Scotland v Northern Ireland Match Thread

[Orraloon]

Tierney was our best player. Hendry is showing that he is becoming an important players for us. 

If we can get our best 11 players on the pitch we can be a decent side, and give most teams a good game. Our problem is that as soon as we lose a couple of our best players we will struggle. A lot or our fans can't be bothered with friendlies and tonight it looked like that applied to a lot of our players too. Patterson had a nightmare but at least he was putting in some effort.

[slasher]

9 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Agree about wingers. Not sure were they fit in  a team playing with wingbacks. As an option of the bench you need to make changes in the entire formation. 
disagree about Ralston though. He had to come on tonight to see what he can do. Paterson over the last two games has been awful and nowhere near an international standard player

We don’t have any wingers worthy of a shot anyway unless you count Fraser/Wright?

The problem with RWB is Ralston is a far better defender than Patterson but offers less going forward possibly. Both attributes will be equally important in Germany. It’s up to the manager to find a solution in the potential absence of Hickey, but on recent evidence Patterson is not an option imo

[Malcolm]

 

I think Patterson looks short on confidence. Tierney was good, the rest very pedestrian.

 

no atmosphere in the ground apart from the northern Irish, who fair play to them, gave their team tremendous backing.

[ceudmilefailte]

4 minutes ago, slasher said:

We don’t have any wingers worthy of a shot anyway unless you count Fraser/Wright?

The problem with RWB is Ralston is a far better defender than Patterson but offers less going forward possibly. Both attributes will be equally important in Germany. It’s up to the manager to find a solution in the potential absence of Hickey, but on recent evidence Patterson is not an option imo

Think we might need far better defenders in Germany. Don’t even know why he had Ralston was in the squad based on tonight’s substitutions. 

[slasher]

5 minutes ago, ceudmilefailte said:

Think we might need far better defenders in Germany. Don’t even know why he had Ralston was in the squad based on tonight’s substitutions. 

Me neither. We best hope Hickey gets well soon 👍

[slasher]

13 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

 

I think Patterson looks short on confidence. Tierney was good, the rest very pedestrian.

 

no atmosphere in the ground apart from the northern Irish, who fair play to them, gave their team tremendous backing.

Your work here is done Malcolm 😂

[supersub]

Very slow and predictable. I get patient build up play but there were no runs in behind and no creativity.  Always the same, side to side passing with no spark at all. It was so lacklustre and did not give us in the crowd anything to cheer about.

I expected a performance given that there are still places to play for in Germany but it was very timid.  One of the biggest cheers was when Gilmour clattered into one of their players. 

Hendry must've had more possession than their whole team tonight.

[Goozay]

1 hour ago, DesiScotsman said:

Worst performance since the Dublin drubbing two years ago. Struggling of picking a Scotland MOTM from that performance - it was very dire viewing. The loud chorus of boos at FT were absolutely justified. 74% possession with only 2 shots on target is beyond embarrassing against a nation that have only won 5 games in 3 years (two of them against San Marino).

Don’t know what has happened to this team but since we qualified, it’s just gone downhill very fast. Need to find some confidence and consistency from somewhere otherwise, god knows what Germany, Switzerland & Hungary will do to this lot in the summer.

This.

Tonight reminded me of Dublin, where player-for-player we were by far the better team, but on the pitch soundly beaten by a team that wanted it more. 

God love Steve Clarke, what does he do now? And how does he bide his time between now and June?

[scotlad]

1 hour ago, Bristolhibby said:

Games against NI bring out the absolute dregs to the games.

Always a terrible atmosphere. Don’t know why we play them unless we are drawn with them in qualifying. 
 

J

Every time mate. They're worse than the English, whose flags they waved and whose songs they sung (do they even have any of their own?).

[scotlad]

13 minutes ago, Goozay said:

This.

Tonight reminded me of Dublin, where player-for-player we were by far the better team, but on the pitch soundly beaten by a team that wanted it more. 

God love Steve Clarke, what does he do now? And how does he bide his time between now and June?

