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Gordon Strachan


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No play them now if they're better than the players in their positions. If they're not they shouldn't be playing. And they're not. Young players are still getting chances though and taken away in squads to get used to it like you've just shown, if they're the best in that position they'll play, see Robertson, if they're not they won't.

Simple

You're acting like all the promising young guys are going to be Scotland regulars for years to come too that's just simply not the case if you played the promising youngsters in the team say 3 year ago you would've been giving guys like Danny Wilson/Armstrong/GMS etc games and probably losing them only to find out a few years later that they're not good enough. It's fucking football manager stuff. You play the best players and team you've got available to you.

Robertson is hardly a great example of Strachans tactical or man management. He played did well then was dropped for duds like Mulgrew and forsyth (indeed even dropped from the squad altogether ) whilst Strachan berated him publicly for not being defensively good enough ( whilst his replacements had shite mares costing us vital points). Strachan even threw him back down to u21s. It's testament to the player not the strachan that he is doing so well with his club and it still wouldn't be a shock if Strachan was bloody minded and didn't pick him v Malta

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I was all for Strachan being installed as manager and at first he was doing OK.

It's an old pals act with him and it's having a detrimental effect on the team.

I am really apathetic to the team now.


Indeed....the energy required to keep defending him is extraordinary. If fans can see the hypocrisy in the way that some players are treated compared to others then so can players themselves
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1 hour ago, 54_and_counting said:

mcginn has 1 cap and is 21 years old
tierney has 1 cap and is 19
kingsley has 1 cap and is 22
mckay has 1 cap and is 21
patterson has 1 cap and is 21
Burke breaks the mould with 2 caps and is 19
brown made his debut when he was 20 in a friendly, then didnt make a competitve game until he was 22
fletcher (steven) made his debut at 21, then had his falling out with levein
fletcher (darren) was used properly, by the time he was 21 he had around 20 caps

as ive said before we take far too long to blood our upcoming highly rated players into the scotland team, mccarthy never made his ireland debut until he was 20 but 5 years later he's averaging 8 caps a year, sterling at england is 21 with more caps than his age, if the players listed above are our next generation of scotland players we need to start getting them regular games NOW and not one game a year until they are 26-27 then expecting them to carry the team, hell the current squad contains 2 strikers aged 26 and 27 with 15 caps between them

out the most recent squad, the 24 outfield players, 8 are 25 or younger, between they 8 they have 52 caps between them, thats less than 7 caps on average between them, and one of they 8 has nearly half of they caps

Nice stats and good post.  It highlights an issue that our managers are terrified of giving our younG talent games in case we get a Skelping. They would much rather go with the status quo and lose by the odd goal.  

I honestly believe now is the time to play them every game ready for 2020.  We all know we won't get to the WC  so to not play them now and then hope to throw them all in for 2020 is crazy.  Half our sqaud is virtually retirement age which is scary.

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Tbf to Strachan, he has cut loose one of his 'faves' in Shaun Maloney and has stuck by Burke, McGinn & Tierney - three young players who are likely to have a big future for us. A small, measured step in the direction we've been asking for.

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You've only surely been asking for that, on the basis that his 'faves' weren't being picked on form? Maloney imo came in for an unfair amount of criticism, when he largely appeared to be one of the few who did what he was asked, as opposed to being a favourite. He's also one of the few who can play a ball, and is currently in reasonably good form, coming off a good performance against Swansea. 

 

He's being used, here. Plain and simple. Sacrificed, rather than an admission from Strachan that he"s full of wind and pish, and hasn't been selecting the best players all the time. Justify it all you like. 

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You've only surely been asking for that, on the basis that his 'faves' weren't being picked on form? Maloney imo came in for an unfair amount of criticism, when he largely appeared to be one of the few who did what he was asked, as opposed to being a favourite. He's also one of the few who can play a ball, and is currently in reasonably good form, coming off a good performance against Swansea. 

 

He's being used, here. Plain and simple. Sacrificed, rather than an admission from Strachan that he"s full of wind and pish, and hasn't been selecting the best players all the time. Justify it all you like. 


