Are Wales better than us?

[DAVIDB46]

Maybe time to be controversial but perhaps we need to start to thinking of playing the best 11 players in their own positions , irrespective of who they play for and stop the show horning of players into the side.

 

 

[ParisInAKilt]

2 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Not good enough to qualify for the World Cup via a play-off - yes. It is a step forward from elimination way before the final round of fixtures.

That’s true, we’ve not finished second in a long time I don’t think. 

[Caledonian Craig]

2 minutes ago, DAVIDB46 said:

Maybe time to be controversial but perhaps we need to start to thinking of playing the best 11 players in their own positions , irrespective of who they play for and stop the show horning of players into the side.

 

 

No it is more about picking a formation to suit the players at your disposal. Ukraine played with players in different positions they play for their club as do Wales - that isn't the issue. The issue is sticking with a formation without the players to carry it out successfully. 3-5-2 works with Tierney in there and a dynamic right wing-back we had neither the other night but stuck with the formation anyway.

[McTeeko]

6 minutes ago, DAVIDB46 said:

Maybe time to be controversial but perhaps we need to start to thinking of playing the best 11 players in their own positions , irrespective of who they play for and stop the show horning of players into the side.

 

 

I tried that simple explanation yesterday and it got a War and Peace type of response. 
It really should be as simple as you suggest above. 

[DAVIDB46]

11 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

I tried that simple explanation yesterday and it got a War and Peace type of response. 
It really should be as simple as you suggest above. 

It is however we still work on the names concept of picking the side , look we have five starting players in the premier league etc .

Yes wales have a couple of big names and biggish names etc , but everyone knew what they were doing unlike ourselves with our 11s

[vanderark14]

15 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

I tried that simple explanation yesterday and it got a War and Peace type of response. 
It really should be as simple as you suggest above. 

 

2 minutes ago, DAVIDB46 said:

It is however we still work on the names concept of picking the side , look we have five starting players in the premier league etc .

Yes wales have a couple of big names and biggish names etc , but everyone knew what they were doing unlike ourselves with our 11s

Which players are you talking about here? 

 

[ThistleWhistle]

Euro 2016 Wales are better than us and that is down to having a spine of Bale, Ramsey, Allen at his peak and Ashley Williams.  These, plus a couple of average Prem players carried the rest of the squad including someone from ICT and a couple from L1.

Euro 20 Wales were on the slide and lucky to draw with Switzerland and beat an awful Turkey team. Denmark smashed them 4-0 and showed up their limitations.

WC22 we're easily compatible but lacking mentally. This feels like a last hurrah for them as the spine is nowhere near 2016.  Iran essentially at home, England and a young exciting US side could knock them out early doors.

Fair play getting there but after this tournament their best player could be Dan James with Bale up top being replaced by Moore or Harry Wilson.  They've got GK issues like us as Ward is approaching 30 and only played 75 club games.

For us we not only have to mentally believe we can compete but that we can beat them despite how good they were a decade ago and that we are the best we've been in 20 years.

Edited June 6, 2022 by ThistleWhistle

[Toepoke]

39 minutes ago, scotlad said:

Wales' best player though, for me, was their goalie, which maybe tells its own story.

As was ours on Wednesday. 

Ukraine did have a load of possession as the Welsh dug in, but many of their efforts on goal were blooters over the bar.

Wales put in the kind of bodies on the line defensive performance you'd love to have seen from us.

 

[McTeeko]

17 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

 

Which players are you talking about here? 

 

McTominay being played in the RCB role. Shouldn’t be there. Very weak defensively. Souttar or Hendry should’ve started.

Hickey shouldn’t have started at right-wing back. Should’ve been O’Donnell.
Combined, those two playing (McTominay and Hickey) meant we were weak down our right hand side. 
 

Edited June 6, 2022 by McTeeko

[Diamond Scot]

1 hour ago, McTeeko said:

I tried that simple explanation yesterday and it got a War and Peace type of response. 
It really should be as simple as you suggest above. 

What formation do we play then? Does it mean that if a club side play wing backs and we play full backs then any wing backs we have just dont get in the squad?

McGinn plays a holding role for Villa every week so do we not play him further forward for us cause its not his natural position?

Does it mean if a striker normally plays with a partner and we decide to go 1 up top that they dont get considered as its not their natural position either?

Footballs not as simple as saying all defenders could play in any defence as every manager has different tactics, different roles and tasks within those tactics etc. CM for Liverpool is totally different than CM for Man City for example.

 

 

[McTeeko]

52 minutes ago, Diamond Scot said:

What formation do we play then? Does it mean that if a club side play wing backs and we play full backs then any wing backs we have just dont get in the squad?

McGinn plays a holding role for Villa every week so do we not play him further forward for us cause its not his natural position?

Does it mean if a striker normally plays with a partner and we decide to go 1 up top that they dont get considered as its not their natural position either?

