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Gordon Strachan


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Brown blooded 'youngsters' very late.

We'd already been eliminated in that Latvia game. It was Severin, Rae, Nicholson and Freedman's only appearances of the campaign.

In previous match he fielded Sullivan (31), Dailly (28), Elliott (33), Weir (31), Boyd (36), Burley (30), Lambert (32), Matteo (27), Naysmith (23), Hutchison (30), Dodds (32).

Subs were Booth (30), Cameron (29), McNamara (28).

That's pretty damning.
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On 12/10/2017 at 14:55, Jason King said:

Vogts inherited a shambles of a squad so had to cast the net far and wide and considering he was our first foreign manager he actually managed to put together a semi-decent squad that his successors seriously benefited from, he was far better in the role than Strachan.

 

On 12/10/2017 at 15:13, craigkillie said:

This is a really fair appraisal.  Given a bit of time for reflection, folk will realise that while Strachan was a failure in the role, he definitely wasn't as bad as some of the guys who have gone before him.

 

 

 

This revisionism about Vogts has to stop.  We were uniformly terrible under his management, and the fact that he laboured to a 2nd place in a group involving Lithuania, Iceland and the Faroes should not mask that fact.  We were about 20 minutes away from drawing with Lithuania and coming third in that group.  The home win over the Dutch was his finest hour, but that was quickly followed by a complete and utter shambles in the away leg.

Of course he gave debuts to guys like Fletcher and McFadden who went on to have long and successful careers for Scotland, but he also gave debuts to Warren Cummings, David McNamee, Robbie Stockdale, Richard Hughes, Gareth Williams, Scott Dobie and Paul Devlin.  If you cap literally ever Scottish professional footballer playing at a semi-decent level, then obviously some of them are going to go on to form the spine of future teams.

 

 

On 12/10/2017 at 15:18, Jason King said:

Who he had to cap because of the shambles left by the previous manager, I fail to understand what you fail to understand about that.

 

On 12/10/2017 at 15:36, craigkillie said:

He didn't "have to cap" any of those mediocre players.  He could have done what most normal managers would have done and stuck with the core of the existing team whilst gradually introducing others.  The idea that Vogts was forced to play a game of international cap tombola is nonsense.

It has become a bit of a myth that Craig Brown had somehow left behind a decrepit squad of 35 year olds.  His last game was a 2-1 win over Latvia in 2001, and there were only 5 players aged 30 or over.  The line-up was Neil Sullivan (31), David Weir (31), Callum Davidson (24), Christian Dailly (27), Matt Elliott (32), Colin Cameron (27), Barry Nicholson (23), Craig Burley (30), Dougie Freedman (27), Don Hutchison (30), Neil McCann (26).    The subs used were Scott Booth (29), Gavin Rae (23) and Scott Severin (22), and the unused subs were Rab Douglas (29), Gary Naysmith (22), Gary Holt (28) and Stevie Crawford (27).  The likes of Barry Ferguson, Jackie McNamara, Dominic Matteo and Kenny Miller amongst others had already been capped and were still well under 30 at the time too, and he still had 31 year old Paul Lambert who was one of Celtic's best players at the time.

With the exception of Elliott, all of those could reasonably be expected to still be around for the following campaign, but by the next competitive match 10 months later Vogts made 9 changes to that starting line-up, and we drew in the Faroe Islands.

 

Having had a look at old squads for a post on the McLeish/Vogts debate in another thread, I wanted to revisit these points as well. I've only looked at competitive games for the purpose of removing Warren Cummings types who only played against Hong Kong and the like, so it gives a fair reflection of what Vogts was doing when he was trying to pick our best team rather than trying things out in friendlies when he may have been more interested in blooding players than the results.

These are the players who featured across Vogts' 13 competitive games in charge, with the number of competitive caps they won under him also listed and those who had been capped already under Brown in bold.

