Starting 11 v Ukraine

[thesaint]

7 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

never mind Ian rush, I won’t be supporting Ukraine against Wales.

Nor me. 

[Mox]

7 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

Are you genuinely saying Clarke instructed the players to play long ball?

Of course he did, it was the same against the Czechs, Croatia and England. You think we're playing Dykes with the intention of playing a modern brand of passing football?

[vanderark14]

38 minutes ago, Mox said:

Of course he did, it was the same against the Czechs, Croatia and England. You think we're playing Dykes with the intention of playing a modern brand of passing football?

I think Clarke made the mistake of trying to play the same way we have been playing over the last 6 previous matches but this failed because we didnt have patterson or tierney. This along with the players not turning up and Ukraine getting the better of our midfield saw us resort to long ball.

 

[todd]

4 hours ago, thesaint said:

A totally inexpliicable performance on many levels. Just wondering do you think when we play Ukraine again in the nations league that we will still be getting bombarded with all the virtue signaling bollocks. Is this wanting Ukraine to win everything they are involved in to carry on indefinately or what? 

We'd lost the game on Wednesday before it had even begun in my opinion.  I've never, in 40 years of watching Scotland, been so resigned to defeat before kick off just by virtue of the ridiculous build up.  You could just feel it couldn't you?

[er yir macaroon]

10 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

The czech rep game wasnt a pitiful performance, we created loads of chances and should of came away with a draw at least. We were fucked over by a bad defensive error from both hendry and marshall.

The croatia game was disappointing but croatia are a class side and they pulled out big performance when they needed it. They are a significantly better team than us and it was a tough ask to have to beat them to qualify for the knockout stages.

Overall clarkes done excellent with whats a limited squad. If you said to me when clarke started that he would take us to the euros and to a world cup play off i would of been happy with that and i think most if their honest would say the same. 

The players need to take a fair bit of flak for the ukraine game but overall the squad and management should be pleased with our overall progress. We need to now look forward and try and qualify for the euros. If clarke achieves that then he will walk away a legend.

Do you think clarke will get us to the next euros?

Your persistent and erroneous use of “of” instead of “have” is very similar to Clarke’s repeated deployment of the ineffectual long ball in crucial games. 

[thesaint]

18 minutes ago, er yir macaroon said:

Your persistent and erroneous use of “of” instead of “have” is very similar to Clarke’s repeated deployment of the ineffectual long ball in crucial games. 

Probably,but i'd guess of less interest to 95% of people who use this forum.

[duncan II]

1 hour ago, thesaint said:

Probably,but i'd guess of less interest to 95% of people who use this forum.

I correct grammar for a living so I appreciate his interest in the subject and, indeed, welcome his comments. Opinions are better expressed if correct grammar is used. For example, this very message is all over the place and does not, as a result, add much to the argument. Nevertheless, my point stands, regardless of my poorly worded gibberish in this instance. 🙆🏿‍♂️

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

11 hours ago, todd said:

We'd lost the game on Wednesday before it had even begun in my opinion.  I've never, in 40 years of watching Scotland, been so resigned to defeat before kick off just by virtue of the ridiculous build up.  You could just feel it couldn't you?

👍

[vanderark14]

Just heard an interview with Dean Saunders on the radio. 

Not one mention of sympathy for Ukraine by him or the presenter. It was all about the football.

[DAVIDB46]

This is one of the key differences between us and the likes of wales and Ireland .

Wales will go in today with the strong belief they are a good side and expect to win , but their squad is not any better than ours .

Ireland to a lesser extend expected a comfortable win yesterday .

we have kind of reversed in that we now go into games against sides better than us but not world beaters ,  Czech Republic , Croatia , Ukraine with extremely negative long ball tactics and just punt the ball up the park hoping for the best, but I don’t think Clarke or the players expect to win 

[daviebee]

17 minutes ago, DAVIDB46 said:

This is one of the key differences between us and the likes of wales and Ireland .

Wales will go in today with the strong belief they are a good side and expect to win , but their squad is not any better than ours .

