Victory shield

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

15 hours ago, Scots_Wha_Hae said:

This is actually one of the things that most annoys me about our youth set-up. Gemmill in particular is on record repeatedly as saying that his job is not to win games but to bring players through to the full side. Why in the name of fuck then does he not play the same system as the main team? Surely if that is the goal you do it like Barcelona and have every team from U5s up playing exactly the same way so players can slot in seamlessly and know their role inside out. That way we can also test out players like Doak who don't seem to naturally fit into our system to see where they would best work. It's just so poorly thought out. I'm actually a bit disappointed not to have seen Clarke get involved and sort it out tbh.

👍 Exactly, the 'it's the taking part that counts' from coaches like Gemmill pisses me off. If you don't win games, you don't qualify for tournaments and you don't get the valuable experience of playing in them. Does he think when England are picking up their youth trophies, their coaches are saying 'well, it's nice to pick up a trophy, but winning isn't everything' 🤦

[scotlad]

13 hours ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

👍 Exactly, the 'it's the taking part that counts' from coaches like Gemmill pisses me off. If you don't win games, you don't qualify for tournaments and you don't get the valuable experience of playing in them. Does he think when England are picking up their youth trophies, their coaches are saying 'well, it's nice to pick up a trophy, but winning isn't everything' 🤦

I could forgive not winning games at U21 or youth level if the teams were playing good, possession-based football; if the focus was more about improving the players technically and tactically than winning games. All I see from Gemmill's teams though (and youth teams too) is generally terrible, negative football, that neither yields results nor makes players better.

[Slide tackle]

On 11/8/2023 at 4:19 PM, henry george said:

I think we played a lot better in the first half than the previous match and completely dominated.  Second half (after several changes) the situation was reversed with N ireland totally dominant until the last 10 minutes.  Was impressed with the boys, Glasgow (Hearts) and Smith (Rangers).

 

Euan Glasgow (Hearts), is my cousin. Not the best set of results all round but was impressed with his performances