Gary Naysmith - 12
Barry Ferguson - 11
Stevie Crawford - 10
Jackie McNamara - 10
Rab Douglas - 9
Kenny Miller - 9
Christian Dailly - 8
Stephen Pressley - 8

Steven Thompson - 7
James McFadden - 7
Lee Wilkie - 6
Paul Lambert - 6
Colin Cameron - 6

Darren Fletcher - 6
Paul Dickov - 6
Maurice Ross - 5
Andy Webster - 5
Gavin Rae - 5
Graham Alexander - 4
Paul Devlin - 4
Neil McCann - 4
Don Hutchison - 4

Craig Gordon - 3
Gary Caldwell - 3
Gary Holt - 3
Russell Anderson - 2
Stephen Pearson - 2
Paul Gallacher - 1
Stephen Crainey - 1
Callum Davidson - 1
David Weir - 1

Malkkky Mackkkay - 1
Steven Caldwell - 1
Ian Murray - 1
Scott Severin - 1
Nigel Quashie - 1
Richard Hughes - 1
Allan Johnston - 1
Andy Gray - 1
Lee McCulloch - 1
Scott Dobie - 1
Kevin Kyle - 1

He used 42 players across those 13 games, giving 23 of them their debuts. Yes, that's a lot of debuts to give and there's no question that Brown left an ageing squad behind, but he used 19 players who had already been capped. Admittedly many of them had less than 10 caps, but there were 19 players available to him who already had some degree of international experience: that's not such a gigantic rebuild as you'd think he had on his hands with the way people go on about the work Brown left him to do.

The point craigkillie made about how many changes were made for that Faroes game is one often used in defence of Vogts and to criticise Brown, to show how many changes Vogts was forced to make due to the terrible hand Brown dealt him. Look at the starting XI that day:

Douglas

Ross - Weir - Dailly - Crainey

Dickov - Lambert - Ferguson - Johnston

Kyle - Dobie

It was IIRC supposed to interchange with a 4-3-3 with Dickov or Johnston pushing up when we were in possession, but it was a bit too much of a shambles to really tell.

Jackie McNamara, Callum Davidson and Gary Naysmith all had international caps before Vogts took over, all were available for that game and all of them were better full backs than the two who Vogts chose to start. Vogts wasn't forced into picking Crainey or Ross due to Craig Brown's negligence: he chose to throw untested, inferior players in over superior alternatives because he was a bad manager.

Neil McCann was a natural winger who'd had 13 caps under Brown, playing regularly and also scoring in the previous campaign so we had an experienced option on the wing available to Vogts in general, but he was unfortunately injured for that game. Not to worry, James McFadden was getting rave reviews and had established himself in the Motherwell first team, having scored double figures the season before. Vogts chose to leave him out of the squad while he put a centre forward on the wing. Vogts wasn't forced into putting Paul Dickov on the wing, he chose to play him out of position when he had real wingers available because he was a bad manager.

Kevin Kyle had at that point played 26 first team games in his career, scoring twice, both goals coming in a loan spell for fourth tier Darlington. Vogts had Stevie Crawford, Stevie Thompson and Kenny Miller available. Crawford was well proven in the Scottish top flight, Thompson had established himself in the Dundee Utd team and started that season well, eventually getting a move to Rangers that January, while Miller had already impressed at Hibs, got a move to Rangers then moved down to Wolves. Crawford and Miller both had international caps already, but he chose to use Kevin Kyle instead. He was not forced to use Kevin Kyle due to Craig Brown leaving him no options: he chose to use Kevin Kyle because he was a bad manager.

Berit Vogts wasn't forced into that starting eleven. He didn't have to give Kyle and Dobie their competitive debuts for a lack of alternatives, he didn't have to play Dickov on the wing, he certainly didn't have to put Crainey and Ross into the team. He chose to because he was a bad manager.

The list of players who won the most competitive caps under Vogts in the end is telling - the top eight had all won caps under Brown first. Admittedly in some cases that was just one cap under Brown, but these players had been around the international set-up already. Vogts could have gone with that core to the team from the start, but rather than being forced to blood players with no experience whatsoever from the start, he chose to do it differently. He had the option to pick McNamara and Naysmith straight away, but instead he chose to piss about with Maurice Ross and Stephen Crainey. He could have gone with Thompson, Crawford or Miller right away, but instead he chose to fling Kevin Kyle into the team. He had Neil McCann available but he chose to put centre forwards on the wing, with Gareth Williams as his only midfielder on the bench while Colin Cameron wasn't included in squads. The fact he later saw the error of his ways and had McCann and Cameron in the starting XI again is just further evidence that Vogts had it badly wrong at the start rather than being left with nothing by Brown; the players Brown had given caps to were the best available.

