 

Is it the manager? I don't know, but he definitely got a lot wrong this tournament. A blind guy could see Patterson from his cameo tonight is a level above O' Donnell......why not bring him on earlier in the half and give him a chance. 

As much as football is about scoring goals, for me our problem how we defend. England only scored 1 more goal than us and finished top of the group. 

We consistently give away cheap goals. Every single goal in this tournament we conceded was completely avoidable and cheap. When we qualified for euro 96 and France 98 we only conceded 3 goals in each of the whole qualifying campaigns! Now we regularly ship 3 in a single game.

For me it's defenders not being able to concentrate for a full 90 minutes. Lapses of concentration at this level kill you. Teams with poorer defenders than us defend better. 

Who knows where we go from here 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Scot1
2 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

What tierney right wing and Mctominay left wing? Tierney would be good at left wing if playing a 442

No Tierney on the left, McTominay on the right.

you could also go 4/3/3 with a midfield 3 of 

Tierney Gilmour McTominay

a front 3 of 

Turnbull Adams McGinn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The shoe horning of mctominay into the side whatever the circumstances needs looked at  he plays in defence but cannot defend for toffee .
 

He plays in midfield but on the ball and his distribution. Isn’t good enough .

He is guaranteed a game because of who he plays for but we need to

realise that his “abilities “ may not be needed in every game 

Edited by DAVIDB46
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...



×
×
  • Create New...