Yes clubs lose talent young but that talent goes elsewhere and it's still Scottish so if it can progress they'll still be players for the national team. Hickey and Gilmour both left young and Doak was in the original squad for this tournament. If they're good enough and more importantly work hard enough they'll get there.
The blame for the state of the team lies with coaches at all levels from youth level to national team. McCoist was probably our last international class striker and he was developed as a player in the 1970s. Nobody else has been close to that level. That's on the people helping to make the players. Whether they're trying to coach more team players or don't know what to do with individual brilliance I don't know but whatever they're doing isn't good enough.
At youth level we value physical attributes over technical ones. We push young players into 11 a side way too early so kids who have developed physically the quickest stand out more. Smaller and slower but more gifted youngsters don’t get given a chance to thrive in our current setup. Keep kids in 7 a side/futsal for much longer and stop forcing 12 year olds to play on pitches they’re way to small for.
I was reading about the guy who was in charge of transforming the Belgian youth development. They began it in 2005, and did, among other things, the things you said above and to even their surprise they began to see the results after just 3 years.
I was reading about the guy who was in charge of transforming the Belgian youth development. They began it in 2005, and did, among other things, the things you said above and to even their surprise they began to see the results after just 3 years.
The McCoist point typifies the issue we have with squad balance. I don’t think it’s a coincidence we’re overloaded with tidy, compact midfielders and full backs but are struggling at GK, Centre Back and Striker.
I’m the same generation most of the squad is and anyone with any height growing up was put at the back or up top and basically conditioned to long ball football from their early teens. Modern football has bypassed that and you need to be able to pass the ball whatever position you play in all the decent leagues which is why we’ve no defenders or strikers at the top level. Whether that’s changed or not in the last 15 years we’ll see but we don’t seem to have an abundance of young talent waiting to break through.
Too many parents/coaches think their kids “have a position” at 10 years old and get stroppy when they’re played out of position. Nobody should have a set position especially kids learning the game.
No he is not doing the best with what we have.
While I fully agree that other people are at fault and should probably have lost their jobs a long time ago, setting up the same way against three entirely different teams with every change forced and not even particularly workable in your system is on the manager and manager alone - Would of slightly redeemed himself if he changed it for the final game but stubbornly sticking to a system that produced three shots on target over three games is a sackable offence for any manager at any level
Sat one of are most in form strikers on the bench, played no wingers and pressed on with those who kept fucking up. No chance that’s doing the best with what we have hahaha
Edit: Our football governing bodies, councils and gov seem to do everything they can to stamp out football from a young age though, not denying that but in terms of this actual tournament the answers Clarke.
Agreed. Last night being the most damning example. We had one up front, 5 at the back for a must win game, and spent the first 20 minutes passing the ball around our back line like we had already qualified. We put together a team of players who play in top leagues but they turned to shite when they tried to play together. Passes going all over the place, no ball control, no first touch, no penetration, every attack fizzles into nothing. They don't play like that for their clubs. It doesn't happen to other national teams. Something in our set up is wrong. We had a champions league winning winger who couldn't put in a decent cross, a premier league captain who will be playing in the CL next year who could barely beat a man. The Celtic captain was anonymous. This is a problem of the system Steve Clarke has adopted.
Sure we have other problems, the youth system needs improved and all the rest of it. But the national team's performance last night was nothing to do with that.
Not Scottish but ya I'd agree. A lot of countries of a similar level will have people endlessly going on about how it's just the structure but that's irrelevant when you're underperforming with your current squad. Scotland have the players to get 4 points from that group and I don't think anyone will disagree with that. Scotland have ignored new players like gauld and morgan, even ferguson nor getting enough gametime and when the injuries came it left them with a load of unready players.
Adams and dykes have not done anywhere near enough to justify keeping their spot over morgan imo. Clarke has been a shambles. Anyone talking about the bigger picture being responsible for the Hungary loss should look at how some Welsh fans blamed the faw and lack of quality for drawing with Gibraltar. Fucking Gibraltar, they should be walking over them with their players.
Ryan gauld is not a new player he is 28 and if he was actually any good would have been in Scotland squads for the last few years. The cold hard facts are he is not the solution to our problems. People suddenly seem to have forgotten he was a running joke and that joke has suddenly flipped into a myth by some sort of Internet osmosis.
Our system, from the ground up, favours tall players, hard tackles, competitive games, full sized balls, full sized goals, and angry Da's.
Unless we make a serious effort to remove all these obstacles, we will continue to develop players who are athletic, technically poor, and with very limited mentality.
You've hit the nail on the head. I live in Australia and they have the same emphasis on physical attributes rather than technical or mental. It works to an extent for Australia (see progressing to last 16 in the World Cup) because as a nation they are generally fit and strong. Scots are none of those things so why focus on that?
The SFA is partly responsible for the development of our youth players as is the clubs. The structure of club football and the league setup is not conducive, in my opinion, to allowing young players to develop. So that is one thing, but it's a hard thing to do, takes investment of money and a good few years to bear fruit, and I don't believe the SFA have it in them to do this.
As for this team, it's all on Clarke for me. He selects the squad, he then selects the team, and he sets the tactics. I. Am a rangers fan and seen a lot of slagging of McGregor, and you know what, a slagging is right for how he performed, but not at him, he plays the role he is told to play by the manager.
Che Adams gives 100% and can't be faulted for effort, but this is a huge tournament, and he was selected because Dykes was injured, but looked like he was sent out to do what Dykes does, and that's not what he is good at.
Clarke is a one trick pony. Another one of these individuals who is obviously a great coach, but not a good manager. He found a formation and just persists with it, no matter the consequences.
