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Scotland v Moldova


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27 minutes ago, BraveheartGordon said:

This is nonsense to look at it this way.

if you compare Denmark’s result against the Faroe Islands last night to everyone else’s against them you’d think Denmark were the worst of the 4 best seeds.

Every game is different and we need to take our own games on merit and get the points we need against them.

No, not really. 

Everyone has played Faroes at home except Denmark who played them away*. And I think we especially can appreciate that Faroes away can be a tricky fixture. 😀  Let's see how we get on there (shudder).

*edit: except Israel I think

Edited by thplinth
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There were positives to last night. From about the 10th minute mark to the 85th or so, we controlled the game, it really could have been 4 or so at half-time and if we had players who knew how to score then it would have possibly end up 6-0 or more! 

We created a lot, and cut through them at ease, but let's remember it was Moldova - one of the worst teams in Europe. Israel, Austria and even the Faroes will not allow us those opportunities and we only took one of them! Whilst it was good to score, we got a fair bit of luck with it, the keeper (who had a good game overall) possibly should have done better with the first shot and luckily for us Dykes managed to scramble it home.

Positives 

Patterson - a nervy start, but settled in to the game. A very exciting prospect, had some great lunging tackles too although the way football is going, will be suspended every 4 game for us? He did really well for his first start, and under a fair bit of pressure. I would start him again on Tuesday, and we'll see how good he is against a better opposition.

Hanley - as he ages, he's becoming rock solid for us. He (touch wood) seems to have cut out the wee mistakes he made when he was younger and seems more focused on just defending. Brilliant performance, and slowly becoming one of the first names on the team sheet, IMO. Only issue is his heading, he often finds space in the box and free headers, but every time they are right over the bar! 

Hendry - my Celtic pal was full of the ''I'll drive him to Belgium, he's the worst Celtic player I have ever seen in the flesh," nonsense about 2 years ago. I know Dees pals as well who weren't that keen on him. If so, Belgium has clearly worked for him, he's still raw, and at times he does get caught pushing on (not necessarily a bad thing, especially playing with 5 at the back, but against bigger teams, I am not sure) Anyhoos, he did very well last night and I thought he was good v Netherlands in that friendly too, a good addition to the squad.

Gilmour - just marvelous. He's my first name of the team sheet for Tuesday. Just a brilliant player. Helps his defence out, and he's not scared or nervous to take the ball often with 2 Moldovans very close to him. Really wish he scored, but hopefully that's a part of his game he can get better at. I have no idea if he's a good finisher or not, but what he certainly is, is a great midfielder and we are lucky to have him.

Concerns 

We are not going to qualify if we don't take chances. We have three strikers who are half-decent at one thing then seem to be poor at the rest. I am really undecided on Nisbet, for every clever ball or run he does the next one is offside, or he'll try too much and lose it. Dykes is very good at being a nuisance and winning balls with his head, holding off defenders although the rest - timing runs ; scoring ; playing the through ball e.g Nisbet was wide open yesterday and unmarked and he was too greedy. Adams has some good link up play, skills, and clever runs, but we can't rely on him to score goals. He's the best of the three, but him up top on his own is no use at all.

Why are we trying to punt it in to the net every time? Robertson did it twice, so did Christie at the end. Tierney tried a couple of power blasters as well. Adams' deflected shot was going straight to the keeper, the deflection made it look like a better strike than it was. 

We are relying too much at times on the wing backs. 

Lots of aimless balls in to the box that either went straight to a red shirt or Dykes or Nisbet weren't clever enough to making the run on to it. 

By all means, it was a decent performance and if we had won 3-0, I imagine the rose-tinted outlooked would have been in full flow.

We won! We got 3 pts. Israel hammered Austria 5-2 (I had that on the laptop, along with the Faroes - who were really decent and unlucky not to get a point - defended well and had a few chances too) Austria were pushing on for a third, and Israel picked them off on the counter, Israel looked almost like scoring every time they broke.

I still think 1-1 or so on Tuesday would be a decent result (hoping Denmark beat Israel 3-0 or so) It would then take us to a cup final-ish against Israel in October! BUT, considering Austria have injuries, possible suspensions? and have been walloped 5-2 and 0-4 in this group, we should keep a similar attacking approach to this game. The sitting off never works, I hate the 'free hit' stuff, but we have a very good opportunity to almost knock Austria out on Tuesday - and if we sit back, try and keep it tight til HT bullshit, we'll end up losing. 

