Starting 11 v Ukraine

[Malcolm]

Only just seen the highlights and hadn’t realised that we could have been two or three down by the time I got in.  Shambles.

[mcguffin]

1 hour ago, slasher said:

There can’t be too many countries who would tie themselves in a physical and mental knot the way we did last night. On and off the pitch it was all very flat and very poor. It makes me wonder a bit about where we are going as a football side and a nation in general. 
It’s probably a bit of ‘the morning after’ but yesterday was fuckin shite and meeting up with old friends again doesn’t take any of the edge off it for me at all.

Yes this is the thought that has been playing on my mind: "It makes me wonder a bit about where we are going as ...a nation in general".  😐

The moment for me was just before we went 0-2 down. In the build up we looked like a youth team vs an adult team. The goal (and eventual defeat) seemed inevitable to me in those few minutes.  It's been said on this board before, but it's almost like there is some weakness or other in our national psychology?

[syecosse]

Firstly I love what Clarke has done for the last few years, but Ukraine had us figured out and wanted it more, but also not naming at least 1 winger in the squad to change things up, Be it Fraser, S Dembele, Wright or Forrest would allow for a change of tactic more than the predictable play. 

[scotlad]

3 hours ago, Orraloon said:

It happened because we didn't have three men in midfield. McGinn was playing too far forward for that formation. I don't know if that was his fault or if he was told to do that? Early on Gilmour was surrounded by Ukrainians and had very few options of who to pass to. That resulted in him giving away possession. That then led to our defenders refusing to give him the ball and we started the usual pish of pass, pass, pass across the defence until they put enough pressure on us to force the pass back to Gordon to punt it up the park. We then spend a few minutes frantically trying win the ball back again just to repeat the same nonsense again. If we are going to play Gilmour we have to give him the ball at every sensible opportunity. There is no point having Gilmour on the park if we are not going to give him the ball. We were overrun in midfield by a group of players with better technical ability than us and Clarke refused to do anything about it, until it was too late. And it's not the first time this has happened.   

Thanks, that makes sense. Before the game the perception of Ukraine was that they're a counter-attacking team, so we probably expected them to sit in - hence starting with two forwards.  It pretty soon became apparent that wasn't going to be their game plan though - they attacked us and we didn't change it until it was too late, despite ample time to do so.

Better technical ability? I don't think our midfield is actually lacking in that department. Zinchenko is a class act, definitely, but other than that we should have been able to compete in that area. I think the greater issue is what they were asked to do.

Edited June 2, 2022 by scotlad

[scotlad]

 

3 minutes ago, scotlad said:

 

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Edited June 2, 2022 by scotlad

[Caledonian Craig]

Fact is we were duped into how vulnerable they were.

We were told over and over their preparation had been hit. Utter bullshit. They have had the best preparation ever for these games. The majority of their squad have been together for around six weeks. That is six weeks to work on tactics and formations whilst we had perhaps six days. On top of that their players were fresh having no rigorous last few months in their legs unlike our squad. Perhaps too we were duped into how mentally fragile they would be. Russia invaded Ukraine over three months ago not three days. It will have sunk in to their psyche by now.

And taking those things into consideration plus us missing Tierney and having Robertson and McKenna join the squad just 72 hours before the game is not ideal. On top of that we put in our poorest performance for a good few years hence the result.

[Orraloon]

3 minutes ago, scotlad said:

Thanks, that makes sense. Before the game the perception of Ukraine was that they're a counter-attacking team, so we probably expected them to sit in - hence starting with two forwards.  It pretty soon became apparent that wasn't going to be their game plan though - they attacked us and we didn't change it until it was too late, despite ample time to do so.

Better technical ability? I don't think our midfield is actually lacking in that department. Zinchenko is a class act, definitely, but other than that we should have been able to compete in that are. I think the greater issue is what they were asked to do.

I hope that wasn't Clarke's perception otherwise we are in more trouble than I thought. They might try to play that way against the likes of Netherlands or England but not against weaker teams, like us. They are not an attacking team but they do like to dominate possession when they can. And they managed to do that pretty well for most of the game against us. 

[thesaint]

1 hour ago, syecosse said:

Firstly I love what Clarke has done for the last few years, but Ukraine had us figured out and wanted it more, but also not naming at least 1 winger in the squad to change things up, Be it Fraser, S Dembele, Wright or Forrest would allow for a change of tactic more than the predictable play. 