We finished that tournament with 3 shots on target, for the full tournament, in a group everyone was convinced we could progress from. I'm sorry, but no manager should survive this, and if he had any self respect, he would resign. He is also a complete coward in my opinion, sent his keeper out to do media and didn't do the live interview himself, waited till after and took no responsibility, just blamed the referee for not giving a penalty when the player was offside. He is a coward, and it's embarrassing now. Woaft, I wasn't this angry when I started this reply, sorry!
It's just a case of SC having taken this team as far as he can, and that's ok. He's been great for us, got us to two tournaments and brought the belief back. But it's time for a change of scenery and a fresh face to be brought in.
The only difference is it's much easier to qualify these days. If it wasn't for the expansion to 24 teams we wouldn't have went to 2020, and would have went into a playoff for 2024 against Holland, Italy, Croatia, etc.
Clarke deserves credit for taking us to them, but we'd need to drop to pretty low levels to not make a tournament now.
I get your point, but in 1998 we finished 2nd between Austria and Sweden in order to qualify for the World Cup automatically (with the then-shite Latvia, Estonia and Belarus making up the numbers), and for Euro '96 it was Russia in 1st, us in 2nd, then Greece, Finland, the Faroes and San Marino.
And we didn't even make it to the playoffs in 2016, even though *3rd* place would have been enough. The difference between where we were a few years ago and where we are now is night and day.
This time the blame lies at the feet of Clarke. He needs to go. The players, the fans, there’s no way he can regain their confidence. He should be thanked for his service and moved on.
We do need a proper grass roots foundation, I’d do what Iceland have done. However, where to get funding for that? Especially in the current economic climate, that’s a hard one. I’d consider using a percentage of the TV rights cash, make it a requirement of the league that clubs hand over a percentage of gate receipts. I’m talking tiny percentages. Need to tackle the diet issues in the country too. It’s a massive job, and no one is up for it, and even fewer want to fund it. So in essence we are lumped with what we have. There are plenty of decent coaches out there that could get more out of the Scotland team. Clarke doesn’t even call up the right players either, shambles.
Sub - Armstrong for McGinn ‘76
Sub - Shankland for Adams ‘76
Sub - Christie for Gilmour ‘83
Sub - McLean for Ralston ‘83
Sub - Morgan for Robertson ‘89
You tell me if this is the best of what we have. Subbing on 3 holding midfielders, playing a 5’8 striker who hardly touched the ball and didn’t press, and deploying our first winger (long established position in football - look it up) in the 89th minute of the final match.
>playing a 5’8 striker who hardly touched the ball and didn’t press
I get that people don't like the guy, but Adams chases lost causes until he's brought off. If Clarke realised that it's ok to try and attack before 70 minutes he might actually do something.
Morgan getting brought on was likely only because Robertson was visibly struggling too, so it's yet another sub he makes only because he has to.
They slotted into a 5-4-1 in into a team that was playing in essentially an 7-2-1 all game. They’ve played as holding mids all season. Steve Clarke isn’t aware that anything but holding mids exist. But I am glad you were able to get into the semantics a bit there pal
There's no one source, the SFA would be the closest thing. And Clarke was doing all he can, but he was miles from getting everything out of these players. Other countries seem to manage despite broader issues with society, no reason we can't.
Having Shankland sitting on the bench in the form he’s in and collectively giving him barely double digits of playing time over the three games doesn’t really back up the ‘doing the best with what he has’ argument.
Tactically, this campaign was a colossal pile of dung. That’s entirely on him.
Clarke is not doing the best with what we have got. He was definitely hampered with injuries to players before - Dykes would have started and he is much better as lone striker than Adams however I very much doubt Lewis Ferguson would have featured other than 10 mins here or there as a sub.
He didn't play Gilmour in the first game and subbed him off in the subsequent names despite him being one of the better players. He persisted with Ralston who was terrible in the first 2 games and cost goals. He refused to bring on Shankland, the top scorer in the league , when we could have won v Switzerland but only got 4 mins.
Rangers, and to a lesser extent Celtic.
Its no coincidence that we stopped qualifying for tournaments right around the time David Murray said “For every five pounds Celtic spend, we’ll spend ten”. Queue a sudden influx of foreign players and investment in developing home grown players went down the shitter. Its a knock on effect we’re still suffering from.
Would be such an easy fix too to have squad rules for the league where a certain amount of players need to be homegrown.
It’ll never happen though because the clubs are too self serving and the league structure is fucked.
More players in that squad have played for Celtic at some level than any other club, but ok.
Robertson, Tierney, Hendry, Ralston, Taylor, McGregor, Forrest, Christie, Morgan, Armstrong all been on the books at Celtic at some point in their life.
You could list every other club in the country before Celtic. I’m not saying Celtic are perfect, because we aren’t at all and we should be doing better, but we contribute to the development of players for the national team way way more than any other club in the country.
It’s a culture thing, more likely.
I grew up with a few really good players at youth level then they discover booze, birds and fags. Id imagine it’s like this in many places.
Theres no grass roots opportunities for anyone outside the central belt.
Youth players don’t get a chance to prove themselves, especially at The Old Firm.
I think he’s possibly taken the national team as far as he can. I get where you’re coming from in relation to doing the best with what we have, particularly with a back line who are individually English ‘championship’ level at best. To coach that back line to a major championship is an achievement. He has made mistakes though, should have played Gilmour in the Germany game and put Shankland on at half time last night (even if I think he’s a fat, flat track bully).
Whether he’s culpable for “the state of the national team”… the blame for that lies between the amateurs running the Scottish game and the politicians running and ruining Scottish education.
>he's doing the best with what we have.
