forameus Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 11 minutes ago, 54_and_counting said: its not the quad thats the issue, its the players that will likely play, strachan may well surprise us all and totally change his outlook, but im willing to bet the bookies wont give you odds on steven fletcher starting as our lone striker up front, hell maybe the players we have would thrive in a different system, who knows, we dont try anything different We already did try something different just three games ago. Denmark saw us play two forwards but with Fletcher playing further back. And we looked pretty good for about half an hour. Steven Fletcher will start against Malta if fit, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't alongside or behind another forward. Probably Griffiths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 The best available players get picked. 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forameus Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 4 minutes 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? And what if that "experiment" goes wrong? I'd imagine people would be pretty annoyed that he decided to throw away those better players purely because "well they'll no get any better". Not picking young players isn't going to send them into a spiral that ends with them out of the game. They'll get their development at their clubs, where they'll spend 99% of their time anyway. If they don't improve there, then giving them a couple of "experimental" games in a high pressure environment probably isn't going to do it either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 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? It's not about them getting any better as players though. It's just about playing the best players for the team. This isn't club football. It's not Scotlands job as a national team to improve players. They do this at their club, every single day. You barely get any games in international football and they're all important. You need to put the best team you can on the park in every competitive game. If they're good enough age is meaningless, old or young. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 It's not about them getting any better as players though. It's just about playing the best players for the team. This isn't club football. It's not Scotlands job as a national team to improve players. They do this at their club, every single day. You barely get any games in international football and they're all important. You need to put the best team you can on the park in every competitive game. If they're good enough age is meaningless, old or young. The crux of the matter is your last sentence. The current squads clearly aren't good enough. How many failed qualifying campaigns does it take to get that message across?However, I'd also take issue with your other comments. It is the job of the Scotland manager to identify good young players and give them experience of international football - hence improving them. Strachan has picked a few young ones, so let's see how that goes.The next post in these regular conversations usually goes "who should he be picking then?" Honest answer is "I don't watch enough football these days to have an opinion on who he should be picking instead of the current lot."However, as previously stated going with players who have failed several times in the past doesn't seem to be a winning strategy. At some stage we may have to take the long view and build for the future. Write off a couple of qualifying campaigns and try and develop a team. Given that approach is unlikely I suppose we just have to hope that some of the younger guys in the squad get a game and are better than the current players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 Or maybe it's down to the manager that we aren't qualifying?Maybe we just need a better one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 The current squad is the best we have got. Give or take a few which comes down to opinions only. There's not one player not in the squad that you'd say is definitely an improvemnt on anyone currently in it. McCormack aside. Writing off campaigns just makes everything harder as we will fall down pots. Strachan and Scotland have done that over the years with promising young players I've already gave loads of examples. Saying it's not happening is wrong. When it comes to competitive games though we need our best players and team out on the park at all times. The manager and players combined haven't done well enough over the years. I don't think you can solely blame the manager when he's just went and done what every other manager we've had has done. We always seem to f**k up in the games we need to win, there's always one game that crushes everything after initial hope for as long back as I can remember, since my very first game as a 7 year old....Beat by England at Hampden 2-0 before coming so close and winning 1-0 away... 2-0 up against Belgium at half time, drew 2002... Beat Holland at Hampden in a play off then get annihilated away 2004.... Few games in 2006.... Georgia away and Italy at home 2008.... Iwelumo miss v Norway 2010.... Beating Czech Republic at home before losing a late goal 2012.... Georgia away 2016... I think we're doomed to failure sometimes, zero bottle when it comes to the important games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 I don't think it's got much to do with bottle. When we qualified - under Brown - we always had a pretty decent defence. Just look at the central defensive choices we have. None of them are good enough. We were spoiled with decent central defenders for ages. Now we have Hanley, Martin, Greer and Berra. To add to that, our first pick at right back is Hutton. He was brilliant at his peak, but that was 8 years ago.Then there's the goalie position. Even that position isn't as strong as