Can someone please tell me what Shaun Maloney brings to our national side and why we should be giving him a starting place? He is one of the most overrated players I have ever seen and he does nothing apart from hog the ball and give away possesion.

If you would like a good example as to why I hate this wee nob, take the game against Macedonia as evidence. We were losing one nil with about 2 minutes to go and get a free-kick about 40 yards out. All the big players come up from the back and the box is full of bodies. You just want a decent delivery into the danger area, yes?

No, wee Shaun decides to shoot from 40 yards and puts it over the bar. Fucking gimp.

I thought maloney looked like our most dangerous player last night. He looks well impressive on the ball. O.K he loses it a bit too much but his speed and dribblin is really good.

I think hes a really good wee player and hes good a good freekick

That was infuriating.

Only a complete and utter fucktard would have hit a shot from there, at that point in the game and considering the importance of the game.

I also thought he was one of our best players last night. He pinged in a few dangerous deliveries, looked lively, and got in to support the strikers quite well.

Fortune favours the brave. It was a good idea, the 'keeper was no-where, and he is capable of the execution. We had done nothing all day with big lumps into the box, if only we had this spark of creativity from earlier on in the game we might have stole a point.

And I also thought that Maloney had a very good first half last night, put in some very dangerous crosses, relieved pressure well, and was unlucky not to win a penalty.

How easily impressed are you lot? A few stepovers and some fancy footwork and that's it. He lost the ball countless times last night with his constant need to overdo things. For all his pissing about with the ball he did nothing with it. I can't remember one dangerous cross or pass all night.

I'm utterly amazed that people think he's as good as he thinks he is.

Aye, that's right. Just wait until all your players in the box with a couple of minutes to go and then try and score goal of the decade.

Utterly ludicrous but he gets away with it because he scored a good free kick once about 5 years ago.

It's not our fault if you have a piss poor memory

He put in at least 3 dangerous crosses in the first half and was unlucky not to win a penalty. He also kept possession quite well at times (as well as the rest of the midfield anyway).

He definitely looks Scotland class IMO.

Next time he plays for us watch how often he gives away the ball by constantly overdoing things. Why try and skin the same player two or three times when you can just put a cross in?

An unbelieveable decision. I had forgotten about that.

The centre halves would have been well within their rights to trample the little scrote into the turf for that.

I would happily give him another hundred attempts at that and he would get no closer to scoring.

Theres only 1 person easily impressed on this thread, the 1 with sone aluko as their sig.

Maloney is one of scotlands best players.

I'd rather see a player actually try something skilful to score a goal rather than punt it into the box and hope for something. I can understand it's frustrating, but I thought he was right to do it.

Maloney has scored many free-kicks in his career. He scored at least 3 in his time with Villa, he has scored one for Scotland, and he scored many for Celtic (including in a cup final).

He is one of our best players.Takes people on and creates chances.Wins many free kicks.If that free kick on saturday had went in he would be hailed a genius and one of the worlds best.So it was worth a try.

How many free kicks has he scored from that part of the pitch?

It was an unbelieveably bad decision. He had zero chance of scoring.

How can you have a go at Maloney about his stepovers and wasting the ball when you started a topic about Sone Aluko where you were cumming in your pants about him and how great he is ?

Maloney is OK. He's good at retaining the ball and can create things, and obviously can hit a good free-kick. He's limited by a lack of pace and strength.

We don't really have any great players, if we've learned anything from Broadfoot it should be that there's no point writing guys off as rubbish, because there's not exactly a wealth of talent to choose from. Maloney is an option and if his form for Celtic is good then he has more chance of becoming an automatic first pick.

I quite like Maloney. He hasn't played much football in the last year either, so will presumably improve with more games.

I think when the likes of Commons, who looks really average, are getting starts you realise how lacking in depth we are.

He wasn't wonderful last night, but he is Scotland class. He had his moments, his clever pass to Naysmith after drawing several Icelanders to the ball being the highlight.

He tries that abortion of a Cruyff turn too often, but he is probably one of the most skillful players in the Scotland squad. You can't drag up the Macedonia freekick, because you might as well say McFadden should have shot earlier, and the defence shouldn't have been so flat footed at the goal.