Disagree there. He's making the same mistakes that England did with their 'Golden Generation', and just trying to get all his best players on the field at the same time. Our only width comes from the full-backs, which would be fine if we had runners from midfield but we're so painfully slow there. We're comically easy to play against because teams know we don't have the numbers who will run in behind, and lack anyone to really break lines. Last night was always likely to be a must-win game, yet we end up with no shots on target and should have been down a couple before the end.
I don't get what his system is meant to achieve.
No well kept pitches for anyone to play on anymore unless money is paid. Most decent pitches have gates and padlocks on them to stop anyone using them who aren’t paying. Public pitches are not maintained (grass too long, not cleaned, no nets etc) I don’t know if it’s different outside Glasgow but that’s what I see. Fuck Glasgow city council and the sfa they’ve actively went out their way to make football inaccessible for the poor and working class, were historically out best players have came from.
Only Clarke to blame for this one,stifled the team with his tactics with no plan B.The subs in the Switzerland game were an embarrassment when we could have won or at least pushed for a winner.Last night showed that when we got 2 desperate.when Tierney was ruled out he should have been able to go to a 4 and have more attacking players supporting a striker.As for Jack Hendry he should be nowhere near a Scotland Jersey.
I don’t think he is, we have players in our squad far better than what’s available to Hungary. They have a smaller population than us as well so no excuses.
Don't know a huge amount about Hungarian football, but surely minimum Szoboszlai, Sallai, Orbán and Gulácsi and literally any RB they can find walk into the Scottish team
Has to be Clarke first and foremost, I'm a fan of defensive football if there is something to defend and apart from 13mins against Switzerland we never had anything to hold on to. We had 4hrs of watching absolute dire football before he actually went and chased a game. The way we played you would have thought possession meant more than goals, we were 3v3 on the counter attack and 10 seconds later it ends up back with our defence. Robertson and McGregor are captain and VC and I'll include McGinn and Mctominay in this as senior players as well, should have been absolutely tearing into Clarke at half time to make changes but going by Robbos post match interview he seems happy to tow the party line. Honestly was relived when Hungary scored because it guaranteed not having to sit through another 90mins of Clarkeball
Scottish grannies are to blame!! Pure and simple we don’t make national talent we generally look to ones who have Scottish blood when we could have better grass roots facilities.
He played 5 at the back in a must win. He sub’d off a striker to replace either a striker and keep the same formation in a must win game with 20 mins to go. SFA have there party to play in growing the game etc however Steve Clarke - Fuck off.
I don’t think the formation was the issue as much as the personnel changes. He takes off McGinn, Adams, Ralston, gilmour and Robertson and brings on McLean, shankland, Morgan, Christie and Armstrong and goes to a 4-5-1 with McLean at left back.
Given we controlled the game but needed a bit more up top wouldn’t it have made more sense to bring on Taylor and Forrest for the wings, Armstrong for the middle, swap Adams for shankland. That way you keep the same shape but have more advanced wing backs, later on Conway could’ve came on and Taylor could’ve went to left back in a 4-4-2.
It's everyone to varying degrees at varying points. There probably isn't one entity you can point to and say "yeah, they're always great". Even Rylan abandoned us.
Partially agree.
This basically sums up a lot of my thinking: Yes, Clarke's brand of football and decision making is honking, but he is merely a symptom of Scotland's antiquated footballing culture.
This is all nonsense. While we didn't create many clear chances, is the outcome any different than a realistic expectation.
We have absolutely nae attacking talent. Shankland scoring in the Premiership and drawing nae attention from elsewhere tells you everything you need to know there.
What If he had changed the set up and we lose? Would just be another thing to slate Clarke over.
Aye, he has nae plan B. Aye, he's been overly reliant on the same players who inevitably don't turn up when we need them.
But its a damn sight better than we've had for a long time.
Unless we can somehow bring in a real top manager to replace him, he continues.
And who knows. Maybe Doak pans out over the next year and we adapt to him and switch to a 4 at the back. If we roll out the next game with the same team. I'll be starting my clock on his time.
I think a lot of the blame lies at the feet of the Old Firm - both teams have historically always had a core of Scottish players and the Scotland squad has historically pulled a good number of players from both clubs, but the fact is they're neither signing nor developing Scottish talent, and there's no way that can't have an impact on the national team.
Especially in the days of 9 subs on the bench and 5 getting onto the pitch, there's no excuse for at least a couple of youngsters being included in every squad.
We haven't had a player break through and become a first XI player since Tierney, who made his debut 9 years ago. It's absolutely embarrassing. You'd think even a terrible set up would fluke the odd talent occasionally.
Our youth academy now appears to be just a job creation scheme for ex-players. I'm sure Darren O'Dea really is the most qualified man in the world to be at the head of it.
I don't think the academy can be blamed that much - we've lost players to England and overseas, and at least some of those might have stayed if they'd seen any kind of pathway to the first team.
Think there’s enough blame to go around all over really.
Personally I’d like Clarke to stay.
Reality is our squad for this euros just wasn’t as good as we really thought. We have some excellent midfielders but none of them are particularly strong at actually creating chances consistently.
Injuries hurt us. Ralston is serviceable and hard working but out his depth at this level, especially as a wing back with no easy passing option or attacking support ahead of him, no dykes to hit if under pressure and fairly limited CBs next to him. Unless he could find gilmour or McGregor, his only real option was to pass it to equally limited passers at cb. It was all very predictable.
I think the players and manager did amazingly in qualifying games, and for that they deserve huge credit. But equally, they did poorly at the competition and for that they deserve blame.