Footballs not as simple as saying all defenders could play in any defence as every manager has different tactics, different roles and tasks within those tactics etc. CM for Liverpool is totally different than CM for Man City for example.

 

 

You don’t play non-central defenders in that position when there are suitable alternatives on the bench for starters. 

[Diamond Scot]

26 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

You don’t play non-central defenders in that position when there are suitable alternatives on the bench for starters. 

I get that. What im asking is how your thinking would work in practice.

Obviously we would only ever start with either Robertson, Tierney or Hickey. Given Robertson is one of the best few left backs in the world that probably means leaving Tierney and Hickey out. 

It would likely be 2 from McGinn, Gilmour, McGreggor, McTomminay and Jack given none of them play attacking midfield. 

Alot has been made of McTomminay playing RCB. Not alot has been said about Coopers performance which was miles worse. How does that fit the only play players in natural position narrative? 

Would you go to a back 4 again which for years meant we shipped goals at an alarming rate?

[McTeeko]

9 minutes ago, Diamond Scot said:

I get that. What im asking is how your thinking would work in practice.

Obviously we would only ever start with either Robertson, Tierney or Hickey. Given Robertson is one of the best few left backs in the world that probably means leaving Tierney and Hickey out. 

It would likely be 2 from McGinn, Gilmour, McGreggor, McTomminay and Jack given none of them play attacking midfield. 

Alot has been made of McTomminay playing RCB. Not alot has been said about Coopers performance which was miles worse. How does that fit the only play players in natural position narrative? 

Would you go to a back 4 again which for years meant we shipped goals at an alarming rate?

There’s nothing wrong with the system. I’m only basing my gripes on Wednesday night. The personnel was wrong. The shape was wrong. Two up front was wrong. The intensity was wrong.
We should’ve played the way we set up against Denmark, our best performance in years and notice we had an actual centre half in the back three and an actual right back at right back. 
It’s unfair to criticise Cooper when they were ALL bad (bar Gordon).
McTominay is consistently caught out at the back as defensively he is a total bombscare. Absolutely NO point in playing him there (feeding balls into Gilmour, in theory) if all we’re going to do is launch long balls to Dykes. 

[vanderark14]

2 hours ago, McTeeko said:

McTominay being played in the RCB role. Shouldn’t be there. Very weak defensively. Souttar or Hendry should’ve started.

Hickey shouldn’t have started at right-wing back. Should’ve been O’Donnell.
Combined, those two playing (McTominay and Hickey) meant we were weak down our right hand side. 
 

Playing O'Donnell and replacing McTominay with Souttar or Hendry wouldn't have changed the result on Wednesday, for example. They wouldn't stop the horrendous defending by Cooper for one goal

[Orraloon]

12 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

There’s nothing wrong with the system. I’m only basing my gripes on Wednesday night. The personnel was wrong. The shape was wrong. Two up front was wrong. The intensity was wrong.
We should’ve played the way we set up against Denmark, our best performance in years and notice we had an actual centre half in the back three and an actual right back at right back. 
It’s unfair to criticise Cooper when they were ALL bad (bar Gordon).
McTominay is consistently caught out at the back as defensively he is a total bombscare. Absolutely NO point in playing him there (feeding balls into Gilmour, in theory) if all we’re going to do is launch long balls to Dykes. 

It's unfair to criticise Cooper but OK to blame it all on McTominay? That's some interesting logic there. 😉

Tierney has often been caught out by the diagonal ball over his head. It's one of the risks of playing these guys in that position. We didn't get any of the benefit of McTominay's ball playing ability on Wednesday because we were overrun in midfield and then we started humping the ball up the park. As soon as he saw that happening Clarke needed to to change it. He should have either pushed McTominay up into midfield to help out (that would have been the aggressive approach) or got McGinn to drop deeper to get on the ball in midfield so that we could try to get some possession and a foot hold in the game. He did neither and we just watched Ukraine pass the ball about like they had all the time in the world.

I've been saying for a while that McT should be our utility player who can be very useful coming off the bench. He should only be starting games if somebody else is unavailable. The only player unavailable was Tierney. McT isn't his replacement and we shouldn't be reshuffling the whole defence just to accommodate him. It should have been simple, Hanley in for Teirney. McT on the bench.

And Christie should have started instead of Dykes. Dykes on the bench.

[Malcolm]

we have a conundrum.  We are basically playing a 5 at the back to accommodate both tierney and Robertson. If tierney is injured as he often is, do we still play a 5?  I’m not convinced about tierneys ability at centre half.

do we consider putting Robertson or tierney on the bench?

I would like to see us trying to develop a centre half partnership with souttar and McKenna.