Haven't got a real beef with Clarke, but is has to be said this is a guy who refuses to learn from his mistakes. The games against the czech. republic and croatia were the perfect example. Negative and safety first and ultimately failure. Then we play positively against Israel and Denmark, and look good and win. So what does he do in the next big match?. Yep.,you guessed it he reverts to this horrible negativity and we are humped. You know what they say about somebody who keeps making the same mistake time after time. Now i'm not saying Clarke is mad but he is without doubt very stubborn. Before anybody starts saying look where we were before he arrived, and where he has taken us. That 's all well and good, but now he has got us to a better place he has to be judged from this positon and how he moves us on, and not on where we were when he arrived. Otherwise he basically gets a free hit on his tenure as manager by falling back on where we were before him. He has to be judged on where we go from here. 

 

 

[thesaint]

7 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Fact is we were duped into how vulnerable they were.

We were told over and over their preparation had been hit. Utter bullshit. They have had the best preparation ever for these games. The majority of their squad have been together for around six weeks. That is six weeks to work on tactics and formations whilst we had perhaps six days. On top of that their players were fresh having no rigorous last few months in their legs unlike our squad. Perhaps too we were duped into how mentally fragile they would be. Russia invaded Ukraine over three months ago not three days. It will have sunk in to their psyche by now.

And taking those things into consideration plus us missing Tierney and having Robertson and McKenna join the squad just 72 hours before the game is not ideal. On top of that we put in our poorest performance for a good few years hence the result.

Been saying this for ages. Mugged off.Simple as that.Mugs from start to end. Oh, and by the way anybody still willing to argue with me over playing McTomminay at the back?If there is anybody i'm sure there are plenty of good psychiatrists available to help you. 

[Malcolm]

Mctominay is never a centre hAlf in a million years.  It was his man that scored three header.  It was also his man that scored the header for Serbia.

willie miller talks sense about this…. Play players in their positions.

it’s time now for Souttar and McKenna to step up.

[thesaint]

Just reading the Ukraine love in on the bbc website. Never seen so many people happy to see Scotland lose. Just shows you what they know about football when it goes on to say it was a gallant performance from Scotland... Gallant was exactly what it wasn't. Where do they get these f.. kers from. 

[thesaint]

8 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Mctominay is never a centre hAlf in a million years.  It was his man that scored three header.  It was also his man that scored the header for Serbia.

willie miller talks sense about this…. Play players in their positions.

it’s time now for Souttar and McKenna to step up.

Yes, but i don't need Willie Miller to tell me. I can see for myself that McTomminay should never ever be anywhere near our defence. Just astonished that anybody was willing to fight his corner for a place in our defence. 

[mcguffin]

5 minutes ago, thesaint said:

Yes, but i don't need Willie Miller to tell me. I can see for myself that McTomminay should never ever be anywhere near our defence. Just astonished that anybody was willing to fight his corner for a place in our defence. 

All 5 of our defenders were poor I thought.

[Clyde1998]

58 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Mctominay is never a centre hAlf in a million years.  It was his man that scored three header.  It was also his man that scored the header for Serbia.

willie miller talks sense about this…. Play players in their positions.

it’s time now for Souttar and McKenna to step up.

This is the fundamental issue - you can get away with playing him against poor teams because they're not very good; once you start playing teams around our level or better, they'll expose you. We also got lucky a few times from McTominay defensive errors against Israel, IIRC.

Last night, he lost his man and left Hickey to compete for a header with someone half a foot taller than him, with the obvious result occurring. Even if we play the same formation against Armenia, I'd have Souttar in for him at right centre-back.

[scotlad]

4 hours ago, thplinth said:

If we had gone down swinging last night I don't think anyone could complain about the campaign at all. Ukraine are in the play-offs for a reason same as us. Getting passed both them and Wales was always a tall order. 

It is just the manner of the defeat. Very disappointing after the efforts wining 6 games back to back to get us there.

But really who could have foreseen the unique circumstances of the game when it was finally played. I know Ukraine got invaded but I feel we were incredibly unlucky yet again as had we played that game under normal circumstances I think we would have performed much better, we were on a roll and this just let the tyres down on it. Still at least we are not getting shelled and shit.

Aye, it's the going out so meekly that really hurts. If we'd, for instance, taken the game to extra time and then gone out on penalties or something, it still would have still hurt but it would have been a battling defeat. 

We worked so hard and played so well to get to the playoffs only to turn in a deferential, limp dick performance when it really mattered. So disappointing.

[thesaint]

9 minutes ago, scotlad said:

Aye, it's the going out so meekly that really hurts. If we'd, for instance, taken the game to extra time and then gone out on penalties or something, it still would have still hurt but it would have been a battling defeat. 

We worked so hard and played so well to get to the playoffs only to turn in a deferential, limp dick performance when it really mattered. So disappointing.

Exactly. Pathetic, weak performance. Can't tell you how angry i still am about that pish. Feel totally let down. 