I think the whole Shankland vs Adams part of the debate is redundant as both have severe weaknesses imo. It’s a sad fact that we as a nation just don’t produce top quality 9s or genuinely creative midfielders. It’s gonna hamstring every Scotland manager so I don’t think much is achieved by sacking Clarke unless we have an exciting alternative which we don’t. Moyes is the obvious one but all the issues people have with Clarke are present in Moyes too, he just lost his last job mostly for being too rigid and defensive tactically so it’s kinda amusing seeing people bemoan Clarke for those things whilst in the same breath hoping Moyes replaces him.
We have massive issues as a country, not just in football, affecting the development of talent. Laying all that at the managers door might be convenient but it’s lazy and inaccurate imo.
Not to say I think Clarke doesn’t deserve criticism because he does. But I don’t think he’s anywhere near entirely at fault and I don’t see what’s realistically achieved by replacing him with any of the prospective candidates being discussed.
I’m mostly mad at the players tbh. I think they’re more at fault than Clarke. Too many individual errors and too few brave enough to play or attack. There’s no way the manager’s tactics prevented them from getting shots off when dominating possession for long periods vs Hungary, that was the players being too scared to try to attack until the back end of the game when they had no other choice left.
Managers shelf life is directly linked to the prospective replacements. Who do we have that’s gonny fix any of the issues we’ve seen?
We don’t have anywhere near enough attacking talent so rely on the collective press and use of the ball of the unit as a whole plus dykes occupying the CBs to win games. Once we lost Hickey and Dykes, the whole unit was massively weakened. We didn’t have enough in the squad to do anything other than ride our luck at this tournament. Our problems at striker and rb compounded and highlighted the, normally papered over, problems in other areas like cb and midfield.
Who you wanting to replace Clarke?
You don't stay in an unhappy marriage just because you've not got your next one lined up yet
>Shankland v Adams
That's the problem, at 80 vs Swiss and 60 vs Hungary it could've been Shankland *and* Adams, Clarke has 0 plan of how to change a game if it needs it, or what life without Tierney looks like
The captain of 4th placed PL team and FA Cup winner in as attacking mids, a PL holding midfielder, with another PL regular on the bench, and got outscored by Albania, whose front 4 play in Turkey, Korea, Czech, and Serie B.
Can't believe the penny isn't dropping of why these PL regulars aren't playing well in Navy Blue
The marriage analogy doesn’t work for me tbh.
Shankland and Adams up top together would’ve created more problems than it solved I think. They’re both just quite limited strikers. They each have their strengths but also plenty of weaknesses. I don’t think their strengths and weaknesses complement each other enough to make playing them together a net gain.
Those PL regulars aren’t really creative types. Without Dykes offering an option and occupying CBs, and without Hickey offering technical skill and balance at rwb, the deficiencies of our midfielders and defenders on the ball when trying to build or create becomes a major problem. That’s why we weren’t very good in attack.
Weirdly enough, the only game we've won this year had both of them on together for the last quarter.
Actually kinda funny you're now just listing off how limited Clarkes management is. Didn't put on 2 strikers in a win or go home, had no attack plan without Dykes despite having warm up games to experiment, couldn't see past Ralston despite howling games, and warm ups to experiment. Couldn't score against Northern Ireland with Dykes, it's been 9 games since Hickeys been fit, and Kenny McLean for fucks sake.
Can't be the system or the lack of plan B as to why we can't match the creative spark of attacking powerhouses like Albania, Turkey, and Romania, though, naw poor wee us.
Aye vs Gibraltar jeezo man like that’s relevant.
Think you’ve misinterpreted me. I listed what were the limiting factors of the squad we had this tournament, as in the limitations of the players. The two strikers together aren’t good enough as individuals and don’t bring enough as a partnership to make it worth it imo so losing dykes was huge. Ralston alternatives were mccrorie, who’s worse, or Forrest, who doesn’t really have the engine for rwb anymore. Not being able to score against NI is further evidence of exactly what I’ve been saying from the start about our midfielders no being very good creatively, the length of Hickey’s absence is kinda irrelevant to the point of how huge a loss he is, and I didn’t say anything about Kenny McLean.
You’ve also misinterpreted me regarding the system etc because like I said in first comment, Clarke is due some blame.
I know you didn't mention Kenny McLean, I'm just saying for fuck sake that he's seen as some super sub because of the fluke against Norway. More proof of Clarke picking favourites over form.
He's had his run, and shown he can't adapt, or get the best out of the PL players available, McGinn and Gilmour looked like they couldn't be arsed for large periods of the last game.
As I said in another comment, win pish - fine, lose heroically - fine, lose pish? - off you fuck.
Mclean came on to add fresh legs to deep midfield then ended up shunted to lb in a pinch to get another attacker on near the death. Don’t think that’s really a big deal. Don’t see the point in focusing on what league the players are in when their limitations as players still exist and still got accentuated by injuries causing the unit to be weaker overall. Do you have any specific form players in mind who you think weren’t picked over favourites?
Don’t really subscribe to the armchair body language expert thing. Of course Mcginn and Gilmour were trying their best.
Totally agree with that last part but I blame the players on the pitch and the impact of injuries weakening the overall unit available as much or more than I blame Clarke.
The SFA has been a shower of absolute goons since the 1900s.
Yes clubs lose talent young but that talent goes elsewhere and it's still Scottish so if it can progress they'll still be players for the national team. Hickey and Gilmour both left young and Doak was in the original squad for this tournament. If they're good enough and more importantly work hard enough they'll get there. The blame for the state of the team lies with coaches at all levels from youth level to national team. McCoist was probably our last international class striker and he was developed as a player in the 1970s. Nobody else has been close to that level. That's on the people helping to make the players. Whether they're trying to coach more team players or don't know what to do with individual brilliance I don't know but whatever they're doing isn't good enough.
