Clarke committed to Scotland

[ProudScot]

58 minutes ago, slasher said:

Every Scotland manager in recent history that has tried to be a bit more expansive has paid a heavy price. I don't criticise Clarke for his caution and loyalty to players in the Czech game, but his failure to recognise we needed to change personnel and system at half time after getting out of jail at 1-1 against Croatia in a 'winner takes all game' was absolutely criminal 

Bang on about Croatia 

[Texas Pete]

20 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Think about it, it's pretty simple.

We needed one win to win our nations league group and bar some miracles that would have got us a world cup playoff spot

 

It’s nowhere near as simple as that. 

Firstly, we have no divine right to beat a team like Slovakia or even Israel for that matter so Clarke failing to do that does not make him useless. If we had made it to a league A it would have been because we beat a depleted Czech side twice.

Secondly, getting promoted to league A would not have guaranteed us a play off slot. We’d certainly have had a good chance  but with teams like Wales, Hungary, Czech Republic and Austria in League A there is no guarantee that 13 of the league A teams would finish in the top 2 of their qualifying groups. 

[ceudmilefailte]

5 minutes ago, Texas Pete said:

It’s nowhere near as simple as that. 

Firstly, we have no divine right to beat a team like Slovakia or even Israel for that matter so Clarke failing to do that does not make him useless. If we had made it to a league A it would have been because we beat a depleted Czech side twice.

Secondly, getting promoted to league A would not have guaranteed us a play off slot. We’d certainly have had a good chance  but with teams like Wales, Hungary, Czech Republic and Austria in League A there is no guarantee that 13 of the league A teams would finish in the top 2 of their qualifying groups. 

To get a playoff spot from league A you had to win your group. It was the top group winners no matter what division it could still go down to a league c group winner

Edited June 24, 2021 by ceudmilefailte

[Texas Pete]

5 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

To get a playoff spot from league A you had to win your group. 

Fair point I was forgetting that. Doesn’t mean we should have won our group though because we didn’t. 

We’d have been thrown around like an empty tracksuit one League A so I can’t say I’m disappointed.

If we want to qualify for the playoffs we need to finish second in our group. If we don’t do that then we don’t deserve to be in the playoffs. 

[Malcolm]

If we can’t get in to the top 2 in a group with Austria and Denmark we don’t deserve to be at the World Cup.

[kumnio]

1 hour ago, gonzohiggy said:

How about we stick with a manager long enough for him to make a real difference?

Last Friday, everyone on this forum would have been giving nothing but praise to Clarke for his tactics against England. Less than a week later and he should be getting sacked according to some.

Last Friday he received a lot praise, the other two games he didn’t. So we just look at the positives, and not the negatives? Let’s forget about Austria and countless Israel performances, or the last Nations League as well why don’t we.

He has had 25 months, and 24 games, how long do people need exactly? It’s a results driven business, apart from Scotland managers who get to fuck things up constantly. 

We are constantly being told stuff like Croatia and Czechs are above us, we can’t possibly compete with them, the rankings show they should be beating us. Is that valid, possibly, yet when we play teams like Israel, who are 40 places below us, we are now up for a tough match, with no right to beat them, and anyway the rankings aren’t to be taken seriously, they are a much better side than that. 

Come September, any lingering hopes of Qatar will be long gone, maybe then we can try and get a competent modern manager. 

[kumnio]

Double post

Edited June 24, 2021 by kumnio

[csinclair]

I get frustrated by Clarke at times as some of his tactics and subs are a bit bewildering but he seems to have the foundations of something and honestly I'm not sure who we could get who'd do better.
One thing that has improved under him is we don't seem to get wholesale numbers of players pulling out of squads anymore; the team spirit does seem to have improved. I just hope that can start yielding more positive results. 

[dezmondo]

Anyone who thinks we're qualifying for the World  Cup under Clarke needs help. 

We have no chance of 1st place and i reckon about a 20% chance of 2nd place which would still leave us with a monumental task to qualify. 

Denmark will unfortunately absolutely wipe the floor with us, we might get a draw in one of the matches but that'll be it. We'll struggle to beat Israel again and it's hard to see us getting a win in Austria. 

Would another manager have us competing better? It's difficult to say but the results have been pretty poor under Clarke and there is nothing to suggest we're going to start beating teams higher ranked than us. 

I'm really struggling to see progress - this word that seems to get banded about in relation to scotland managers. 

All I know is that there are quite a few teams who have squads with similar or less quality than ours but continue to perform, compete and punch above their weight. Sadly this is something we don't do. We are definitely capable of so much more. I think the manager has to partially carry the can for that. 