It's whoever he lives with I feel sorry for - he isn't exactly of a sunny disposition at the best of times! 🤣

[scotlad]

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

We might get a draw against them then?

Nah, we'd lose to an own goal.

[86glebestreet]

1 hour ago, slasher said:

Me neither. We best hope Hickey gets well soon 👍

Just saw on Brentford forum, hickey is expected to be back 11th May

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

6 hours ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Yes a total embarrassment. My slaves to the English comment is based on their ripping off English songs and having no patriotism for their own country, Northern Ireland. It must be a miserable existence to have no national identity.

Well, they built a boat that sank, they're famous for that I suppose 🤷

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

5 hours ago, supersub said:

 Hendry must've had more possession than their whole team tonight.

Well, we had at least three players that had more passes individually, than the whole N Ireland team

[Caledonian Craig]

7 hours ago, AwayInAManger said:

Point of Information: This won't have been whose tops you imagine. The NI training gear is blue, and has been for years, as below.

As it happens, club tops are frowned upon at NI games, esp for away trips.

HTH.

Sorry that won't wash away the fact the vast majority were Rangers fans. The clues were glaringly obvious:-

1. The 'Fuck thhe SFA ' chant. Only Rangers fans sing it.

2. The flags with Scottish place names on them.

3. The added boos to any Celtic or ex-Celtic players when teams were read out.

4. Even witnessed odd hand clapping when our players with Rangers connections were named ie Patterson, Gilmour and oddly enough even Shankland who Rangers are thought to be hot favourites to sign him.

5. Their songbook right out of Ibrox Park.

The evidence is irrefutable.

[EddardStark]

We looked very jaded last night and lacked ideas or invention. The remaining friendlies are now really important in terms of confidence building.
 

Still think we have a decent chance but all of our Euro opponents are currently winning games and we are losing so that’s not a good place to be. 

[ProudScot]

Steve Clarke & John Carver saying publicly they know their squad and there’s maybe 1 place to be decided prior to 4 warm up games with a chunk of the season left doesn’t help player motivation or enthusiasms for these games.

The squad is playing like a bunch of guys who know they are on the plane to Germany regardless of form or performance. 

Dykes can’t score in a barrow load of fannies at club level but was handed a start last night and was invisible for an hour against much worse defenders than we will face in Germany. 

following this run and these friendly performances there should be several places up for grabs.

Why were there 4 goalies in the squad and only 3 strikers 😂 Why no wingers!? If there aren’t obvious ones, find some? We had no spark whatsoever - Ryan Gauld? Why not try it, these are friendlies FFS.

[Caledonian Craig]

I can only put this down to lack of intensity in.our play since we qualified which has made us complacent in games which in turns has led to poor results which in turn knocks confidence. It is like being a home nation thats gets automatic qualification and has many months of matches with nothing on them.

Poor finishing against top quality opposition last Friday cost us. Our attacking play was very encouraging but never took our many chances. Last night was down to not having the attacking guile or clinical passing in the final third. We appeared clueless (as we have in the past) when a side scores then parks the bus. The goal we conceded though was shocking - a schoolboy error which has no place in international football. We passed the ball fine in non-threatening areas but not in areas where it matters where crosses were too long or too near the keeper. Our midfield (normally our strength) was awful - only Christie did alright and perhaps Gilmour. Dykes was awful but in fairness to him he had no service.

Edited March 27 by Caledonian Craig

[BryanBlessed]

I suppose we're unlikely to come up against a team set up like that in the Euros so that's one slight positive.The only thing not making me completely panic is that it was only a friendly. England got relegated from the NL (which they treat like friendlies) but were still very good at the WC. The thing is NI looked well up for it and certainly weren't treating like a friendly.  Even then, I'd say that without Patterson's mistake, we'd probably have worn them down eventually. 9/10, they don't win that match. But 9/10 we don't come back from 1-0 down against Norway.