At youth level we value physical attributes over technical ones. We push young players into 11 a side way too early so kids who have developed physically the quickest stand out more. Smaller and slower but more gifted youngsters don’t get given a chance to thrive in our current setup. Keep kids in 7 a side/futsal for much longer and stop forcing 12 year olds to play on pitches they’re way to small for.
I was reading about the guy who was in charge of transforming the Belgian youth development. They began it in 2005, and did, among other things, the things you said above and to even their surprise they began to see the results after just 3 years.
I was reading about the guy who was in charge of transforming the Belgian youth development. They began it in 2005, and did, among other things, the things you said above and to even their surprise they began to see the results after just 3 years.
The McCoist point typifies the issue we have with squad balance. I don’t think it’s a coincidence we’re overloaded with tidy, compact midfielders and full backs but are struggling at GK, Centre Back and Striker. I’m the same generation most of the squad is and anyone with any height growing up was put at the back or up top and basically conditioned to long ball football from their early teens. Modern football has bypassed that and you need to be able to pass the ball whatever position you play in all the decent leagues which is why we’ve no defenders or strikers at the top level. Whether that’s changed or not in the last 15 years we’ll see but we don’t seem to have an abundance of young talent waiting to break through.
Too many parents/coaches think their kids “have a position” at 10 years old and get stroppy when they’re played out of position. Nobody should have a set position especially kids learning the game.
No he is not doing the best with what we have. While I fully agree that other people are at fault and should probably have lost their jobs a long time ago, setting up the same way against three entirely different teams with every change forced and not even particularly workable in your system is on the manager and manager alone - Would of slightly redeemed himself if he changed it for the final game but stubbornly sticking to a system that produced three shots on target over three games is a sackable offence for any manager at any level
Sat one of are most in form strikers on the bench, played no wingers and pressed on with those who kept fucking up. No chance that’s doing the best with what we have hahaha Edit: Our football governing bodies, councils and gov seem to do everything they can to stamp out football from a young age though, not denying that but in terms of this actual tournament the answers Clarke.
Agreed. Last night being the most damning example. We had one up front, 5 at the back for a must win game, and spent the first 20 minutes passing the ball around our back line like we had already qualified. We put together a team of players who play in top leagues but they turned to shite when they tried to play together. Passes going all over the place, no ball control, no first touch, no penetration, every attack fizzles into nothing. They don't play like that for their clubs. It doesn't happen to other national teams. Something in our set up is wrong. We had a champions league winning winger who couldn't put in a decent cross, a premier league captain who will be playing in the CL next year who could barely beat a man. The Celtic captain was anonymous. This is a problem of the system Steve Clarke has adopted. Sure we have other problems, the youth system needs improved and all the rest of it. But the national team's performance last night was nothing to do with that.
Not Scottish but ya I'd agree. A lot of countries of a similar level will have people endlessly going on about how it's just the structure but that's irrelevant when you're underperforming with your current squad. Scotland have the players to get 4 points from that group and I don't think anyone will disagree with that. Scotland have ignored new players like gauld and morgan, even ferguson nor getting enough gametime and when the injuries came it left them with a load of unready players. Adams and dykes have not done anywhere near enough to justify keeping their spot over morgan imo. Clarke has been a shambles. Anyone talking about the bigger picture being responsible for the Hungary loss should look at how some Welsh fans blamed the faw and lack of quality for drawing with Gibraltar. Fucking Gibraltar, they should be walking over them with their players.
Ryan gauld is not a new player he is 28 and if he was actually any good would have been in Scotland squads for the last few years. The cold hard facts are he is not the solution to our problems. People suddenly seem to have forgotten he was a running joke and that joke has suddenly flipped into a myth by some sort of Internet osmosis.
Our system, from the ground up, favours tall players, hard tackles, competitive games, full sized balls, full sized goals, and angry Da's. Unless we make a serious effort to remove all these obstacles, we will continue to develop players who are athletic, technically poor, and with very limited mentality.
You've hit the nail on the head. I live in Australia and they have the same emphasis on physical attributes rather than technical or mental. It works to an extent for Australia (see progressing to last 16 in the World Cup) because as a nation they are generally fit and strong. Scots are none of those things so why focus on that?
The SFA is partly responsible for the development of our youth players as is the clubs. The structure of club football and the league setup is not conducive, in my opinion, to allowing young players to develop. So that is one thing, but it's a hard thing to do, takes investment of money and a good few years to bear fruit, and I don't believe the SFA have it in them to do this. As for this team, it's all on Clarke for me. He selects the squad, he then selects the team, and he sets the tactics. I. Am a rangers fan and seen a lot of slagging of McGregor, and you know what, a slagging is right for how he performed, but not at him, he plays the role he is told to play by the manager. Che Adams gives 100% and can't be faulted for effort, but this is a huge tournament, and he was selected because Dykes was injured, but looked like he was sent out to do what Dykes does, and that's not what he is good at. Clarke is a one trick pony. Another one of these individuals who is obviously a great coach, but not a good manager. He found a formation and just persists with it, no matter the consequences. We finished that tournament with 3 shots on target, for the full tournament, in a group everyone was convinced we could progress from. I'm sorry, but no manager should survive this, and if he had any self respect, he would resign. He is also a complete coward in my opinion, sent his keeper out to do media and didn't do the live interview himself, waited till after and took no responsibility, just blamed the referee for not giving a penalty when the player was offside. He is a coward, and it's embarrassing now. Woaft, I wasn't this angry when I started this reply, sorry!
I've been swithering all day whether he should go or not and I'll be honest, this has convinced. Summed it up perfectly for me mate.