No one disputes that Craig Brown should have given more opportunities to young players. He should have had an eye on the future when our centre forwards were 32yo Billy Dodds and 30yo Don Hutchison. Tom Boyd and Matt Elliott were obviously coming to the end of their international careers and he should have had some idea of what defenders could step up to take theit places. However, the idea that this makes Craig Brown responsible for the garbage results of Berti Vogts just doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

Vogts still had the core of a squad there to work with and while he was forced to blood some youngsters, nobody forced him to pick shite ones. He corrected his errors of picking Kyle and Dobie, but persisted with Stevie Crawford over Kenny Miller. He continued to dick about with Paul Devlin while Shaun Maloney established himself in the Celtic team. He picked Maurice Ross more often than he picked Graham Alexander. Steven Caldwell. None of those decisions can be blamed on Craig Brown.

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38 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

 


I'm pretty certain he's not saying this. But vogts was a shite Scotland manager.

He didn't deserve the xenophobic hatred he received from the tabloid press. But he wasn't good.

 

He's certainly not saying that Vogts was shite, as a challenge to those backing the appointment of a foreign manager.

He's saying it (and supporting his case) as a challenge to those saying Vogts wasn't shite.  He's right, because Vogts was.

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1 hour ago, Raidernation said:

Still doesn't mean foreign = bad though.

Absolutely. I've wanted us to consider foreign managers every time the job has come up since, I want one now and I was positively seething when we didn't appoint a foreign one in picking Levein over Lagerback.

Vogts being crap doesn't mean other foreigners will be crap, just as Levein being our worst manager ever doesn't mean no Scottish manager could ever do well. People insisting Vogts wasn't really that bad is a different issue though, and he clearly was.

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On 10/12/2017 at 15:58, HibeeJibee said:

Brown blooded 'youngsters' very late.

We'd already been eliminated in that Latvia game. It was Severin, Rae, Nicholson and Freedman's only appearances of the campaign.

In previous match he fielded Sullivan (31), Dailly (28), Elliott (33), Weir (31), Boyd (36), Burley (30), Lambert (32), Matteo (27), Naysmith (23), Hutchison (30), Dodds (32).

Subs were Booth (30), Cameron (29), McNamara (28).

I don't remember many details about these games, being a kid at the time. Were we playing 6 at the back in those days? Grim.

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Yeah we had a great run at the 2002 World Cup if I recall correctly


Brown's policy of playing older players yielded very good results unfortunately these players just got old. For euro 2000 we made play offs (unlucky against England); for WC 2002 we utterly fucked up against Belgium.. we were 2 0 up against 10 men at Hampden and drew. These were far from grim times compared to the last 15 years.
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2 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

 


Brown's policy of playing older players yielded very good results unfortunately these players just got old. For euro 2000 we made play offs (unlucky against England); for WC 2002 we utterly fucked up against Belgium.. we were 2 0 up against 10 men at Hampden and drew. These were far from grim times compared to the last 15 years.

 

Clearly. It was also clearly a shitfesting affair. Which is fine. I'm genuinely asking, out of interest, how we lined up with 6 defenders in the starting 11.

Something like this?
                               

                               Sullivan
                Weir    Matteo   Elliott
Boyd                    Dailly                   Naysmith

      Lambert     Hutchison   Burley

                                Dodds

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41 minutes ago, Man of Aran said:

Clearly. It was also clearly a shitfesting affair. Which is fine. I'm genuinely asking, out of interest, how we lined up with 6 defenders in the starting 11.

Something like this?
                               

                               Sullivan
                Weir    Matteo   Elliott
Boyd                    Dailly                   Naysmith

      Lambert     Hutchison   Burley

                                Dodds

Possibly:

                     Sullivan
   Boyd Weir Elliott Matteo
              Dailly Lambert
Hutchison Burley Naysmith
                      Dodds

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