McVinceSCT Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Anyway, With Poland, Germany and Ireland in our group, we knew it would be very hard (nearly impossible) to finish first or second. I remember nearly everybody said they would be happy to finish third and be in the play off. I was always going to be us or Ireland for this third place. Let's be realistic. I think now it's 50/50 between us and them. When i said 1pt in Georgia would not be bad, some people laughted at me. This point would have made a big difference today. LET'S ALL GET BEHIND THE BOYS IN ONE MONTH! We drew 2-2 in Poland so we might not be feared to beat them at home, in a bouncing Hampden!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 McVinceSCT, on 08 Sept 2015 - 12:54 PM, said: Anyway, With Poland, Germany and Ireland in our group, we knew it would be very hard (nearly impossible) to finish first or second. Completely incorrect. If we'd beaten the 147th best team in the world on Friday night, we'd be in pole position for 2nd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McVinceSCT Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I was speaking of people (me included) mind when the draw was made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
braveheart_lynch Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 The issue I have with your assessment of the game and many others like you is that it's a losing mentality. Talking about effort and crap like that disguises the real issues here which people like yourself fail to see. If you are happy getting beat by one goal of a German team that played at probably half their capability then good luck to ye. Your the type of Scotland fan that the SFA love because your blind to the technical deficiencies of the squad and are happy for them 'to put it up them for 90 minutes' Good luck to you if you expect Scotland to do better than last night's performance. I think you're the one that fails to see what level our team is at right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fringo Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 It's not just the Georgia game that's made it difficult (we're not out yet). Before Friday, what really made it difficult was Poland and Ireland picking up points against Germany. If Germany had beaten everyone up to that point, Scotland, Poland and Ireland would be all square before Friday. At that point, even losing to Georgia and Germany would still have left us in an ok position as we still have Gib to play. It would still have been wide open for 2nd & 3rd spot. Germany dropping points to our closest rivals screwed us as much as defeat to Georgia did IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jock strap Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 We've only got ourselves to blame again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fringo Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 We've only got ourselves to blame again. I blame the Germans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orraloon Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Germany won 6-1 there in October 2012. Almost exactly three years since they got a good hiding in Dublin. They must be due for another one. Let's hope so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_B81 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Anyway, With Poland, Germany and Ireland in our group, we knew it would be very hard (nearly impossible) to finish first or second. I remember nearly everybody said they would be happy to finish third and be in the play off. I was always going to be us or Ireland for this third place. Let's be realistic. I think now it's 50/50 between us and them. When i said 1pt in Georgia would not be bad, some people laughted at me. This point would have made a big difference today. LET'S ALL GET BEHIND THE BOYS IN ONE MONTH! We drew 2-2 in Poland so we might not be feared to beat them at home, in a bouncing Hampden!!! No offence, but this kind of mentality of accepting a point against teams in pots below us is why we don't qualify for tournaments. Ireland and Poland were good enough to go to Georgia and win, we should've been to. Strachan coming out and saying it wasn't a must win clearly had an effect when you look at the players attitude, they went into the game with that mentality and we got nothing. If we're going to qualify, we should target 6/6 against the sides in the pots below us, 4/6 MINIMUM against a pot two/three side and anything against the pot one side as a bonus. Even against Ireland we should've went to Dublin looking to get the win that would've buried them in this group. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orraloon Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 The first goal was fortunate in that the best keeper in the world had a mare at the free kick. However, and they didn't show this much in replays, I was convinced that Mulgrew was grabbed inside the box for the free kick. A mate texted me that same thing pretty much straight after the goal. The last sentence is always a strange one when people say it IMO. I can't think of many teams who wouldn't want to score more goals then they did if they could have. Germany tried to score more, they just didn't manage it. To suggest they could have won that game 7 or 8-2, especially when they only had 6 shots on target is a wee bit over the top. Would it not be more sensible to count the shots off target, as those would be the ones that they deliberately missed in order to keep the score down? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green_Tide_Rising Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Almost exactly three years since they got a good hiding in Dublin. They must be due for another one. Let's hope so. While you can never rule that out - in fairness...our side were in a bad place at the time (worse than now) Just back from a disastrous european championship , the team had lost faith in the manager as had the fans and his player and tactical selections were ludicrous. I expect us to put up a commendable performance against the germans in Dublin but probably lose by the odd goal this time Wud like to think we cud force a draw.....but realism and hope are two different things Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