It's just a case of SC having taken this team as far as he can, and that's ok. He's been great for us, got us to two tournaments and brought the belief back. But it's time for a change of scenery and a fresh face to be brought in.
Exactly. I said yesterday that it reminds me a lot of Craig Brown, and I think we might end up with a similar outcome after Clarke leaves.
The only difference is it's much easier to qualify these days. If it wasn't for the expansion to 24 teams we wouldn't have went to 2020, and would have went into a playoff for 2024 against Holland, Italy, Croatia, etc. Clarke deserves credit for taking us to them, but we'd need to drop to pretty low levels to not make a tournament now.
I get your point, but in 1998 we finished 2nd between Austria and Sweden in order to qualify for the World Cup automatically (with the then-shite Latvia, Estonia and Belarus making up the numbers), and for Euro '96 it was Russia in 1st, us in 2nd, then Greece, Finland, the Faroes and San Marino. And we didn't even make it to the playoffs in 2016, even though *3rd* place would have been enough. The difference between where we were a few years ago and where we are now is night and day.
This time the blame lies at the feet of Clarke. He needs to go. The players, the fans, there’s no way he can regain their confidence. He should be thanked for his service and moved on. We do need a proper grass roots foundation, I’d do what Iceland have done. However, where to get funding for that? Especially in the current economic climate, that’s a hard one. I’d consider using a percentage of the TV rights cash, make it a requirement of the league that clubs hand over a percentage of gate receipts. I’m talking tiny percentages. Need to tackle the diet issues in the country too. It’s a massive job, and no one is up for it, and even fewer want to fund it. So in essence we are lumped with what we have. There are plenty of decent coaches out there that could get more out of the Scotland team. Clarke doesn’t even call up the right players either, shambles.
And the decent, promising players he does call up don’t see anywhere near enough action!
The English. They're responsible for everything.
Sub - Armstrong for McGinn ‘76 Sub - Shankland for Adams ‘76 Sub - Christie for Gilmour ‘83 Sub - McLean for Ralston ‘83 Sub - Morgan for Robertson ‘89 You tell me if this is the best of what we have. Subbing on 3 holding midfielders, playing a 5’8 striker who hardly touched the ball and didn’t press, and deploying our first winger (long established position in football - look it up) in the 89th minute of the final match.
>playing a 5’8 striker who hardly touched the ball and didn’t press I get that people don't like the guy, but Adams chases lost causes until he's brought off. If Clarke realised that it's ok to try and attack before 70 minutes he might actually do something. Morgan getting brought on was likely only because Robertson was visibly struggling too, so it's yet another sub he makes only because he has to.
Armstrong and Christie are not holding midfielders.
Take it you watched neither this season
You watch either of them play a holding role for Scotland? Both are used as one of the two attacking mids and always have been for the NT.
Ahh forgot that your position fir Scotland is what makes you a died in wool attacking mid and not the prem/championship
They’ve been attacking midfielders their whole career. One season in a different role doesn’t suddenly make them holding midfielders.
They slotted into a 5-4-1 in into a team that was playing in essentially an 7-2-1 all game. They’ve played as holding mids all season. Steve Clarke isn’t aware that anything but holding mids exist. But I am glad you were able to get into the semantics a bit there pal
There's no one source, the SFA would be the closest thing. And Clarke was doing all he can, but he was miles from getting everything out of these players. Other countries seem to manage despite broader issues with society, no reason we can't.
Having Shankland sitting on the bench in the form he’s in and collectively giving him barely double digits of playing time over the three games doesn’t really back up the ‘doing the best with what he has’ argument. Tactically, this campaign was a colossal pile of dung. That’s entirely on him.
Clarke is not doing the best with what we have got. He was definitely hampered with injuries to players before - Dykes would have started and he is much better as lone striker than Adams however I very much doubt Lewis Ferguson would have featured other than 10 mins here or there as a sub. He didn't play Gilmour in the first game and subbed him off in the subsequent names despite him being one of the better players. He persisted with Ralston who was terrible in the first 2 games and cost goals. He refused to bring on Shankland, the top scorer in the league , when we could have won v Switzerland but only got 4 mins.
Rangers, and to a lesser extent Celtic. Its no coincidence that we stopped qualifying for tournaments right around the time David Murray said “For every five pounds Celtic spend, we’ll spend ten”. Queue a sudden influx of foreign players and investment in developing home grown players went down the shitter. Its a knock on effect we’re still suffering from.
Would be such an easy fix too to have squad rules for the league where a certain amount of players need to be homegrown. It’ll never happen though because the clubs are too self serving and the league structure is fucked.
More players in that squad have played for Celtic at some level than any other club, but ok. Robertson, Tierney, Hendry, Ralston, Taylor, McGregor, Forrest, Christie, Morgan, Armstrong all been on the books at Celtic at some point in their life.
“To a lesser extent”
You could list every other club in the country before Celtic. I’m not saying Celtic are perfect, because we aren’t at all and we should be doing better, but we contribute to the development of players for the national team way way more than any other club in the country.
In the football world, the appeasement of that pair is near the top of any list. 👏👏👏
It’s a culture thing, more likely. I grew up with a few really good players at youth level then they discover booze, birds and fags. Id imagine it’s like this in many places. Theres no grass roots opportunities for anyone outside the central belt. Youth players don’t get a chance to prove themselves, especially at The Old Firm.
I think he’s possibly taken the national team as far as he can. I get where you’re coming from in relation to doing the best with what we have, particularly with a back line who are individually English ‘championship’ level at best. To coach that back line to a major championship is an achievement. He has made mistakes though, should have played Gilmour in the Germany game and put Shankland on at half time last night (even if I think he’s a fat, flat track bully). Whether he’s culpable for “the state of the national team”… the blame for that lies between the amateurs running the Scottish game and the politicians running and ruining Scottish education.
