Squad face Slovenia and Slovakia

[dogmc]

Sunday's lineup will depend massively on the physical condition of certain players - and Strachan has surely earned the right to pick his team based on what he sees over the next few days.

I reckon Phillips will be more effective than last night (hopefully more like the Lithuania game).

In amongst all the debate about who performed n who didn't this is a really big point. Absolutely every player regardless of effectiveness worked their backsides off. They must be shattered. For that reason alone id be surprised if there arent a couple of changes in line up. We are clearly a better side when we play with a bit of tempo so hopefully there are some fresh legs in there for Sunday. Prior to their red card we looked much more like the team that beat Croatia home n away. Already buzzing / dreading Sunday. Not expecting Monday to be much fun whatever the result.

[JakeSAFC]

A few people very quiet about Darren Fletcher! I even counted several forward passed.

I was gob smacked at the amount of forward passes he made.

[throbber]

                         Gordon

Robertson Berra Mulgrew Tierney

Phillips Mgregor Fletcher Bannan

                Martin Griffiths

 

Would be my team. No chance it will be that though. 

 

[Rugster]

2 minutes ago, dogmc said:

In amongst all the debate about who performed n who didn't this is a really big point. Absolutely every player regardless of effectiveness worked their backsides off. They must be shattered. For that reason alone id be surprised if there arent a couple of changes in line up. We are clearly a better side when we play with a bit of tempo so hopefully there are some fresh legs in there for Sunday. Prior to their red card we looked much more like the team that beat Croatia home n away. Already buzzing / dreading Sunday. Not expecting Monday to be much fun whatever the result.

Agree totally. Bannan was out on his feet at the end, should have scored not long before we did but didn't have the legs to catch the ball.

Fresh legs a must for Sunday. 

[pandarilla]

Who is Bannon? Who is MacArthur? Who is Bannen?

Who is a pedantic f**k?

[eez-eh]

Can't  believe people were moaning at the time about Anya coming on. I like Tierney but, due to playing out of position, he spent the whole game cutting inside, looking fearful of making a run up the right. Lo and behold once we have a right footed right back who uses the width of the pitch we score a goal.

Great sub by Strachan.

[pandarilla]

The fact it took him an hour to realise that they were happy to let us play it wide and throw in crosses would argue strongly against that. It was obvious very early on that Griffiths in the middle on his own wasn't getting us much. Bringing on someone who could mix it with their centre halves should have happened much earlier. That was the only real tactical switch he made.

The changes were made with plenty of time left. We needed patience, and fortunately the players showed more than some of the fans.

[accies1874]

Fletcher was fantastic. Coming from someone who’s always praised him, I thought that was his best performance for us in a while. He played some absolutely brilliant passes to stretch their defence when it was so compact. Many people around me were moaning when he’d run in one direction before turning round, but it opened up the opposite flank to make space for what was usually Robertson. That’s not to mention his dirty work in the middle.

[1320Lichtie]

Far more to do with luck than any skill in using his subs well.
Martin made a difference but it was obvious around 30 minutes in that having Griffiths in the middle on his own while we tried to put cross after cross in wasn't working. Phillips was absolutely rotten and it should have been him coming off for Martin, much earlier than it happened.
McArthur coming on for Fletcher was a strange one. We were desperate for a goal and he had McGinn and McGregor on the bench who are both in decent form and can do a job going forward, yet he brought on a guy who has next to no history as a creative threat of any kind, has been incredibly poor in recent internationals and is playing for a club side who are currently famous for not scoring goals.
Anya deserves credit for giving us a threat on the right and he done well for the 10 minutes he was on.
Strachan got lucky. I'm not complaining but while we are all enjoying the result we still need to accept our faults and Strachan is definitely one of them. He is far too negative in approach and rarely proactive with his changes during the game. We should have skooshed 2nd place in this group and given England a good push for first.

MacArthurs scoring record seems to be pretty decent. Anyway fletcher surely came off because of the head knock he took....?

We should've scooshed second place [emoji1] based on what? Why should we be doing that? Where does this arrogance come from with some Scots, we rip the f**k out of the English for it.

And he got lucky. f**k me. Next time he makes a cock up well just call it unlucky then.

[Ross.]

1 minute ago, pandarilla said:

The changes were made with plenty of time left. We needed patience, and fortunately the players showed more than some of the fans.

I think we were crying out for that particular change far earlier. The change in performance after it was made would suggest that also.

[pandarilla]

                         Gordon
Robertson Berra Mulgrew Tierney
Phillips Mgregor Fletcher Bannan
                Martin Griffiths
 
Would be my team. No chance it will be that though. 
 

I'd be amazed if we started with two up top. That would be very, very bold - and probably reckless.

