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Is Gordon's I-Watch Telling Him


andreimack

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Strachan has probably improved the morale of the squad 100%. Look at the number of call offs per squad, everyone wants to be there. That says a lot for a start. He also seems to want to foster a club like feeling amongst the squad, again, a good idea.

However his loyalty to some players who are either off form or not playing at club level regularly is starting to cost him. While we don't want to go back to the Levein or Burley era's of large scale changes every game or players dropped or introduced out of the blue (thinking Prague and Jamie Mackie) he has to find the balance between selecting the form players and keeping all his current "favourites" onside. At the moment he is swaying too much towards the latter option. I also feel he will persist with the "you have got us here so will stick with you" view for the last 2 games.

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Until we lost in Georgia things were going along as planned and the team played with a lot of positives, the team had a bad day in Georgia and you could see last night that they were effected by that result, ok we were playing the world champions and a good side they are but the Scotland team lacked confidence last night.

For people to call or suggest on WGS going , who the hell would replace him and if he was replaced you would require some one with a magic wand to find a world class player or players and that is not going to happen.

For players to compete at this level , the club sides have got to compete for longer periods in Europe and hence the players gain more experience.

WGS is still the man for the job.

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Don't think replacing Strachan is the way to go. We've made progress, but still have a long way to go. A win against the Poles will almost certainly see us make the play-offs, and then we'll see what happens.

However, I do think Strachan needs to grow up a bit: the 'iwatch' line, funny as it was, it shows the players that he's not fully concentrated on the game (very much doubt that was a spur of the moment gag), which I'm sure was apparent in training/team meeting whatever and had an impact on the performance. His post game comments last night were unnecessary, too.

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I don't think Strachan should go either but his I-watch comment may continue to haunt him for a while. Everyone likes a joke after a victory but after a humbling defeat(s), it just irks folk.

I've been ranting a bit on here so apologies for that but it's notable that for those relishing the Poles coming, we don't tend to win those games. Must be mentality issues, perhaps more so than ability.

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I don't think Strachan should go either but his I-watch comment may continue to haunt him for a while. Everyone likes a joke after a victory but after a humbling defeat(s), it just irks folk.

I've been ranting a bit on here so apologies for that but it's notable that for those relishing the Poles coming, we don't tend to win those games. Must be mentality issues, perhaps more so than ability.

I know it's a while ago now, and some of you youngsters might not remember it, but we used to win these games regularly. That's when we used to qualify. There is a link there. Win games like these and you qualify. Don't win them and you don't qualify. This is a massive test of Strachan's man management skills. If he can get his players to win this game he can rightly say that he has made some progress. If we don't beat Poland he will have done no better than Levein, Burley or Vogts.

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I know it's a while ago now, and some of you youngsters might not remember it, but we used to win these games regularly. That's when we used to qualify. There is a link there. Win games like these and you qualify. Don't win them and you don't qualify. This is a massive test of Strachan's man management skills. If he can get his players to win this game he can rightly say that he has made some progress. If we don't beat Poland he will have done no better than Levein, Burley or Vogts.