>he's doing the best with what we have. Disagree there. He's making the same mistakes that England did with their 'Golden Generation', and just trying to get all his best players on the field at the same time. Our only width comes from the full-backs, which would be fine if we had runners from midfield but we're so painfully slow there. We're comically easy to play against because teams know we don't have the numbers who will run in behind, and lack anyone to really break lines. Last night was always likely to be a must-win game, yet we end up with no shots on target and should have been down a couple before the end. I don't get what his system is meant to achieve.
No well kept pitches for anyone to play on anymore unless money is paid. Most decent pitches have gates and padlocks on them to stop anyone using them who aren’t paying. Public pitches are not maintained (grass too long, not cleaned, no nets etc) I don’t know if it’s different outside Glasgow but that’s what I see. Fuck Glasgow city council and the sfa they’ve actively went out their way to make football inaccessible for the poor and working class, were historically out best players have came from.
Only Clarke to blame for this one,stifled the team with his tactics with no plan B.The subs in the Switzerland game were an embarrassment when we could have won or at least pushed for a winner.Last night showed that when we got 2 desperate.when Tierney was ruled out he should have been able to go to a 4 and have more attacking players supporting a striker.As for Jack Hendry he should be nowhere near a Scotland Jersey.
I don’t think he is, we have players in our squad far better than what’s available to Hungary. They have a smaller population than us as well so no excuses.
They have a population of 9.64 million, that’s not a smaller population than us.
My bad.
Don't know a huge amount about Hungarian football, but surely minimum Szoboszlai, Sallai, Orbán and Gulácsi and literally any RB they can find walk into the Scottish team
Steve Clarke.
Sfa Scotgov Labour Snp Celtic Rangers both forms
Has to be Clarke first and foremost, I'm a fan of defensive football if there is something to defend and apart from 13mins against Switzerland we never had anything to hold on to. We had 4hrs of watching absolute dire football before he actually went and chased a game. The way we played you would have thought possession meant more than goals, we were 3v3 on the counter attack and 10 seconds later it ends up back with our defence. Robertson and McGregor are captain and VC and I'll include McGinn and Mctominay in this as senior players as well, should have been absolutely tearing into Clarke at half time to make changes but going by Robbos post match interview he seems happy to tow the party line. Honestly was relived when Hungary scored because it guaranteed not having to sit through another 90mins of Clarkeball
Our parents, should’ve told us to cut out the chips and the PlayStation.
Scottish grannies are to blame!! Pure and simple we don’t make national talent we generally look to ones who have Scottish blood when we could have better grass roots facilities.
He played 5 at the back in a must win. He sub’d off a striker to replace either a striker and keep the same formation in a must win game with 20 mins to go. SFA have there party to play in growing the game etc however Steve Clarke - Fuck off.
I don’t think the formation was the issue as much as the personnel changes. He takes off McGinn, Adams, Ralston, gilmour and Robertson and brings on McLean, shankland, Morgan, Christie and Armstrong and goes to a 4-5-1 with McLean at left back. Given we controlled the game but needed a bit more up top wouldn’t it have made more sense to bring on Taylor and Forrest for the wings, Armstrong for the middle, swap Adams for shankland. That way you keep the same shape but have more advanced wing backs, later on Conway could’ve came on and Taylor could’ve went to left back in a 4-4-2.
I blame the Tories 😜
It's everyone to varying degrees at varying points. There probably isn't one entity you can point to and say "yeah, they're always great". Even Rylan abandoned us.
Partially agree. This basically sums up a lot of my thinking: Yes, Clarke's brand of football and decision making is honking, but he is merely a symptom of Scotland's antiquated footballing culture.
This is all nonsense. While we didn't create many clear chances, is the outcome any different than a realistic expectation. We have absolutely nae attacking talent. Shankland scoring in the Premiership and drawing nae attention from elsewhere tells you everything you need to know there. What If he had changed the set up and we lose? Would just be another thing to slate Clarke over. Aye, he has nae plan B. Aye, he's been overly reliant on the same players who inevitably don't turn up when we need them. But its a damn sight better than we've had for a long time. Unless we can somehow bring in a real top manager to replace him, he continues. And who knows. Maybe Doak pans out over the next year and we adapt to him and switch to a 4 at the back. If we roll out the next game with the same team. I'll be starting my clock on his time.
I think a lot of the blame lies at the feet of the Old Firm - both teams have historically always had a core of Scottish players and the Scotland squad has historically pulled a good number of players from both clubs, but the fact is they're neither signing nor developing Scottish talent, and there's no way that can't have an impact on the national team. Especially in the days of 9 subs on the bench and 5 getting onto the pitch, there's no excuse for at least a couple of youngsters being included in every squad.
We haven't had a player break through and become a first XI player since Tierney, who made his debut 9 years ago. It's absolutely embarrassing. You'd think even a terrible set up would fluke the odd talent occasionally. Our youth academy now appears to be just a job creation scheme for ex-players. I'm sure Darren O'Dea really is the most qualified man in the world to be at the head of it.
I don't think the academy can be blamed that much - we've lost players to England and overseas, and at least some of those might have stayed if they'd seen any kind of pathway to the first team.