 

[McTeeko]

23 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

Playing O'Donnell and replacing McTominay with Souttar or Hendry wouldn't have changed the result on Wednesday, for example. They wouldn't stop the horrendous defending by Cooper for one goal

You’re probably right. You can point the finger at Robertson for letting Yarmolenko run off him from wide right for the first goal, and no-one pressed the cross for the second. Whole team were off it, we could dissect the 90 mins forever. 

[vanderark14]

 

 

4 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

we have a conundrum.  We are basically playing a 5 at the back to accommodate both tierney and Robertson. If tierney is injured as he often is, do we still play a 5?  I’m not convinced about tierneys ability at centre half.

do we consider putting Robertson or tierney on the bench?

I would like to see us trying to develop a centre half partnership with souttar and McKenna.

 

If both Robertson and Tierney are available they have to play. They link up well and are a threat to most teams.

[McTeeko]

10 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

It's unfair to criticise Cooper but OK to blame it all on McTominay? That's some interesting logic there. 😉

Tierney has often been caught out by the diagonal ball over his head. It's one of the risks of playing these guys in that position. We didn't get any of the benefit of McTominay's ball playing ability on Wednesday because we were overrun in midfield and then we started humping the ball up the park. As soon as he saw that happening Clarke needed to to change it. He should have either pushed McTominay up into midfield to help out (that would have been the aggressive approach) or got McGinn to drop deeper to get on the ball in midfield so that we could try to get some possession and a foot hold in the game. He did neither and we just watched Ukraine pass the ball about like they had all the time in the world.

I've been saying for a while that McT should be our utility player who can be very useful coming off the bench. He should only be starting games if somebody else is unavailable. The only player unavailable was Tierney. McT isn't his replacement and we shouldn't be reshuffling the whole defence just to accommodate him. It should have been simple, Hanley in for Teirney. McT on the bench.

And Christie should have started instead of Dykes. Dykes on the bench.

McTominay has loads of previous though. It’s no entirely his fault, he’s being asked to play in a position that doesn’t suit him. 

[Malcolm]

4 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

 

 

If both Robertson and Tierney are available they have to play. They link up well and are a threat to most teams.

in what formation?

[vanderark14]

1 minute ago, McTeeko said:

You’re probably right. You can point the finger at Robertson for letting Yarmolenko run off him from wide right for the first goal, and no-one pressed the cross for the second. Whole team were off it, we could dissect the 90 mins forever. 

Gordon was the only player to get pass Marks.

There's multiple reasons we lost on Wednesday but you are right we could dissect that game all day.

For me, we've been to a tournament and a world cup play off, this us better than anything we have experienced in 2 decades. I am relatively happy with how things are going but qualification for yhe euros is a must, preferably through our qualification group this time.

 

[vanderark14]

1 minute ago, Malcolm said:

in what formation?

The same system we've been playing. 3 at the back, Robertson LWB and Tierney LCB

[Malcolm]

3 minutes ago, vanderark14 said:

The same system we've been playing. 3 at the back, Robertson LWB and Tierney LCB

and then switch to a back 4 if tierney isn’t available?

[Diamond Scot]

3 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

McTominay has loads of previous though. It’s no entirely his fault, he’s being asked to play in a position that doesn’t suit him. 

Loads of previous but when asked people can only point to the goal against Serbia that he has cost us. And that was from a corner so had zero to do with what position he was playing.

As somebody mentioned above. Tierney has cost us at least 2 goals playing in the same position as McTomminay yet nobody complains about him. In fact you couod probably put the Poland goal down to him aswell.

Hendry came on and almost gave a goal straight away. Cooper was to blame for 1st goal and had a shocker. People were even complaining about playing Hanley in the centre recently because if his "lack of height".

Do we really want to go back to the days of switching formation and players every game because none of them are actually good enough to perform at an elite level every time they put on the shirt?

I come across as a huge McTomminay fan. That isnt even the case but if people are going to criticise him it needs to be fair. Cant say we are rubbish in defence because we play a midfielder when more goals have been cost by actual defenders.

We also cant then complain if we play "typical" defenders but have to resort to long ball etc because they arent good enough on the ball.

The club somebody plays at isnt the only indicator of quality however its a very big starting point. We had a half fit Soutter who went on a free to Rangers or Hendry who has been dropped since Xmas for Club Brugge. Hardly screaming CVs to be a certain starter. And not to mention both have "previous" poor performances for Scotland.

[Orraloon]

6 minutes ago, McTeeko said:

McTominay has loads of previous though. It’s no entirely his fault, he’s being asked to play in a position that doesn’t suit him. 

So does Tierney, but he has been lucky that his mistakes haven't led to many obvious goals. To be fair I'm not sure McT has been at fault for as many goals as folk seem to be making out.

As you said though the main problem was that we played fantastic against Denmark. Why didn't we play the same system against Ukraine? We just needed to replace Tierney with a defender. The performance against Denmark wasn't all down to Tierney. Of course he played his part but it wasn't all about him. One player was unavailable so Clarke decides to reshuffle the whole team. Mental.