Strachan spot on with his 2 squads ?

[fringo]

I liked his idea of 2 squads and I think he got it pretty spot on.

About 6 new caps (including 2 18 year olds, one of whom got MoM tonight), recalls and good experience for quite a few including McCormack and Griffiths who got their first starts in at least 2 years, and MoM returns for McGregor  v Czech Rep.

Oh, and 2 wins.

Not bad IMO.

[JECK]

I think it's worked well having 2 squads

[bossman4]

Worked well I think but I dont think he'll do the same for the games in May.

[Toepoke]

55 minutes ago, fringo said:

About 6 new caps (including 2 18 year olds, one of whom got MoM tonight)

Thought McGinn was MotM?

[PASTA Mick]

It worked well. It gave more players a chance of a game and the opportunity to try different tactics. We were able to give a number of debuts without making the team look like a 'B' team.

The big disappointment for me was Mulgrew playing left-back in both matches when we have so many other better options that are actually left-backs.

Chris Martin is never going to be good enough and should probably be binned now. 

[fraz65]

We seem to be good at getting friendly results against decent opposition but can't do it in qualification against fairly mediocre eastern European sides.

It makes me wonder whether we would be better arranging friendlies away from home against the likes of Macedonia, Georgia, Albania etc.

If we had won against Lithuania, Macedonia, Georgia (twice) in recent years we would have come much closer to qualification.

If you have a major weakness going into a competition, it makes sense to focus on that weakness.

[fringo]

7 hours ago, Toepoke said:

Thought McGinn was MotM?

Sorry, got my 18 year olds mixed up. How old is McGinn anyway ?

[ErsatzThistle]

13 minutes ago, fringo said:

Sorry, got my 18 year olds mixed up. How old is McGinn anyway ?

Twenty one.

I wasn't sure about picking him for this squad but I must admit he played well last night. 

[fringo]

18 minutes ago, ErsatzThistle said:

Twenty one.

I wasn't sure about picking him for this squad but I must admit he played well last night. 

Same here. Slotted right in and looked like he'd been capped for years.

Also Tierney who impressed on his debut.

[borojock]

I thought very useful exercise the last two games and a lot of positives to take from it even though only friendlies and they count for nothing and the result is of very little importance I still think its good to highlight and acknowledge the positives

Two wins I don't think many teams achieved that over the last week

Two clean sheets even fewer countries will have achieved this, this week... especially good as out defence is the weakest area of the team so a moral boost to them

Some fresh blood integrated to international football Tierney (haven't seen much of him) but looks good and from speaking to Celtic friends they say a lot of potential there certainly not the finished article but you wouldn't and shouldn't be expecting that. McGinn looked very assured, Oliver Burke looked like the athletic footballer we need but don't have speed, pace, strength, height (not wanting to sound like under 21 manager but I think its important to have a certain amount of this in the team)

Our competition for the next campaign didn't seem to do well Slovakia, Slovenia and Lithuania over the last couple of games

 

A couple of worries also highlighted watching the game last night it felt like everytime the Danes attacked they got through especially in the second half an watching it at the back of my mind I was thinking if this was a competitive match we wouldn't have won one nil. Second half didn't fill me with my confidence with the defence

The other thing that concerns me is we didn't look great attacking the link between the striker and the attacking 3 in a 4231 isn't quite right not enough support to the striker

Also you really have to be playing competitive football week n week out as seen with whittaker and to a lesser degree Maloney

[wanderer]

Two squads worked very well I felt as we got a chance to see a lot of players in action that in normal circumstances would probably have got nowhere near the squad, or just left on the bench.

Expect this to become a regular thing under Strachan, with the same happening in June, and if there is friendlies, before Malta and after England.

[jock strap]

Think Strachan has done exceptionally well trying 2 squads over the last week or so.

Trying to figure out one squad is difficult, but 2 ! Wow.

[aaid]

31 minutes ago, wanderer said:

Two squads worked very well I felt as we got a chance to see a lot of players in action that in normal circumstances would probably have got nowhere near the squad, or just left on the bench.

Expect this to become a regular thing under Strachan, with the same happening in June, and if there is friendlies, before Malta and after England.

I'd be very surprised if he does the same again for the games at the end of the season. The reason why we're playing in Malta is that we are having a training camp there so it makes no sense whatsoever to split the squad.  

There will also be a number of players who won't be available as those that have been carrying an injury will be having operations or time to recover in advance of the next season. 

[wanderer]

5 minutes ago, aaid said:

I'd be very surprised if he does the same again for the games at the end of the season. The reason why we're playing in Malta is that we are having a training camp there so it makes no sense whatsoever to split the squad.  

There will also be a number of players who won't be available as those that have been carrying an injury will be having operations or time to recover in advance of the next season. 

I think he has already hinted in the press that he plans to do the same in June (given the large gap between the two games, it is possible) but I expect him to maybe call up a larger squad than normal, rather than two separate squads like what he has just done.

[Auld_Reekie]

Thought overall it was a huge success. Cant complain at friendly wins and we've managed to see a couple of encouraging introductions. Not sure he'll do same in future if there's a qualifier imminent but I'd sooner see him do this more often than churn out timid performances with the established players - IMO, part of the reason we've won both games is that in both squads, players knew they had to put the effort as they only had one game to shine and established players could see the competition for their own places. This should be done more often. Bertie Vogts was forced to introduced new players, but it gave us Darren Fletcher and James McFadden. We must do more to shake up the squad before each campaign. There's about 6 established players who should be replaced before the next campaign IMO, and I'd sooner fail to qualify with a younger squad than fail to qualify by playing it safe with squad selections. We can't really do much worse than we have do over the last decade or so.

I'd have most of the fresh faces back up in the next squad. About the only concern right now is right back and centre hawfs. Rest of the squad appears to have healthy competition for places but our defending is massively unconvincing and undermines our ability to keep possession or build an attack from the back.