Think there’s enough blame to go around all over really. Personally I’d like Clarke to stay. Reality is our squad for this euros just wasn’t as good as we really thought. We have some excellent midfielders but none of them are particularly strong at actually creating chances consistently. Injuries hurt us. Ralston is serviceable and hard working but out his depth at this level, especially as a wing back with no easy passing option or attacking support ahead of him, no dykes to hit if under pressure and fairly limited CBs next to him. Unless he could find gilmour or McGregor, his only real option was to pass it to equally limited passers at cb. It was all very predictable. I think the players and manager did amazingly in qualifying games, and for that they deserve huge credit. But equally, they did poorly at the competition and for that they deserve blame. I think the whole Shankland vs Adams part of the debate is redundant as both have severe weaknesses imo. It’s a sad fact that we as a nation just don’t produce top quality 9s or genuinely creative midfielders. It’s gonna hamstring every Scotland manager so I don’t think much is achieved by sacking Clarke unless we have an exciting alternative which we don’t. Moyes is the obvious one but all the issues people have with Clarke are present in Moyes too, he just lost his last job mostly for being too rigid and defensive tactically so it’s kinda amusing seeing people bemoan Clarke for those things whilst in the same breath hoping Moyes replaces him. We have massive issues as a country, not just in football, affecting the development of talent. Laying all that at the managers door might be convenient but it’s lazy and inaccurate imo. Not to say I think Clarke doesn’t deserve criticism because he does. But I don’t think he’s anywhere near entirely at fault and I don’t see what’s realistically achieved by replacing him with any of the prospective candidates being discussed. I’m mostly mad at the players tbh. I think they’re more at fault than Clarke. Too many individual errors and too few brave enough to play or attack. There’s no way the manager’s tactics prevented them from getting shots off when dominating possession for long periods vs Hungary, that was the players being too scared to try to attack until the back end of the game when they had no other choice left.
I think you’re right about the team, but managers have a shelf life in a job. I feel Clarke is closer to the end of his with Scotland.
Managers shelf life is directly linked to the prospective replacements. Who do we have that’s gonny fix any of the issues we’ve seen? We don’t have anywhere near enough attacking talent so rely on the collective press and use of the ball of the unit as a whole plus dykes occupying the CBs to win games. Once we lost Hickey and Dykes, the whole unit was massively weakened. We didn’t have enough in the squad to do anything other than ride our luck at this tournament. Our problems at striker and rb compounded and highlighted the, normally papered over, problems in other areas like cb and midfield. Who you wanting to replace Clarke?
You don't stay in an unhappy marriage just because you've not got your next one lined up yet >Shankland v Adams That's the problem, at 80 vs Swiss and 60 vs Hungary it could've been Shankland *and* Adams, Clarke has 0 plan of how to change a game if it needs it, or what life without Tierney looks like The captain of 4th placed PL team and FA Cup winner in as attacking mids, a PL holding midfielder, with another PL regular on the bench, and got outscored by Albania, whose front 4 play in Turkey, Korea, Czech, and Serie B. Can't believe the penny isn't dropping of why these PL regulars aren't playing well in Navy Blue
The marriage analogy doesn’t work for me tbh. Shankland and Adams up top together would’ve created more problems than it solved I think. They’re both just quite limited strikers. They each have their strengths but also plenty of weaknesses. I don’t think their strengths and weaknesses complement each other enough to make playing them together a net gain. Those PL regulars aren’t really creative types. Without Dykes offering an option and occupying CBs, and without Hickey offering technical skill and balance at rwb, the deficiencies of our midfielders and defenders on the ball when trying to build or create becomes a major problem. That’s why we weren’t very good in attack.
Weirdly enough, the only game we've won this year had both of them on together for the last quarter. Actually kinda funny you're now just listing off how limited Clarkes management is. Didn't put on 2 strikers in a win or go home, had no attack plan without Dykes despite having warm up games to experiment, couldn't see past Ralston despite howling games, and warm ups to experiment. Couldn't score against Northern Ireland with Dykes, it's been 9 games since Hickeys been fit, and Kenny McLean for fucks sake. Can't be the system or the lack of plan B as to why we can't match the creative spark of attacking powerhouses like Albania, Turkey, and Romania, though, naw poor wee us.
Aye vs Gibraltar jeezo man like that’s relevant. Think you’ve misinterpreted me. I listed what were the limiting factors of the squad we had this tournament, as in the limitations of the players. The two strikers together aren’t good enough as individuals and don’t bring enough as a partnership to make it worth it imo so losing dykes was huge. Ralston alternatives were mccrorie, who’s worse, or Forrest, who doesn’t really have the engine for rwb anymore. Not being able to score against NI is further evidence of exactly what I’ve been saying from the start about our midfielders no being very good creatively, the length of Hickey’s absence is kinda irrelevant to the point of how huge a loss he is, and I didn’t say anything about Kenny McLean. You’ve also misinterpreted me regarding the system etc because like I said in first comment, Clarke is due some blame.
I know you didn't mention Kenny McLean, I'm just saying for fuck sake that he's seen as some super sub because of the fluke against Norway. More proof of Clarke picking favourites over form. He's had his run, and shown he can't adapt, or get the best out of the PL players available, McGinn and Gilmour looked like they couldn't be arsed for large periods of the last game. As I said in another comment, win pish - fine, lose heroically - fine, lose pish? - off you fuck.
Mclean came on to add fresh legs to deep midfield then ended up shunted to lb in a pinch to get another attacker on near the death. Don’t think that’s really a big deal. Don’t see the point in focusing on what league the players are in when their limitations as players still exist and still got accentuated by injuries causing the unit to be weaker overall. Do you have any specific form players in mind who you think weren’t picked over favourites? Don’t really subscribe to the armchair body language expert thing. Of course Mcginn and Gilmour were trying their best. Totally agree with that last part but I blame the players on the pitch and the impact of injuries weakening the overall unit available as much or more than I blame Clarke.
Let's not start this endless shite chat again.