Overall lots of decent spells, and valuable game time for the likes of Patterson, Gilmour and even Turnbull winning another cap. Defence is still a worry at times, and a better team would have made Gordon work a lot harder, but I'd say content with that 7/10 - goalscoring is a huge worry. Even at 1-0, and even with Moldova's lack of opportunites, it would have just taken a late corner, everybody up and a scrambled leveller for it to be a very embarrassing result and us pretty much out of it.

If we can somehow score, we'll be a very interesting team to follow. 

Now on to Tuesday and hopefully a similar approach from Clarke with better games for the front three, Christie and McGinn hopefully is fit.

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1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

Hopefully they are sitting down and analysing every single chance and trying to explain to the players what they could have done differently so that it might help them if they are in that situation again. I'm not convinced that any of that learning from mistakes is happening. I see no sign of it.

You'd hope they are working on it. What else are double and triple headers for, than opportunity to concentrate. 

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1 hour ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Yes I largely agree with this. Either way we need four points out of our next two games at minimum. A draw in Vienna and a win V Israel at Hampden would have the sort of bonus of keeping Austria in with an outside chance of qualifying and they still have to play Israel at home in the penultimate match. I'd sooner see Israel having to get a result against a motivated rather than de-motivated Austria side. A win in Vienna and draw at Hampden V Israel would probably leave us a point ahead of Israel going into the last three fixtures so would be in our own hands. Dream scenario would be to win both matches and we'd most likely be four points clear of third placed Israel/Austria with three games left V Faroe Islands and Moldova (A) and Denmark (H).

And never forgetting that behind every dream scenario lurks a nightmare possibility of dropping points in unexpected places... Imagine for example getting a result in Vienna but dropping points away to Faroes or Moldova... 

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2 minutes ago, exile said:

And never forgetting that behind every dream scenario lurks a nightmare possibility of dropping points in unexpected places... Imagine for example getting a result in Vienna but dropping points away to Faroes or Moldova... 

Indeed but if that nightmare scenario comes about then all debates will be off. We won't deserve to be at the World Cup.

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53 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

An added concern for us is that we have a whole horde of key players on a yellow card going into Tuesday's game. We, therefore, run the risk of Grant Hanley, John McGinn, Lyndon Dykes, Stephen O'Donnell, Jack Hendry and Kevin Nisbet of being booked and banned for the crunch match against Israel.

yes, though as you say. let's get through the coming crunch match 

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I think we'll probably win in Chisinau, maybe an uglier version of last night, but the Faroes away will be tough. Israel put four past them, but I think that was more of a in-form Israel rather than the Faroes being walked over. 

The Faroes had some chances last night, and whilst they just missed out on an impressive result, they are the best of the minnows in my opinion. They were two legs away from the group stages of the Europa League last year, and regularly get in to the qualifying rounds in August before eventually crashing out (a bit like our teams outside the OF).

Then again, let's see what Tuesday and Israel are like first.

 

 

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It was a strange game really in that we looked pretty crap and that everything seemed a bit off the cuff/ ad-hoc rather than working towards a grand design.  We struggled to string passes together unless it was along the back three and the bit near the end where we had a throw-in 10 yards from their goal but in five passes later Gordon was hoofing it up the park was farcical.  On the bright side we could have scored 6 on another night from odd bits of quality, set-pieces and down to them being hugely limited.  However, would anyone have been surprised had they equalised in the last five minutes especially when our defence sat back?

 

We can’t expect Denmark to go 100% as even the big boys struggle with that qualifying record.  I think we were unlucky getting them the first game post Euros as they’d have probably beat most teams on the back of that emotional rollercoaster but they’re going to come down at some point and my fear is it’ll be against Israel. 

 

From our side we need a result against a struggling Austria; to beat Israel at home when we haven’t learnt from the 25 previous encounters before; to win away in the Moldova; away in Faroes and then; Denmark would take care of itself.   

 

Given our recent form and paucity in converting chances I really can’t see us getting double figures of points needed out of that lot to give us a hope of second.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we got 1 point out of Austria/ Israel and  <6 from Moldova/Faroes with Denmark a dead rubber. 

 

Third should be the bare minimum out of this group especially given the month long training camp but I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if we finish 4th. 

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