Anything less than 4 points from the next 3 games and I'd be saying thanks and goodbye Steve. 

[ceudmilefailte]

6 hours ago, Texas Pete said:

Fair point I was forgetting that. Doesn’t mean we should have won our group though because we didn’t. 

We’d have been thrown around like an empty tracksuit one League A so I can’t say I’m disappointed.

If we want to qualify for the playoffs we need to finish second in our group. If we don’t do that then we don’t deserve to be in the playoffs. 

 

6 hours ago, Malcolm said:

If we can’t get in to the top 2 in a group with Austria and Denmark we don’t deserve to be at the World Cup.

Exactly what many of us have been saying about this qualification for he Euros

[ProudScot]

7 hours ago, kumnio said:

Last Friday he received a lot praise, the other two games he didn’t. So we just look at the positives, and not the negatives? Let’s forget about Austria and countless Israel performances, or the last Nations League as well why don’t we.

He has had 25 months, and 24 games, how long do people need exactly? It’s a results driven business, apart from Scotland managers who get to fuck things up constantly. 

We are constantly being told stuff like Croatia and Czechs are above us, we can’t possibly compete with them, the rankings show they should be beating us. Is that valid, possibly, yet when we play teams like Israel, who are 40 places below us, we are now up for a tough match, with no right to beat them, and anyway the rankings aren’t to be taken seriously, they are a much better side than that. 

Come September, any lingering hopes of Qatar will be long gone, maybe then we can try and get a competent modern manager. 

Agree fully 

[vanderark14]

7 hours ago, kumnio said:

Last Friday he received a lot praise, the other two games he didn’t. So we just look at the positives, and not the negatives? Let’s forget about Austria and countless Israel performances, or the last Nations League as well why don’t we.

He has had 25 months, and 24 games, how long do people need exactly? It’s a results driven business, apart from Scotland managers who get to fuck things up constantly. 

We are constantly being told stuff like Croatia and Czechs are above us, we can’t possibly compete with them, the rankings show they should be beating us. Is that valid, possibly, yet when we play teams like Israel, who are 40 places below us, we are now up for a tough match, with no right to beat them, and anyway the rankings aren’t to be taken seriously, they are a much better side than that. 

Come September, any lingering hopes of Qatar will be long gone, maybe then we can try and get a competent modern manager. 

I don't think anyone is saying we can't possibly compete with the Czechs or Croatia, who said that? Croatia have a better team and deservedly beat us on Tuesday. 

We've competed with them and beaten them before but in these recent matches they turned up, we didn't. England have supposed better players yet we played better than them and should've won

Clarke deserves this next round of fixtures IMO. This is a younger team and when September comes round we Will hopefully have gilmour and Jack available. Both will.make a big difference. Clarke has to learn lessons from the Croatia match, if he doesn't he will fall on his sword.

 

[er yir macaroon]

I think if Clarke doesn’t change the system results won’t change and he’ll be out of a job in November. 

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

11 hours ago, gonzohiggy said:

He did however make some errors in the Euros that I hope he doesn’t make again.

I get the feeling this is not the first time I've seen this.

I think one thing that was pretty criminal was he never even called up Gauld for the training camp and was pretty blasé in his response from a reporter as to whether he's seen him play

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Bobby Russell's Lovechild

[Mickey The Brave]

Football fans nowadays have this bizarre idea that the ideal manager exists for their team, they just need to find them, and then suddenly every result and performance will be perfect. It’s delusional beyond belief. Success will only be achieved by patience, giving a manager lots and lots of time to implement their ideas, a lot of hard work, and for a team of our level, probably lots of bumps in the road along the way. We have to be able to look beyond initial results and performances, and trust a manager in their long-term plan.

Also, football fans have this crazy belief that they know better than the manager. If the manager would only switch to this formation, or play such-and-such a player, again, every result and performance would be perfect. If only it were that simple. I have my own opinions as to what players and formation we should be playing, and they are different to how Steve Clarke sets the team out, however, my opinion is always followed by the thought, ‘obviously Steve Clarke knows far better than I do though.’ The idea that any of us on this message board know better than someone who has spent more than 40 years learning, working, living and breathing football, at a very high level, is ludicrous. There has to be some respect there. Not just for Clarke, but for any football manager. You might not agree with their selections, but they are making far more informed and knowledgeable decisions than you or I could ever make.

[gkm_vancouver]

Oh joy of joys, the village idiot is back.............🥴

[kumnio]

4 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

I don't think anyone is saying we can't possibly compete with the Czechs or Croatia, who said that? Croatia have a better team and deservedly beat us on Tuesday. 