Ireland to a lesser extend expected a comfortable win yesterday .

we have kind of reversed in that we now go into games against sides better than us but not world beaters ,  Czech Republic , Croatia , Ukraine with extremely negative long ball tactics and just punt the ball up the park hoping for the best, but I don’t think Clarke or the players expect to win 

So how do you explain the Denmark performance?

[vanderark14]

In any other circumstances I would expect to beat Ukraine at home

[DAVIDB46]

28 minutes ago, daviebee said:

So how do you explain the Denmark performance?

It was a good performance but there was nothing at stake for Denmark which we seem to have forgotten 

[daviebee]

17 minutes ago, DAVIDB46 said:

It was a good performance but there was nothing at stake for Denmark which we seem to have forgotten 

Weren't they on a seriously good bonus to win 8 out of 8?  The fact is, some of our passing and moves in that game were magnificent, amongst the best I've ever seen from a Scotland team.

[ThistleWhistle]

2 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

Just heard an interview with Dean Saunders on the radio. 

Not one mention of sympathy for Ukraine by him or the presenter. It was all about the football.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61582902

Robert Page here and all. Sympathetic then switches the focus to the football- 'business is business'.

I reckon Wales will be straight into them from the off rather than the comatose shite we were serving up.

They seem far more mentally prepared too in that they're managing to separate the war and game emotionally 

[scotlad]

1 hour ago, DAVIDB46 said:

This is one of the key differences between us and the likes of wales and Ireland .

Wales will go in today with the strong belief they are a good side and expect to win , but their squad is not any better than ours .

Ireland to a lesser extend expected a comfortable win yesterday .

we have kind of reversed in that we now go into games against sides better than us but not world beaters ,  Czech Republic , Croatia , Ukraine with extremely negative long ball tactics and just punt the ball up the park hoping for the best, but I don’t think Clarke or the players expect to win 

If they expected to win they certainly hid it well. Did you see any of their game yesterday? They were toothless; almost as ineffective as we were on Wednesday. Some okay passing moves but all the incisiveness of a butter knife trying to cut rope. They barely troubled Armenia until they fell behind and even then their only semi-effective tactic was to lump balls into the box for a big centre-forward to try and get on the end of (that sounds familiar).

 

[thesaint]

13 hours ago, duncan II said:

I correct grammar for a living so I appreciate his interest in the subject and, indeed, welcome his comments. Opinions are better expressed if correct grammar is used. For example, this very message is all over the place and does not, as a result, add much to the argument. Nevertheless, my point stands, regardless of my poorly worded gibberish in this instance. 🙆🏿‍♂️

This forum is getting unbelievable. Not only do you have to be politically correct, you now have to be grammatically correct as well. Here was me thinking it was about the Scotland football team. Ah well. You live and learn. 

[thesaint]

1 hour ago, ThistleWhistle said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61582902

Robert Page here and all. Sympathetic then switches the focus to the football- 'business is business'.

I reckon Wales will be straight into them from the off rather than the comatose shite we were serving up.

They seem far more mentally prepared too in that they're managing to separate the war and game emotionally 

The way it should be. Football and NOTHING else. 

[gaz7]

There was too much negative vibes everywhere for us I felt and they all add up. The sky cycling leader said small gains in elite sport is massive and they all add up and all we had were small losses with of top of my head. Souness. Bill leckie.Robertson drinking.mcginn in ibiza. Tierney injured. Patterson injured. Publicity about us singing their national anthem. Putting flags on their fans seats etc etc. It all added to our worst performance in a while and then clarke decided to go with 2 up top as he had done previously when also previously we had played our best football with a 3421 formation . I could go on but I am still pissed off with it now. We laid out the red carpet for them and it has shown we are not ready yet for being a top class football nation.