I bet nobody thought 'shoot McFadden!' in Paris, but he took a chance, and scored.

What has Sone Aluko got to do with anything?



So he's scored about 4 free kicks from dangerous positions. Has he scored any from 40 yards out?



What has Sone Aluko got to do with anything?



The difference was that McFadden took a chance when the game was at nil-nil against one of the best sides in the world. It was from open play and the only other option he had was to run at three defenders.

You can't even compare the two.

Agreed.



Why not?

He removed any chance we had of scoring from that situation by taking a ridiculous option. If I have the ball through on a 4 v 1 attack and shoot from 40 yards instead of passing I might score 1 in a thousand, but it would be completely the wrong thing to do, and I would be rightly abused for it.

Put in ALOT of good balls and beats players with ease , he is a great player to have for Scotland imo and we should be lucky we have him , hes the only scottish player who is creative and skilful enough to see things others cant.

He can beat players with ease but the point is he doesn't do it enough because he's too busy trying to be the Scottish Ronaldo.

Shaun Maloney has a previous for ridicuolous free kicks. Witness the little shite in the Seville; injury time of extra time, we have all our players up, free kick at the egde of the 18 yard box and Maloney opts to go for goal.

Cracking wee player who offers Scotland something a wee bit different than what we already have. Thought he had a great first half last night. I'd start most games with him.

I'm not really sure where his reputation as an ace free kick taker came from. I mostly remember him taking a succession of appalling free kicks for Celtic.

What does that even mean?

Which do you think is more likely to result in a goal?

Are you saying that there's no skill involved in putting a delivery into the box?

All questions that need answered.

There's alot of skill involved in putting a good ball into the box. But from that position it's so easy for the opposition to defend, you've basically got to hope that they mess up in some way. The Macedonia 'keeper, for some reason, was way out his goal, it was a good spot by Maloney (it's not often a goalkeeper does something so stupid), and he probably should have got it on target.

Even if he had the goalkeeper had it completely under control. That's just one of the reasons why it was a terrible decision.

I though Shaun Maloney looked like if he had been given 10 minutes more against Macedonia he'd have either scored or set someone up, and that he was very impressive last night against Iceland. Possibly Scotland's best attacking player all night.

What a stupid thing to say. If Craig Gordon had decided to run out of the box with the ball, skin 10 players then surround the keeper and score he would also be hailed a genius and one of the world's best. It doesn't mean there's any chance of it happening though.

I have never really rated Maloney. Looks like he has some ability but just messes around doing nothing most of the time.

IMO the goalkeeper was too far from his goals to do anything about it if it was on target. It was basically aiming at an empty goal, and that's why I think it was a good decision. Either way whether Maloney's a good player or not doesn't rest on one decision.

remember he had a good shot from 25 yards just a minute or two after the free kick. he looked more dangerous, in 12 minutes on saturday, than most of his team mates did in the whole game.

i think he's a good shout for wide left in a 4-5-1/ 4-3-3. he keeps the shape, can pick a pass and can shoot from range.

in most cases i'd rather see him start than mcfadden, who is either a liability or a genius.

You cant say Maloney shouldnt play because of one mistake he made. Going by some peoples logic McManus shouldnt play for us again after being sent off and God forbid if Craig Gordon were to ever drop a cross!

Maloney is a good player - good runner and does do a good cross. If you were to drop him who would come in for him??

Shoosh You're not allowed to say something like that on here

I don't think anyone has said this. People have just commented on it as it's possibly the worst decision I have seen made on a football field.

I wouldn't hang the guy out to dry over that, even a Celtic player. It was a poor choice, but it wasn't exactly like a 4 vs 1 where you will almost guarantee scoring, more than likely it was going to be gobbled up by a Macedonian, like every other set piece that day.

Maloney deserves a run in the team, he takes people on, and ok doesn't always go past them, nobody does, but he will get through a few times to create chances. He can hit a freekick as well, and a long shot, so I'd always have him there or thereabouts.

I quite like Shaun Maloney. He's like James McFadden but with an end product.

Ok, steady on now. That is hyperbole worthy of burlin' Burley.

Well, you'd think so.

I can't remember ever seeing a direct shot taken which I had less confidence in achieving a goal.

