Caledonian Craig Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 Well in the space of hours we have gone from hopes of automatic qualifications to abject misery and our play-off hopes even hanging by a thread if not already gone. Obviously, I am gutted like everyone else as we lacked a game plan and players just looked flat but at the end of the day and being honest - we got from that game what we deserved - NOTHING, Prior to the match posters here were saying if we can't beat Georgia we don't deserve to qualify and I agree with that sentiment now. We can have no complaints about missing out on qualification (if that is what happens) if we cannot beat Georgia. I see on other threads of talk of embarrassment and anger that Wales and Northern Ireland will be there whilst we aren't - well I'd say the difference is they can get results when it is expected of them (Wales away to Cyprus and Northern Ireland away to Faroe Islands) whilst we serve up dire losses. Where we go from here seems clear to me. Strachan has to formulate a Plan B and C. He has to get us comfortable playing attacking football not limited to on the counter-attack especially in matches against the likes of Georgia. Counter-attack football is a style Strachan has relied on solely to get us where we are but it will only take you so far. I'll be at Hampden on Monday night but right now I have zero expectations after this evening's horror show but hopefully the angst the fans are feeling right now will have dissapated by then as we need to give them maximum support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TartanDave Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 Agree on the plan b etc. Tonight was the first time I can ever remember thinking Charlie Adam would have been handy on the bench. For all his flaws he would go get the ball and play some forward passes (most would be sh1t) maybe it was just the misery of the whole performance but I think he deserves a spot in the squad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weekevie04 Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 Great post, Craig. I said a while back the ''if we don't beat Georgia'' and I still back it, we absolutely don't, but we've just made the job a lot harder . Of course I'm hoping we beat Germany on Monday and Georgia beat Ireland etc etc, I dream I dream, but when our main opponents all go to Tbilisi and win, we don't - well then we have to accept that. The Northern Ireland and Wales talk in my opinion is bitterness. Both those nations deserve their place in the Euros if they qualify, and I hope they do, maybe we'll learn from it someday, it makes us look very undignified by sniping at very similar nations. Lots of us utterly gutted, not just at the result, but again - we underachieve - in almost everything we do these days, before we could say the Welsh had their rugby team, now they have both. I won't be at Hampden, right now (6 beers down) I'm toying with just watching Ireland-Georgia and hoping for a draw/away win, and then checking live score at full-time to see how we did, but no doubt I'll be a fool for love, cheering us on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caledonian Craig Posted September 4, 2015 Author Share Posted September 4, 2015 Great post, Craig. I said a while back the ''if we don't beat Georgia'' and I still back it, we absolutely don't, but we've just made the job a lot harder . Of course I'm hoping we beat Germany on Monday and Georgia beat Ireland etc etc, I dream I dream, but when our main opponents all go to Tbilisi and win, we don't - well then we have to accept that. The Northern Ireland and Wales talk in my opinion is bitterness. Both those nations deserve their place in the Euros if they qualify, and I hope they do, maybe we'll learn from it someday, it makes us look very undignified by sniping at very similar nations. Lots of us utterly gutted, not just at the result, but again - we underachieve - in almost everything we do these days, before we could say the Welsh had their rugby team, now they have both. I won't be at Hampden, right now (6 beers down) I'm toying with just watching Ireland-Georgia and hoping for a draw/away win, and then checking live score at full-time to see how we did, but no doubt I'll be a fool for love, cheering us on. Agreed weekevie. I won't be bitter or moaning if Wales and Northern Ireland qualify - heck they've had an even longer wait to qualify than us and besides they have shown their mettle when needed whilst we have wilted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wanday Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 The republic are in the position they are in thanks to a succession of last minute goals. No idea if that's due to luck or determination. Either way, it's in their hands now and if these last minute goals were luck then they may get some against them. But I just can't see them allowing Georgia to play the way we allowed them to. We blew it tonight and I'm so desperately disappointed - more so for getting caught up in the dreams again, should know better by now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caledonian Craig Posted September 5, 2015 Author Share Posted September 5, 2015 People on the board are looking at this defeat from the wrong perspective in my opinion today. There are a heck of a lot of the players getting slated (fair enough as they put in a garbage display) but lets leave it at that. We are getting fanciful suggestions that so many of the side should never play for us again - way OTT. I wasn't online yesterday but I bet a thousand pounds when the team was named everyone on here was upbeat about it as it was about the best team we could field. That says it all. One minging performance doesn't send them from being our best options to ready for the scrap heap. We, as I have said elsewhere, have one way to play to a degree of success - as a counter-attacking team. We have no plan for breaking down teams that sit in and that was THE problem last night. What was the game plan? I never saw a discernible one. That tells me that either the players are only well-drilled in counter-attack now for us and couldn't adapt to another style in the few days since they got together last week or perhaps Strachan never had a strong enough or a plan at all on how to play all out attacking football to break down Georgia. That is the problem - no Plan B. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exile Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 People on the board are looking at this defeat from the wrong perspective in my opinion today. There are a heck of a lot of the players getting slated (fair enough as they put in a garbage display) but lets leave it at that. We are getting fanciful suggestions that so many of the side should never play for us again - way OTT. I wasn't online yesterday but I bet a thousand pounds when the team was named everyone on here was upbeat about it as it was about the best team we could field. That says it all. One minging performance doesn't send them from being our best options to ready for the scrap heap. We, as I have said elsewhere, have one way to play to a degree of success - as a counter-attacking team. We have no plan for breaking down teams that sit in and that was THE problem last night. What was the game plan? I never saw a discernible one. That tells me that either the players are only well-drilled in counter-attack now for us and couldn't adapt to another style in the few days since they got together last week or perhaps Strachan never had a strong enough or a plan at all on how to play all out attacking football to break down Georgia. That is the problem - no Plan B. Good analysis, and clears the way to face Germany. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toepoke Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 Nothing weird about going from hope to despair over 90 minutes watching Scotland... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caledonian Craig Posted September 5, 2015 Author Share Posted September 5, 2015 Nothing weird about going from hope to despair over 90 minutes watching Scotland... Agreed but my point (I was trying to make without making myself clear) was that for it being a crushing defeat it is weird as I feel nothing. Perhaps it is because I go along with those that were saying if we don't beat Georgia we don't deserve to qualify - well we lost. Normally, following a loss we can cling to a bad run of the ball, a fighting spirit, bad refereeing decision or a host of chances missed but we can't even hold onto any of that as excuses or something to forgive the team for. We lost and deserved to so I can't (just now) bring myself to bemoan us missing out on qualification. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stactuso85 Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 I said that if we don't win in Georgia then we don't deserve to qualify. However, I don't believe we deserve to sink to fourth on the basis of one bad result/performance either. We've put a lot into this group, until last night. Let's just hope for a repeat performance level of ours in Germany except fewer costly defensive mistakes, taking more of our chances and most important of all an unbiased referee. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimi hendrix Posted September 5, 2015 Share Posted September 5, 2015 It's not one bad performance this has been coming we were lucky to scrape a draw in dublin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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