I feel like Patterson has all the attributes to become a top player but you can see he just hasn't played enough games. I doubt that's going to change between now and June so I do wonder if he deserves a place in the squad.  I guess he'll go by default. I liked the look of Hume for NI and  he clearly got in our players' heads.  Patterson wasn't the only guilty party as our inability to cross (Tierney excepted) from either side is getting ridiculous now.

Much as I love his attitude, Dykes had an OK campaign before the Norway game and had a poor campaign after. When was his last good performance in a Scotland shirt? At some point, he has to be there on merit and not on credit in the bank.  Adams did OK when he came on but the jersey has to be Shankland's now.

I'm not talking about dropping him, but when's the last time McGinn put in a really good performance for us? Too many of our players haven't done it since we qualified.

And to top it all off, Robertson (who isn't yet back to his best) has to go off injured. Let's hope it's nothing serious.

The pessimist in me says qualification was the peak for this group of players and that we're now in decline. Hope I'm wrong.

 

 

 

Edited March 27 by BryanBlessed

[Caledonian Craig]

What did we learn from this double header?

Shankland is our best option up front.

Patterson cannot start in the Euros if he is not playing for Everton. His confidence and self-belief which was low must now be rock bottom. If Hickey is not fit then, at present, has to be Ralston.

When forced into playing four at the back after Robertson's injury we did look marginally better so that should be our default formation going forward should Robertson or Tierney be unavailable.

Safe to say Taylor won't be on the plane or else it would have been a like-for-like substitution with Robertson and let Clarke have a look at him as everyone else (barring keepers) got some gametime in this double header.

[Malcolm]

33 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Sorry that won't wash away the fact the vast majority were Rangers fans. The clues were glaringly obvious:-

1. The 'Fuck thhe SFA ' chant. Only Rangers fans sing it.

2. The flags with Scottish place names on them.

3. The added boos to any Celtic or ex-Celtic players when teams were read out.

4. Even witnessed odd hand clapping when our players with Rangers connections were named ie Patterson, Gilmour and oddly enough even Shankland who Rangers are thought to be hot favourites to sign him.

5. Their songbook right out of Ibrox Park.

The evidence is irrefutable.

what’s wrong with them being Rangers fans and Northern Irish?  One of my friends was in the crowd last night and he is a massive Rangers fan and was wearing a Northern Irish scarf in their end.  He has lived in Scotland for 35 years.

absolutely nothing wrong with their fans behaviour last night and thought they backed their team well and looked like they were having a great time doing “the bouncy”

in contrast, I witnessed a hate crime from one of our own fans, who dressed in comedy fashion of a kilt, Scotland top, and one of these funny hats shouts “fuck off back to Ireland you proddy cu4ts”.  He continued with various other anti Protestant shouting.  What a charmer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[vanderark14]

Of course malcolm witnessed a hate crime 😆 

I can imagine the Billy brit on the phone the cops 24/7 reporting hate crimes despite constantly moaning about the hate crime bill

[Malcolm]

5 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

What did we learn from this double header?

Shankland is our best option up front.

Patterson cannot start in the Euros if he is not playing for Everton. His confidence and self-belief which was low must now be rock bottom. If Hickey is not fit then, at present, has to be Ralston.

When forced into playing four at the back after Robertson's injury we did look marginally better so that should be our default formation going forward should Robertson or Tierney be unavailable.

Safe to say Taylor won't be on the plane or else it would have been a like-for-like substitution with Robertson and let Clarke have a look at him as everyone else (barring keepers) got some gametime in this double header.

shankland may well be but I suspect he will be loyal to dykes and Adams unless shankland has a great game in the remaining friendlies.

 

 

[Toepoke]

I had a bad feeling when this game was announced. Horrible opponent to play, always a horrible atmosphere and probably horrible weather. Turns out the last part wasn't as bad, but still I'm not too bothered I decided to save the 30 quid.

[Malcolm]

Just now, vanderark14 said:

Of course malcolm witnessed a hate crime 😆 

I can imagine the Billy brit on the phone the cops 24/7 reporting hate crimes despite constantly moaning about the hate crime bill

😂 I was merely pointing out the futility of this ridiculous bill.  As you know, I am all for freedom of speech!