Bit of an overreaction. Maloney came on as a sub at the weekend for his first appearance of the season and got a lucky touch to notch. Good on him, but given he's 34, a bench player for Hull and a guy who's been a good servant for his country but has looked off the pace for us in the last year, it's quite refreshing that he's been left out.
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Strachan cited game-time....it's been marginally less than approximately 30% of the rest of the named squad. He also has said it's not the end for Maloney, hardly a seismic shift in selection policy. 

 

He was far from most lists of 'favourites' who people wanted gone, regardless of his age......i'm far from Maloney's biggest fan myself, but discarding him so readily is a poor show from Strachan, especially in light of Brown's departure. They've had ten months to sort this shite out. 

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10 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

 


They probably ain't going to get any better if they are in their 30s. Possibly better to experiment with younger players for a campaign?

 

 

Hamilton

Paterson Hanley Tierney Robertson

McGinn Bannan

Forrest McKay Burke

Griffiths

 

 

All in the squad, and the oldest players there are 26.

 

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1 hour ago, 54_and_counting said:

Strachan would rather forfeit a game than start with a team like that

Would you rather he started with a team like that instead of picking Marshall, Martin, McArthur and Snodgrass?

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Hamilton

Paterson Hanley Tierney Robertson

McGinn Bannan

Forrest McKay Burke

Griffiths

 

 

All in the squad, and the oldest players there are 26.

 



Out of interest, how many of the squad are 30 or over?

Hanley, Griffiths, Bannan and Forrest are all 25/26. I wouldn't call that particularly young in football terms. If they are any good they should be mainstays of the team by now. The only one who is is Hanley and he is a mainstay through necessity as we have so few central defenders. Then again, this is Scotland, so peak years maybe 28 onwards. Who knows?

As for the rest - the actual young ones - will any start against Malta? Looking at the rest of them I'm not sure who I would start anyway. It would be interesting to see if Burke is yet more hype or if he's a talent and I'd like to see Robertson get game time.


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14 hours ago, Scary Bear said:

Or maybe it's down to the manager that we aren't qualifying?

Maybe we just need a better one?

You got there in the end.

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You got there in the end.



I don't think he's the answer but I wonder how many managers we'll have to go through before we find one who can manage the squad to qualification. The Euros are a lot easier to qualify for now, so hopefully it won't be long.
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Would you rather he started with a team like that instead of picking Marshall, Martin, McArthur and Snodgrass?



Probably not. Snodgrass is our best player. However he'll be 29 soon and so will McArthur. Martin is 30 and Marshall is 31. Our best chance of qualifying for a tournament will come at the Euros in 4 years time. How many of these will still be our top performers come then?

Who will be the replacements for the four that you mentioned?

It all just seems a bit hand to mouth with Scotland. Hoping something will turn up.
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Why on earth would we play a less talented team just because they are younger? Our ranking would take a pounding.



Our current ranking is 51. And we're regularly in Pot 3/4 and never qualify. How bad would it get?
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17 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

Our current ranking is 51. And we're regularly in Pot 3/4 and never qualify. How bad would it get?

 

You do know there's pots lower than 4, right?  So...that bad.  It doesn't matter what our current ranking is, it matters what ranking we have in about 4 years time.  If we absolutely tank qualifying this time around then fail again for 2020, it's easy to see a situation where we're pot 5.  Which is worse than 3/4.

7 minutes ago, 54_and_counting said:

since when did less talented mean guaranteed failure? 

It doesn't, but it's also not guaranteed success.  The chance of it being worse is far greater because the players are, you know, worse.  Leigh Griffiths has looked out of his depth so far, and he's one of the better options we have up front.  Do you really think playing players on a lower level than that would be a good idea?

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Going on previous results and squad quality we'll still be in Pot 3 or 4 in 4 years time. Pretty sure we could bring some youth in and that wouldn't change much. Especially for games against the lower ranked teams in the group.

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since when did less talented mean guaranteed failure? 




It doesn't but you know less talented teams usually don't do as well as more talented teams yes? f**k sake.

I'll say it again wtf is the point of throwing our promising young guys into a starting line up over better older players?

Like I said if you done this maybe 3 or 4 years ago you would have guys like Armstrong/GMS/Wilson/Jack/Rhys McCabe/Ross Perry/Lewis Toshney/Gregg Wylde etc (all part of our under 21s in 2012) getting caps and games for the first team, more than likely losing those games, only to get a few year down the line to realise that none of them are good enough...

What would be the point????
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