[Caledonian Craig]

23 minutes ago, Clyde1998 said:

This is the fundamental issue - you can get away with playing him against poor teams because they're not very good; once you start playing teams around our level or better, they'll expose you. We also got lucky a few times from McTominay defensive errors against Israel, IIRC.

Last night, he lost his man and left Hickey to compete for a header with someone half a foot taller than him, with the obvious result occurring. Even if we play the same formation against Armenia, I'd have Souttar in for him at right centre-back.

Clarke's problem is he tries to create formations to allow him to accommodate what he sees as his best players on the pitch. Tierney is one example and McTominay being another. It may get him to play his best players but if they are played out of position you are diminishing their worth. This results from us being strong in certain positions where with  certain formations one or two of his preferred players would otherwise have to be left out.

[Caledonian Craig]

16 minutes ago, scotlad said:

Aye, it's the going out so meekly that really hurts. If we'd, for instance, taken the game to extra time and then gone out on penalties or something, it still would have still hurt but it would have been a battling defeat. 

We worked so hard and played so well to get to the playoffs only to turn in a deferential, limp dick performance when it really mattered. So disappointing.

Yes agreed. It hurts in several ways. Obviously, as we wanted to see Scotland back in a World Cup Finals. It hurts too as you just now the players let themselves down, they let the fans down and they let Scotland down.

It also hurts as the worms are out of the woodwork with Souness mouthing off how we aren't good enough. And reading newspapers and social media slating us as garbage etc and some actually revelling in our defeat. That hurts a lot. Those commenting like that though we're nowhere to be seen in our last few games where we went unbeaten.

[thesaint]

1 minute ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Yes agreed. It hurts in several ways. Obviously, as we wanted to see Scotland back in a World Cup Finals. It hurts too as you just now the players let themselves down, they let the fans down and they let Scotland down.

It also hurts as the worms are out of the woodwork with Souness mouthing off how we aren't good enough. And reading newspapers and social media slating us as garbage etc and some actually revelling in our defeat. That hurts a lot. Those commenting like that though we're nowhere to be seen in our last few games where we went unbeaten.

Would have been a simple solution to stop those comments. If they had played the way they could they could have won. Nobody to blame but themselves. 

[kumnio]

2 hours ago, thesaint said:

Haven't got a real beef with Clarke, but is has to be said this is a guy who refuses to learn from his mistakes. The games against the czech. republic and croatia were the perfect example. Negative and safety first and ultimately failure. Then we play positively against Israel and Denmark, and look good and win. So what does he do in the next big match?. Yep.,you guessed it he reverts to this horrible negativity and we are humped. You know what they say about somebody who keeps making the same mistake time after time. Now i'm not saying Clarke is mad but he is without doubt very stubborn. Before anybody starts saying look where we were before he arrived, and where he has taken us. That 's all well and good, but now he has got us to a better place he has to be judged from this positon and how he moves us on, and not on where we were when he arrived. Otherwise he basically gets a free hit on his tenure as manager by falling back on where we were before him. He has to be judged on where we go from here. 

Completely agree, especially the bit in bold.

The performance was insipid shite, one of the worst that Ive seen following us , Clarke is to blame IMO. Theres a handful of games where we haven't even looked interested, he needs to grow up and stop trying this shit, its not good enough.

[thesaint]

Why is it that Clarke sees how we play going down the negativity route and sees how we play by being positive and always falls back to the negative set up. How can a manager with so much experience keep making the wrong decision. It must be his stubborness to try and prove he is right, when it is obvious to anybody else that he isn't. 

[thesaint]

Just now, kumnio said:

Completely agree, especially the bit in bold.

The performance was insipid shite, one of the worst that Ive seen following us , Clarke is to blame IMO. Theres a handful of games where we haven't even looked interested, he needs to grow up and stop trying this shit, its not good enough.

Exactly. We are suffering as a team on the altar of Clarkes stubborness. Time he grew up sums it up perfectly. 

[er yir macaroon]

My patience is wearing very thin for Clarke. People say “look at where we were”, the bottom line is he has far better players at his disposal than previous managers. We’ve been negative and shite in the big games and I believe tactics and stubbornness are to blame. Overrun again, the players must be fuming with him for making them look shite. 

[thesaint]

12 minutes ago, kumnio said:

Completely agree, especially the bit in bold.

The performance was insipid shite, one of the worst that Ive seen following us , Clarke is to blame IMO. Theres a handful of games where we haven't even looked interested, he needs to grow up and stop trying this shit, its not good enough.

Agree. It was absolutely hellish in so many ways ......                   .The fact it was such an important match just compounds the performance

[Guest Scot1]

I don’t believe that Clarke meant to deliberately set up his team to play route one football. But they are so imbalanced and against good opposition, we end up pinned back in our own half and the long ball is very often the only option.

If anything he had too many attack minded players on the pitch.