braveheart_lynch Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 No offence, but this kind of mentality of accepting a point against teams in pots below us is why we don't qualify for tournaments. Ireland and Poland were good enough to go to Georgia and win, we should've been to. Strachan coming out and saying it wasn't a must win clearly had an effect when you look at the players attitude, they went into the game with that mentality and we got nothing. If we're going to qualify, we should target 6/6 against the sides in the pots below us, 4/6 MINIMUM against a pot two/three side and anything against the pot one side as a bonus. Even against Ireland we should've went to Dublin looking to get the win that would've buried them in this group. There's no doubt we should have performed better in Georgia, however I don't particularly like the use of the term "must win" in football. What do you say to the players after a game if they still happen to lose a "must win"? Don't bother turning up to Hampden on Monday boys... That would have a bigger affect on the team IMO. We should be going in to every game looking to win the game. There is a difference between that and calling it a "must win". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I blame the Germans I blame that Salmond....... for being fat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orraloon Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Completely incorrect. If we'd beaten the 147th best team in the world on Friday night, we'd be in pole position for 2nd. And if we had beaten Germany last night we would have been in pole position for 2nd. Turns out we weren't good enough to do either. I said before a ball was kicked that I thought our chances of winning away to Georgia were about the same as winning at home to Germany. Turns out I was right (for a change) . I think our chances of beating Poland at home are much higher. Time will tell. We are still in it with 2 games to go. It's maybe not great but still better than last time round when we were the first european team to get knocked out of WC2014. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orraloon Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I was speaking of people (me included) mind when the draw was made. Those of us with a bit of vision and foresight always suspected that the game in Georgia would not be an easy 3 points. It we had managed to scrape a draw that point would be very valuable now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_B81 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 There's no doubt we should have performed better in Georgia, however I don't particularly like the use of the term "must win" in football. What do you say to the players after a game if they still happen to lose a "must win"? Don't bother turning up to Hampden on Monday boys... That would have a bigger affect on the team IMO. We should be going in to every game looking to win the game. There is a difference between that and calling it a "must win". OK, I'll rephrase in that he said we "didn't need to win". And if we're serious about getting to major tournaments, we need to treat these games with more seriousness than suggesting we don't need to win games against the teams below or around us. It's been nearly two decades since France '98 and, in that time, we've seen fans from Slovenia, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Austria (albeit as hosts), Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Ireland all qualify whilst Iceland have just secured their place at Euro 2016 whilst Wales and Northern Ireland are on the brink of qualification. It's about time we were qualifying again and we need to be more ruthless in our performance and attitude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parklife Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Orraloon, on 08 Sept 2015 - 2:12 PM, said: Those of us with a bit of vision and foresight always suspected that the game in Georgia would not be an easy 3 points. No one thought it would be easy. If you want to qualify for major tournaments though, you kind of have to win games against the the 157th best team in the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orraloon Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I blame the Germans If only they had sorted out Poland the first time round. I blame the English for winning the war. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_B81 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 No one thought it would be easy. If you want to qualify for major tournaments though, you kind of have to win games against the the 157th best team in the world. Only they're ten places higher than you've put them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McVinceSCT Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 No one thought it would be easy. If you want to qualify for major tournaments though, you kind of have to win games against the the 157th best team in the world. I would say win at home at least draw away, but i fully understand your argument. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orraloon Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 No one thought it would be easy. If you want to qualify for major tournaments though, you kind of have to win games against the the 157th best team in the world. If Scotland want to qualify for major tournaments we have to win our home games. Not winning important home games is what has cost us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orraloon Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Only they're ten places higher than you've put them And they dropped 10 places in the space of 5 minutes despite beating the mighty Scotland. I think he might have just pressed the wrong button? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auld_Reekie Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 If Scotland want to qualify for major tournaments we have to win our home games. Not winning important home games is what has cost us. True. Although, I'd say our away form is an equal, if not more pressing issue. Aye, we have to win our home games but very few teams have an impeccable home record. We're going to drop a point or three at home. But we've almost come to accept that we're shite away from home when in fact, if we picked up a couple of wins, we'd find the going a lot easier. We've a serious, long-term problem going to away fixtures, especially Eastern Europe and picking up wins. Instead of playing meaningless guff friendlies against the home nations like we have in recent years, I'd prefer us to go out play a handful of these teams away from home and find a setup that changes our outlook in these matches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_B81 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 If Scotland want to qualify for major tournaments we have to win our home games. Not winning important home games is what has cost us. I presume you're referring to past campaigns not just this one as we've won three out of four this time round? Home games are definitely the key to qualification but adding points away from home is what takes teams over the line in qualification. Look at Euro 2008, won all but one home game (bloody Italy) but the failure to win in Georgia, and arguably play for a draw in Ukraine, is what cost us. Don't think anyone said Georgia was going to be easy but it was winnable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stactuso85 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Is "homophobe" an insult in the football world now? It's not even a real word. Now, where's that post about Guardian readers pretending to be football fans? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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