I'd rather Barry Robson shot from every corner than Maloney ever doing that again.

Using an example, illustrated by McFadden, if he had pinged that one over in Paris it's 'fuck sake, why's he shooting from there? He's pish!'. When he scores it's replayed at Hampden 1 million times before the game, and people have 'God' on their Scotland tops.

It wasn't a great shot, but if it dipped lower it can hit the bar, the keeper can make a mistake, anything can happen. What Maloney did was no worse than when the defenders trundle up, and a corner is played short then wasted, or doesn't beat the first man.

I'm not saying he's a bad player because of that free-kick, I'm saying it sums up why I don't like Maloney. He's a sand-dancer who tries to beat players after he's already beaten them.



McFadden is a constant danger to any side we play against. He's skilful and unlike Maloney, is actually capable of something special. To say you would rather have Maloney in the team instead is nonsense IMO.

If Maloney felt he could score, fair enough. It worked for Paul Hartley in the semi against Hibs a couple of years ago, although he was nearer goal and out wide. He certainly livened up the side on Saturday. Maloney was OK last night, nothing great. Nice interchange with Robson in the second half when Robson put in a great left wing cross and he should have won a penalty or a free kick just outside when his legs were swiped from him.

McFadden had no Scotland players around him whatsoever and the game was at nil-nil. If it had gone over I wouldn't have been bothered in the slightest.

To have your entire team pack the box then take a free-kick like that from 40 yards when trailing one nil to Macedonia in the 88th minute is ludicrous.

Do you see the difference?

I quite like Maloney, but he has to start providing an end product to the fancy stuff soon. I thought he was quite poor last night apart from one cross which the defender just beat McFadden to and the pass inside to Robson which has already been mentioned. Gave the ball away too much and tended to try the same thing too often.

Incidentally I wouldn't lambast him too much for that free kick. Fair play to him for seeing the keeper's positioning and having the confidence to give it a go. The rest of our set pieces had been rank all day anyway!

Don't think Commons is the answer to wide right though. McCormack played fairly well for the U-21s in that role against Slovenia, might be worth considering before long.

Exactly, it's all about options. McFadden had none. His shot was speculative, but it was either that or be tackled by the several defenders closing in around him.

And we weren't losing. And it wasn't the last minute.

Spot on. It's absolutely infuriating when players do that. It's like having a corner in the last minute and the corner taker playing it short and it ends up in a throw in or something. Put it in the box for fucks sake.

Anyway, like I said earlier I'm not singling Maloney out just because of that free-kick. I just don't see the excitment that seems to be generated about him at the moment. A few fancy moves and suddenly he's the creative genius we have been lacking for years.

He does it every bloody time he gets the ball. He runs down the left for a bit, cuts in on to his right foot and then does that crap wee turn that hardly ever works. He usually beats the guy the first time, but then the defender wises up and takes the ball off him each time. He lost the ball 3 times in a row trying to do it last night, having won fouls by doing it the previous 2 times he had the ball.





I was just about to mention that. The thing was, on both occasions you knew he was going to go for the shot, and you knew he wasn't going to score. The Celtic one was particularly daft, because Celtic had so many big players and were great at scoring headers from set pieces.



I have always said that Maloney is better coming off the bench to change the game. He is too lightweight to play out wide for Scotland, because our game tends to rely on holding the ball up, and he generally struggles to do that out wide.

That said when you have a pic of Sone Aluko as your signature. (Don't get me wrong, I hope this boy comes good and becomes consistent)

I thought Maloney looked quite lively in the 1st half. Not normally a fan of the guy but was happy to see him start last night, thought his short display v Macedonia deserved it. RE: Maloney's effort from 40yards, yes a waste, yes it was a long shot (no pun intended) but we had done next to nothing that day, keeper as replay showed was well off his line. McFadden had no right to score from 30 yards v France but he did, I think a bit harsh to slate Maloney for trying something out the blue. Of course more frustrating when in the dying minutes and our team is losing.

ps I hope Santa brings him a pair of boots with studs in for Christmas

Hmm Maybe i should have read the rest of the thread before replying. So let me do the honurs for you StandFree

StandFree: What has Sone Aluko got to do with anything?