it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 I don't think it's got much to do with bottle. When we qualified - under Brown - we always had a pretty decent defence. Just look at the central defensive choices we have. None of them are good enough. We were spoiled with decent central defenders for ages. Now we have Hanley, Martin, Greer and Berra. To add to that, our first pick at right back is Hutton. He was brilliant at his peak, but that was 8 years ago.Then there's the goalie position. Even that position isn't as strong as it was. If we could've had Hutton at his peak and dare I say it even Caldwell/Dailly/Weir/Naysmith and the likes at the same time it would be looking good but unfortunately we seem to have had all our decent defensive players in one batch and all our attacking players and midfielders in another. On the plus side we have cracking options at LB for a long time and Hanley is a good player. If we could get Caulker or someone else in and a half decent RB comes from somewhere it might just all come together sometime soon. But I do think bottle plays a part, we have this hoodoo over us now, the fact we've not qualified for x years comes up every campaign and the pressure increases. We really need to break it or we could be doomed forever. Worrying that everybody seemed to know what was going to happen right at the start of the last campaign, Georgia away, if fans were thinking it players must've been too. We absolutely shat the bed once again. Even when we were flying in 07 we done the same. Not good enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scary Bear Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 Forgot what thread I was on. Either way, can't see us qualifying with the current squad and Strachan will probably have outstayed his welcome by the end of this campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Officer Barbrady Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 What a crock of shit. Why would Georgia away inspire fear, if the start had been so 'positive'....what an arrogant thing to assume. That's why it went to shit....nothing else. We're now stuck with a team which has defenders who don't defend, attackers who stay out of the box to 'create' for the midfield, which ends up simultaneously behind the defence and beyond the attack during games, and utter morons trying to justify a qualification campaign being started this way. Either take the thing seriously, and learn to develop our players, or just don't bother competing. I'd bar teams from competitions who were this backward, if i had my way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Gaines Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 I'd say most fans considered Georgia away a decent place to get points regardless of what happened last time. That's simply not an excuse for an absolute disgrace of a result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 I'd say most fans considered Georgia away a decent place to get points regardless of what happened last time. That's simply not an excuse for an absolute disgrace of a result. Not saying it was an excuse But right from the start that game was brought up as the banana skin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 What a crock of shit. Why would Georgia away inspire fear, if the start had been so 'positive'....what an arrogant thing to assume. That's why it went to shit....nothing else. We're now stuck with a team which has defenders who don't defend, attackers who stay out of the box to 'create' for the midfield, which ends up simultaneously behind the defence and beyond the attack during games, and utter morons trying to justify a qualification campaign being started this way. Either take the thing seriously, and learn to develop our players, or just don't bother competing. I'd bar teams from competitions who were this backward, if i had my way. Bring back Dryhorce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Officer Barbrady Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 Bring back public flogging. First for your embarrassment of a team, then for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 Bring back public flogging. First for your embarrassment of a team, then for you. What teams that? Are they not your team too? Or do you just like moaning about them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
54_and_counting Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 3 hours ago, 1320Lichtie said: Like we waited with Fletcher? Or Scott Brown? Or Andy Robertson? Grant Hanley? Or John McGinn? Or Keiran Tierney? Kingsley? McKay? Patterson? Burke? All off the top of my head sure there's more. Our promising young guys do get chances and taken away with squads. 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1320Lichtie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Officer Barbrady Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 Finally a point from 1916 worth debating. No, being taken to 'get used to it' is a fucking oxymoron. When does the getting used to it finisg, and actually game-ready players take their position? You quoted the 2003 Doing in the 'Dam, in your tale of 'hard shite' since you began watching.....wasn't that largely caused by a 19 year old being thrown in, to replace a peak-years Seedorf, and who then absolutely fucking destroyed us? Wesley Sneijder wasn't in the squad to learn how Phillip Cocu or Andre Ooijer clean their boots, or to wait on Davids or Seedorf chucking it....he was thrown in, because they were embarrassed by us in the first leg, and being 19, either had a career ahead of him or not....the moral being no one else is hung up on promoting youth like we are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crawford Baptie Posted August 23, 2016 Share Posted August 23, 2016 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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