Gordon EF

A shite Ben Doak IMO.

Every pot (or potential teams from play-offs) in order of most wanted to least wanted. Pot 1: Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, England, France Pot 2: Romania, Albania, Austria, Turkey, Denmark, Hungary Pot 4: Estonia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Bosnia, Georgia, Finland, Israel, Greece, Wales, Poland, Switzerland Ukraine, Serbia, Italy Key for each pot: 1: Avoid France, England, or Portugal. Chances of taking anything from these three is probably slim. Germany, Spain, and Belgium would be favourites against us but it feels like we'd have a significant chance of getting something from them as they've all shown some vulnerability recently. 2: Ideally Romania or Albania. There isn't much to seperate the other four. Romania and Albania won weak groups. Albania's success, in particular, was built on very strong home form. That might not translate to a tournament on neutral ground. Romania are probably the weakest of the bunch based just on squad strength. Realistically, we're capable of beating or being beaten by all of these teams. 4: Avoid Italy at all costs and hope we get one of the diddier teams who get through a play-off. Italy is nightmare scenario. Someone like Serbia, Switzerland, or Ukraine would basically be like having another pot 2 level side in the group. The rest kind of get easier on a sliding scale and I'd be reasonably confident of getting the win that would take us a long way to getting through against any of them.

Yeah. Good shout, I was forgetting about Stewart but hopefully he's back into contention before long.

None of them were worth remembering because they weren't very good.

I'd take Shankland over Brown. Everyone being fit, Brown isn't getting ahead of Dykes or Adam for the "run around like a dafty up front for 70 odd minutes" role. I'd rather we take a potential "supersub" type player for the 3rd choice striker role, and Shankland is closer to that than Brown is.

Especially when the vast majority of the potential players named are bang average, wouldn't improve our team, and are the kind of guys who'd have played about four games for us then dissapeared in the Gordon Strachan era.

France and England should be the obvious two to avoid. Because they're probably the two best teams in Europe. Plus, the england game would become a circus I'd rather do without. Germany and Belgium are probably the best bets for actually getting something from. Spain are capable of being terrifyingly good or dreadful so might not be the worst to get.

We Global Football are predicting the pots to be: 1: Germany, Portugal, France, England, Spain, Belgium 2: Denmark, Hungary, Turkey, Albania, Switzerland, Austria 3: Netherlands, Scotland, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy 4: Czech Rep, Serbia, Romania, play-off winners I don't think there's a huge advantage to being in either pot 2 or pot 3. Of the lot, Slovakia and Slovenia are probably the ones you'd choose to be with. But on the other hand, Netherlands, Italy, and Croatia are worth avoiding. I'm not buying the whole 'everyone's just going by names, Albania are actually very good and Netherlands aren't what they used to be" schtick. All the teams in pot 2 are good and they'd all be tough opponents but there's none of them we should have too much fear from.

I'd have Craig Gordon with his leg broken over Clark and Kelly. The last two games have been largely fine from midfield on, the defence has been pretty honking. But we're missing our three best defenders and our two best goalkeepers. The big takeaways are that Clark, Taylor and Brown really don't look up to it. I've been a bit ambivalent about Stuart Armstrong lately but thought he played really well tonight. Still think 4-2-3-1 can be a useful shape for us. I think we've learned we should be going nowhere near it unless we have our first choice full backs available.

Imagine getting nicked and Stuart Armstrong turns up to defend you. That would be class.

Add North and South Ireland to that list.

Just checked and none more than 3. 4-1 vs Albion Rovers, 3-0 vs Dumbarton, and 3-0 vs Shire.

Can't have happened too often. The only one that comes to mind that was by more than 3 was the 6-0 away to Stirling Albion in the 2015/16 season.

Some guy who you've vaguely heard of that used to play for Crystal Palace and now playes for Barnsley, or something.

Ian McCall now knows how Simon Stainrod felt when he looked inside his shoe.

Sitting reading this 74 mins into a meeting where absolutely nothing useful or interesting has been said

But winning a particular group doesn't mean you're a better team than a team who finish 2nd in a different group.

Very decent chance that Denmark and Switzerland will end up in pot 2 in place of Slovenia and Romania, which would change the way things look a bit. Chances are there will be very little to choose between pots 2 and 3 when they're finalised. Obviously everyone plays their way into these pots but not every qualifying group is equal. Much easier to play your way into pot 2 when the top seed in your qualifying group is Poland, as opposed to France, Spain, or England.

I think Porteous has been excellent through the qualifiers. He's not a player I've seen a great deal of outside scotland games but it's probably fair to say he's been one of the more surpirsing performers for th epast wee while. No idea if he's just screwed the nut, really taken a step up in his game, or Clarke's just managing to get the best out of him. But I think he's played his way into being a stick on to go to Germany and most likely a starter, even when everyone else is fit.

I think that's the way I see it. With 23, you're looking at 3 keepers and then more or less 2 players for each outfield position. Assuming we keep the 5-4-1 / 3-4-3 formation, then I think we'll be taking at least 5 centre backs. Those will most likely be Porteous, Hendry, McKenna, Hanley, plus one other. Tierney obviously covers both the centre back and left wing back position, so I'd imagine that 'extra man' will be used for a third forward, behind Dykes and Adams. Currently, the third forward is likely to be Jacob Brown but I don't think you can rule out Clarke going with a different option, given how little comeptitive football Brown has actually played for us.

I'd be surprised if either of them made it. It feels like we've abandoned the two up front experiment so 4 centre forwards probably isn't a neccesity.

Yeah. You're probably looking at Kelly, Hanley, McLean, Armstrong, Brown, and then one of either Cooper, Souttar, or another attacking player as being the 6 to add to that, as things stand.

Agreed that McLean, Armstrong, Hanley, and Brown are all very likely to make it. I think there's at least some degree of doubt around all of them though. I don't think there would be huge amounts of shock or outcry if any of these guys end up not making the cut. More of a riased eyebrow and slight surprise.

Assuming a 23-man squad, no injuries, and no major drops or increase in form, I'd imagine the stick-ons will be: GK: Gunn, Gordon FB: Hickey, Patterson, Robertson, Tierney CB: Porteous, Hendry, McKenna CM: McGregor, Gilmour, McTominay AM: McGinn, Christie, Ferguson CF: Dykes, Adams That's 17, leaving 6 open spots, likely - 1 GK, 2 CBs, 1 CM, 1 AM, 2 CFs. I'm not sure anyone outside that 17 is nailed on for a place

Clarke really needs to find a system where we can get 11 full backs / midfielders on the pitch at the same time.