[Caledonian Craig]

1 minute ago, gaz7 said:

There was too much negative vibes everywhere for us I felt and they all add up. The sky cycling leader said small gains in elite sport is massive and they all add up and all we had were small losses with of top of my head. Souness. Bill leckie.Robertson drinking.mcginn in ibiza. Tierney injured. Patterson injured. Publicity about us singing their national anthem. Putting flags on their fans seats etc etc. It all added to our worst performance in a while and then clarke decided to go with 2 up top as he had done previously when also previously we had played our best football with a 3421 formation . I could go on but I am still pissed off with it now. We laid out the red carpet for them and it has shown we are not ready yet for being a top class football nation.

I put far more stock on other factors - firstly they are better than us. Secondly, we were sucked in by the biggest con job going that their preparations had been ruined - utter BS. Their squad had been together for SIX weeks whilst ours had been together six DAYS. Their players had not faced the rigours of two matches a week over the last few months unlike ours. They had six weeks to study videos of us and formulate a formation and system. This thing that they were in turmoil over invasion I don't buy it as affecting them too much. The invasion began three months ago not three days ago so their minds became used to that a long time ago. 

I feel too many of our players felt they were playing a dead team walking which was all wrong and it was not helped by our injuries and us getting our formation, tactics and mindset all wrong.

[gaz7]

21 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I put far more stock on other factors - firstly they are better than us. Secondly, we were sucked in by the biggest con job going that their preparations had been ruined - utter BS. Their squad had been together for SIX weeks whilst ours had been together six DAYS. Their players had not faced the rigours of two matches a week over the last few months unlike ours. They had six weeks to study videos of us and formulate a formation and system. This thing that they were in turmoil over invasion I don't buy it as affecting them too much. The invasion began three months ago not three days ago so their minds became used to that a long time ago. 

I feel too many of our players felt they were playing a dead team walking which was all wrong and it was not helped by our injuries and us getting our formation, tactics and mindset all wrong.

Yes I agree with all that you state and this is all the gains we never had. I honestly can't think of a positive for us other than being at hampden which should have been huge but wasn't.  I know this wint look gd and ill prepare for some slagging here but imo there was too many people at the game who don't normally go to football games I.e mums .daughters granny's etc as well as all the old yins in the tartan army travel club who go on what they perceive to be an Urquhart tour.Same crowd that was at Israel game for instance and the atmosphere would have been totally bouncing.  As I say just my opinion. 

[Caledonian Craig]

19 minutes ago, gaz7 said:

 I know this wint look gd and ill prepare for some slagging here but imo there was too many people at the game who don't normally go to football games I.e mums .daughters granny's etc as well as all the old yins in the tartan army travel club who go on what they perceive to be an Urquhart tour.Same crowd that was at Israel game for instance and the atmosphere would have been totally bouncing.  As I say just my opinion. 

No it would have been the same mix of fans. Supporters need something to feed off. The other night there was nothing to feed off. Ukraine were on top from the start carving out good chances which Gordon saved to keep us in the game. The Israel match was different as in we played better and kept the fans involved.

[gaz7]

6 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

No it would have been the same mix of fans. Supporters need something to feed off. The other night there was nothing to feed off. Ukraine were on top from the start carving out good chances which Gordon saved to keep us in the game. The Israel match was different as in we played better and kept the fans involved.

Yes that's correct also as we never had much to feed off but I know for certain the dynamics of the crowd was different to Israel game. That was full of young team everywhere and I also know a lot of those same young team couldn't get tickets for play off game. Its all ifs buts and mibbys I only hope we have learned from it and most importantly clarke has. We can dominate midfield as shown previously and if we do the results have generally been gd.

[Mox]

5 hours ago, daviebee said:

So how do you explain the Denmark performance?

Because they were playing a team without five or six starters, it was a dead rubber for them and it was one of the few times we didn't use Dykes and actually played football.

[scotlad]

4 hours ago, ThistleWhistle said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61582902

Robert Page here and all. Sympathetic then switches the focus to the football- 'business is business'.

I reckon Wales will be straight into them from the off rather than the comatose shite we were serving up.

They seem far more mentally prepared too in that they're managing to separate the war and game emotionally 

At the very least, I'd be surprised if Ukraine found it as easy today as they did on Wednesday.

That said, it looks like Wales might be setting up similarly to how we did. 🤔