Scotland's World Cup squad 1998

D.O.B. CLUB WC

1 GK Jim Leighton 24 Jul 1958 Aberdeen 1982,86,90

2 MD Jackie McNamara 24 Oct 1973 Glasgow Celtic

3 DF Tom Boyd 24 Nov 1965 Glasgow Celtic

4 DF Colin Calderwood 20 Jan 1965 Tottenham Hotspur (ENG)

5 DF Colin Hendry 07 Dec 1965 Blackburn Rovers (ENG)

6 DF Tosh McKinlay 03 Dec 1964 Glasgow Celtic

7 FW Kevin Gallacher 23 Nov 1966 Blackburn Rovers (ENG)

8 MD Craig Burley 24 Sep 1971 Glasgow Celtic

9 FW Gordon Durie 06 Dec 1965 Glasgow Rangers 1990

10 FW Darren Jackson 25 Jul 1966 Glasgow Celtic

11 MD John Collins 31 Jan 1968 AS Monaco (FRA) 1990

12 GK Neil Sullivan 24 Feb 1970 Wimbledon (ENG)

13 FW Simon Donnelly 01 Dec 1974 Glasgow Celtic

14 MD Paul Lambert 07 Aug 1969 Glasgow Celtic

15 MD Scott Gemmill 02 Jan 1971 Nottingham Forest (ENG)

16 DF David Weir 10 May 1970 Hearts of Midlothian

17 MD Billy McKinlay 22 Apr 1969 Blackburn Rovers (ENG)

18 DF Matthew Elliott 01 Nov 1968 Leicester City (ENG)

19 DF Derek Whyte 31 Aug 1968 Aberdeen

20 FW Scott Booth 16 Dec 1971 FC Utrecht (NED)

21 GK Jonathan Gould 18 Jul 1968 Glasgow Celtic

22 DF Christian Dailly 23 Oct 1973 Derby County (ENG)

Coach: mBrown 01 Jul 1940

F

Looking at that squad compared to what we have now though there are leaders, fighters and skillful players, there are not many of them available to Strachan at the moment.

Edited by andreimack
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Can't believe people are even comtemplating thinking about a replacement for Strachan. Despite the trials and tribulations of the last week, let's remember that at this point in the last campaign we were already out of the World Cup and the remaining fixtures were glorified friendlies. Fast forward and we are still well in with a shout of making the play offs which, lets be honest, was always going to be our main goal in what is a really tough group.

He has to stay for the next campaign.

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Strachan will stay on after this campaign I am sure.

I drove up to the game last night and had Talksport on while driving home and they were really sticking the boot in asking if he should go, and thankfully all the Scots who phoned in told them that he will (and should stay).

Always felt it would be neck and neck between us and Ireland for 3rd place, but what has cost us is Ireland and Poland picking up something against the Germans (who have underachieved this campaign) and ultimately getting beat in Tbilisi.

Think we have enough in us to get something against the Poles, its just can we rely on the Poles and Germans to do the business v Ireland?

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Strachan has strong dislike for the press and for talking to them. What he doesn't seem to recognise is that the press are a significant conduit between him and the fans.

I wish he would just forget the fact that the guy asking him stupid questions us an utter cockwomble and focus on what he thinks the fans would like to hear him say.

However, as Strachan has acted this way throughout his managerial career and the SFA's PR machine is ineffective I'm not expecting this to change.

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Germany are excellent but their defence can be hurt and we did that twice. No shame in losing to them, we kept ourselves in it until the end when it might have been over before FT. Germany will beat Ireland. Don't know about Poland.

We didn't hurt their defence though

Both goals came off the back of set pieces

It wasn't the hot knife thru butter act they were performing on us

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I know it's a while ago now, and some of you youngsters might not remember it, but we used to win these games regularly. That's when we used to qualify. There is a link there. Win games like these and you qualify. Don't win them and you don't qualify. This is a massive test of Strachan's man management skills. If he can get his players to win this game he can rightly say that he has made some progress. If we don't beat Poland he will have done no better than Levein, Burley or Vogts.

Am old enough to remember us needing 1pt with 3 games to go to qualify for wc 90

Lose to Yugoslavia ; lose to France

1-1 at home to Norway .......

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I know it's a while ago now, and some of you youngsters might not remember it, but we used to win these games regularly. That's when we used to qualify. There is a link there. Win games like these and you qualify. Don't win them and you don't qualify. This is a massive test of Strachan's man management skills. If he can get his players to win this game he can rightly say that he has made some progress. If we don't beat Poland he will have done no better than Levein, Burley or Vogts.

sadly true

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I know it's a while ago now, and some of you youngsters might not remember it, but we used to win these games regularly. That's when we used to qualify. There is a link there. Win games like these and you qualify. Don't win them and you don't qualify. This is a massive test of Strachan's man management skills. If he can get his players to win this game he can rightly say that he has made some progress. If we don't beat Poland he will have done no better than Levein, Burley or Vogts.

WGS can still emulate Scotland's most successful manager this century - The Bold Berti- and get us to play offs

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