And are you switching the full backs based on a slightly poorer performance from Tierney? I certainly don't want any tinkering with Robertson at the moment.

[1320Lichtie]

Because having played all of them, none of them are particularly good.
Lithuania at home was an absolute abortion of a performance. The 2 points dropped there were all about Strachans approach, much like Georgia away in the previous campaign.  Our results only changed when we had no point but to have a go at teams. If we'd done that from the outset we would be comfortably second.

[emoji1]

Nick of this. From a usually very sensible poster too imo.

Lithuania was shite though yes, I'll give you that.

[1320Lichtie]

Fletcher was fantastic. Coming from someone who’s always praised him, I thought that was his best performance for us in a while. He played some absolutely brilliant passes to stretch their defence when it was so compact. Many people around me were moaning when he’d run in one direction before turning round, but it opened up the opposite flank to make space for what was usually Robertson. That’s not to mention his dirty work in the middle.

Yes.

Best performance in forever, from someone who didn't really want to see him involved he done very well.

[JakeSAFC]

Have to say as much as I dislike Chris Martin, every time he has come off the bench he has made an impact. Fair fucks to the big guy.

[pandarilla]

I think we were crying out for that particular change far earlier. The change in performance after it was made would suggest that also.

But he didn't exactly leave it late. There was an element of 'going for broke' in that change and at that time Slovakia were still a threat.

[DanMc99]

25 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

A few people very quiet about Darren Fletcher! I even counted several forward passed.

i found him and morrison very frustrating

[throbber]

Just now, pandarilla said:

 

I'd be amazed if we started with two up top. That would be very, very bold - and probably reckless.

And are you switching the full backs based on a slightly poorer performance from Tierney? I certainly don't want any tinkering with Robertson at the moment.

 

I can't see us starting with two up top but Martin would bully their defence from the start and it would be a far more positive approach.

I would switch the full backs as Tierney was great going forward yesterday but would rather him in his natural position than Roberston going forward. I thought Tierney looked like one of our most dangerous players yesterday particularly in the first half but it was frustrating seeing him on the wrong wing. I may exaggerate how good i find him but i would like to see them switch positions and if it isn't working out then switch them back.

[Paco]

Strachan got lucky. I'm not complaining but while we are all enjoying the result we still need to accept our faults and Strachan is definitely one of them. He is far too negative in approach and rarely proactive with his changes during the game. We should have skooshed 2nd place in this group and given England a good push for first.

Can't agree with that all. He changed formation to two up front on 60 minutes, a pretty bold move, and made a change very few would've made with ten to go that ultimately won us the game.

Slovakia have much better players than we do. Way better - we haven't produced a Hamsik or a Skrtel since the 80's, if that. They're 19th in the world, we're 43rd (coming up 15 places after beating Lithuania/Malta) yet we should 'skoosh' second place? England have dropped four points in this campaign and haven't lost a qualifying match since 2009. And we should be challenging them?

Come on, man. Enjoy a great result and our best shot since 2007 at actually making a tournament.

[Ross.]

1 minute ago, 1320Lichtie said:

We should've scooshed second place based on what? Why should we be doing that? Where does this arrogance come from with some Scots, we rip the f**k out of the English for it.

Based on Slovakia, Slovenia and England not actually being particularly good. We have played England and Slovakia twice. The game at Wembley we could easily have taken something from were it not for poor finishing. The game away to Slovakia was also not as one sided as the scoreline suggested but after their first we collapsed. I don't want to think about the end of our game v England at Hampden but for all we let England have the ball, they didn't really do a great deal with it and we could very easily have taken 3 points there without being very good.

I'm not being arrogant and big headed. I don't think we are anything great. We are however more than a match for the teams we were drawn against and had we went out with a little more belief in the first half of the campaign we would be comfortably second right now.

[1320Lichtie]

Based on Slovakia, Slovenia and England not actually being particularly good. We have played England and Slovakia twice. The game at Wembley we could easily have taken something from were it not for poor finishing. The game away to Slovakia was also not as one sided as the scoreline suggested but after their first we collapsed. I don't want to think about the end of our game v England at Hampden but for all we let England have the ball, they didn't really do a great deal with it and we could very easily have taken 3 points there without being very good.
I'm not being arrogant and big headed. I don't think we are anything great. We are however more than a match for the teams we were drawn against and had we went out with a little more belief in the first half of the campaign we would be comfortably second right now.

What, and were amazing???

Newsflash, we aren't particularly good either.

Definitely not better than England and certainly not any better than Slovakia. They pumped us 3-0 over there and we scraped past Slovenia 1-0 at home, what makes us so much better than them?

They 2 have also very narrowly lost at Wembley. They're no push overs and it's mental to suggest otherwise. I don't need to argue it though it's all laid out right in front of you. From comparing recent campaigns/results/rankings.