We've competed with them and beaten them before but in these recent matches they turned up, we didn't. England have supposed better players yet we played better than them and should've won

Clarke deserves this next round of fixtures IMO. This is a younger team and when September comes round we Will hopefully have gilmour and Jack available. Both will.make a big difference. Clarke has to learn lessons from the Croatia match, if he doesn't he will fall on his sword.

 

I simply don’t trust that Clarke will have learned. He is far to stubborn to change. I hope I’m wrong, but I believe that the games in September will be yet another low point, 

[romanticscot]

I could never be a successful football coach at the top end, if I believed I could I should go and get my coaching badges. However this idea that they are the experts and I or anyone else can't have an opinion is madness. We observe from a distance, have expectations - achievable or not, the fact if it is that enough of us started voicing our concern, voted with our wallets the SFA would eventually drop Clarke or anyone else. It may not be so noticable with limited attendance. Most of us were delighted we made it to the Euros, were the same group happy with our performance? At an estimate I'm going to say 20% of us are. The squad is decent with some deficiencies, is our squad a 1 point from 9, 1 goal scored and minus 4 GD? Nope, we didn't get drawn where Hungary were. We can't consider our performances acceptable so who takes responsibility? 

[Third Lanark]

3 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

I get the feeling this is not the first time I've seen this.

I think one thing that was pretty criminal was he never even called up Gauld for the training camp and was pretty blasé in his response from a reporter as to whether he's seen him play

 

 

Yet he called up Fleck who played exactly zero minutes. What on earth his role was I have no idea. Baffling. He now has the chance to ditch Fleck and replace him with Gauld.

 

 

 

 

 

[Mickey The Brave]

2 minutes ago, romanticscot said:

I could never be a successful football coach at the top end, if I believed I could I should go and get my coaching badges. However this idea that they are the experts and I or anyone else can't have an opinion is madness. We observe from a distance, have expectations - achievable or not, the fact if it is that enough of us started voicing our concern, voted with our wallets the SFA would eventually drop Clarke or anyone else. It may not be so noticable with limited attendance. Most of us were delighted we made it to the Euros, were the same group happy with our performance? At an estimate I'm going to say 20% of us are. The squad is decent with some deficiencies, is our squad a 1 point from 9, 1 goal scored and minus 4 GD? Nope, we didn't get drawn where Hungary were. We can't consider our performances acceptable so who takes responsibility? 

I mean, have an opinion, but like I said, surely the second thought, or the clause added on the end of the opinion has to be ‘but Steve Clarke knows better than I do?’

Personally, if I were selecting a Scotland team on FIFA or Football Manager or the BBC website, I wouldn’t play three-at-the-back, I wouldn’t play two strikers, and I wouldn’t play certain players that Steve Clarke chose. However, Steve Clarke is right and I’m wrong, it’s really as simple as that. He has forty years experience in football, he has coaches with similar experience and knowledge, to bounce ideas off, he sees the players in training every day, he watches all our players in depth throughout the season, and he studies videos of the opposition in great detail. His decisions are far more informed than any of our suggested formations on here.

[stitch]

Mickey you seriously think just because he has a higher level of expertise that no one can say he has got things wrong? 

It's easy in hindsight to say what he got wrong I will say that, but some of the things he has done as Scotland manager is bizarre. 

Just a couple of things but I could go on a long list, 

Letting the players get drunk after the Serbia game then losing the next 2 games. 

Not picking the 3/4 youngsters for the last World Cup qualifiers. He then would of been in a far better position come the euros. I think even my dug new Gilmour was more than capable but for Clarke it was to soon. 

Set plays I think we tried 1 corner in the last 8 games where we did something different than just booting it into the box. 

Goal kicks we teach kids as young as 5 to play out from the back but nearly every one gets punted up the pitch. 

Not everything is doom and gloom and I think we as a team will learn and progress ( we definitely will under any manager as we have better players than we have had for a long time) 

[kumnio]

Alex McLeish was always right, so why sack him? Gordon Strachan was always right, so why let him go?

This logic is beyond belief, what a nonsense approach to things. 

Edited June 25, 2021 by kumnio

[ParisInAKilt]

Unless we dramatically improve, we’re competing with Israel for 3rd place in the World Cup qualifiers. 

[bigfingers]

22 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Unless we dramatically improve, we’re competing with Israel for 3rd place in the World Cup qualifiers. 

Finishing 4th would be unthinkable in terms of ranking and seedings for future qualification groups. 

[vanderark14]

1 hour ago, kumnio said:

Alex McLeish was always right, so why sack him? Gordon Strachan was always right, so why let him go?

This logic is beyond belief, what a nonsense approach to things. 

This we can agree on.