The Alex McLeish Appreciation Thread

[Mick1867]

50 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said:

Apart from not having a clue about formations
Not picking Naismith
Alienating  Griffiths
Not picking  Forrest
Square pegs in round holes
Not picking Fraser  
Aye hes done OK

What the actual f**k are you havering about?

[Blootoon87]

Apart from not having a clue about formations
Not picking Naismith
Alienating  Griffiths
Not picking  Forrest
Square pegs in round holes
Not picking Fraser  
Aye hes done OK

Griffiths can f**k right off.

[Ross.]

1 hour ago, Blootoon87 said:

2 hours ago, wastecoatwilly said:

Apart from not having a clue about formations
Not picking Naismith
Alienating  Griffiths
Not picking  Forrest
Square pegs in round holes
Not picking Fraser  
Aye hes done OK

Griffiths can f**k right off.

He shagged your missus as well?

[Big Ally]

Big Eck nice guy but I still feel he has lost it .  You didn't need to pay a guy £400000 a  year to pick that team or formation , even McRae and Pettrie could have picked it . Everyone on this board said that 3 at the back didn't work , and they were all within one player of picking the team which took the field against Albania.  Eck is now claiming that he had that team and formation in mind  all the time,  no chance!

His indecision almost cost us against Israel, after 65 minutes it was obvious that Armstrong and Fletcher were running on empty. When the subs were eventually ready McGregor delayed the kick out to let them on , Eck held the subs back and Israel scored. Wish we had Shinnie on earlier .

Hope I am wrong , but honestly can't see us doing much in the Euro qualifications with Eck in charge , but then again didn't Germany win them with Bertie Vogts as manager ?

[Skinheed]

How quickly you lot have forgotten our savior to be, Michael O'Neill ! He is a genius who has worked wonders with limited resources at Northern Ireland, lives in Scotland, knows the Scottish game inside out and some other things I forget just now. But no, now McLeish is winning you've all stopped talking about O'Neill, shame on you all.  

[Poet of the Macabre]

On 21/11/2018 at 12:31, The Moonster said:

As for the "poor Israel team", before the match we had folk saying Zahavi and Dabbur were players that would walk into our team and we'd need to be at our best to stop them.

I never saw that and I certainly didn't think that. Before the recent two games I felt we'd probably fail to win the group, despite being up against two pish teams. We draw 3-3 against Israel and he should be sacked but we win win 3-2 so he's the best manager we've had in a decade? That's ludicrous.

As I said, credit to McLeish and the players for getting the results they needed and meeting the minimum requirement. But the only reason people are treating it like some out of this world achievement is that the expectations had been lowered so much by the result and performance in Haifa. If we kick on from this and continue improving then that's great and I might start to be a believer. Think some people are getting far too carried away though.

[Monkey Tennis]

10 hours ago, Poet of the Macabre said:

I never saw that and I certainly didn't think that. Before the recent two games I felt we'd probably fail to win the group, despite being up against two pish teams. We draw 3-3 against Israel and he should be sacked but we win win 3-2 so he's the best manager we've had in a decade? That's ludicrous.

As I said, credit to McLeish and the players for getting the results they needed and meeting the minimum requirement. But the only reason people are treating it like some out of this world achievement is that the expectations had been lowered so much by the result and performance in Haifa. If we kick on from this and continue improving then that's great and I might start to be a believer. Think some people are getting far too carried away though.

Good post.

Willie Miller (something of a tool in truth) got slagged off on here for saying "What if McGregor hadn't made that late save?"  The point is though that had it finished 3-3, the noises since would be wildly different.  

We got the results and produced some good stuff.  The concerns however, remain large.

[John Lambies Doos]

It's a results based industry lads. If shagger hadn't made that save, GTF McLeish. He did so it's fair that we continue with him in charge. Simple as that really.

[velo army]

I wonder if fans of other national teams pore over the details of "what-ifs" with such a negative slant. Yes, if McGregor doesn't make that save, we're in a different mood, but so what? If Fraser scores the chance he had then it's 4-1. It seems fairly weird to ponder "if Shagger doesn't  make that save" without also pondering other hypothetical situations where we score more goals. 

I don't see too many people calling this an "out of the world" achievement. He's had a lot of stick, and plenty of people (myself included) were distinctly underwhelmed (to say the least) by his appointment, but he did what was needed and, instead of sitting in our perpetual negativity, some of us are choosing to give him a pat on the back. Nobody is suggesting he's Lobanovski on the back of a couple of wins, but some of us are choosing to enjoy the positives of this win. We'll never know if this formation was what he truly wanted all along, or whether the absence of KT made it easier or forced his hand. Other coaches stumble on formations too. All of them have a bit of luck.

 

[The Moonster]

16 hours ago, Poet of the Macabre said:

I never saw that and I certainly didn't think that. Before the recent two games I felt we'd probably fail to win the group, despite being up against two pish teams. We draw 3-3 against Israel and he should be sacked but we win win 3-2 so he's the best manager we've had in a decade? That's ludicrous.

As I said, credit to McLeish and the players for getting the results they needed and meeting the minimum requirement. But the only reason people are treating it like some out of this world achievement is that the expectations had been lowered so much by the result and performance in Haifa. If we kick on from this and continue improving then that's great and I might start to be a believer. Think some people are getting far too carried away though.

It's perhaps ludicrous to say that off the back of one game, but is it really ludicrous to suggest McLeish is the best manager we've had in a decade?  Look at who we've had since McLeish left the last time (2007) - Burley, Levein, Stark, Strachan and Malky fucking MacKay. I don't think it's ludicrous to suggest McLeish is the best of that lot (WGS probably the only one you could argue is better).

Football fans are fickle as f**k, of course they'll get carried away. It's not just been about McLeish, folk have been saying Forrest is world class and the like. I'd much rather that people were getting carried away and being positive about Scotland than this dour faced "aye but if we'd lost more goals we'd have lost that game" or "we'll still f**k it up" pish though. It's incredibly boring to listen to folk talk us down constantly.

[Lex]

I wonder if fans of other national teams pore over the details of "what-ifs" with such a negative slant.
 

Exactly, it’s quite a bizarre rabbit hole to go down after any football match.

What if McGregor had saved the first Israeli goal - as he should have? What if he had let a third in and we had ran down and scored a fourth?

What isn’t up for debate is that we had more shots on goal, more shots on target and unsurprisingly scored more goals. We thoroughly deserved to win the game.

There is clearly a section of the Scotland support who are desperate for McLeish to fail and are completely unwilling to give him any credit.

There also seems to be an attitude among some that we should have been winning this group. Based on what exactly?

Certainly can’t have been recent competitive performances.

[King Kebab]

McLeish's remit was to win the NL group and qualify for the next stage of the Play-Offs, he's done that so pats on the back are deserved!!!
But we shouldn't be going overboard, the group was designed so that we were playing teams of our level and standard, he has passed that test so onwards to the next one, I think it's grossly unfair to look at his overall record since his return, he had no in put in who we played in the Friendlies so really shouldn't be dragged over the coals for results, I mean what head case thought playing Portugal, Belgium and going on a South American tour and the end of the season was a great idea???

[Monkey Tennis]

On 23/11/2018 at 11:17, velo army said:

I wonder if fans of other national teams pore over the details of "what-ifs" with such a negative slant. Yes, if McGregor doesn't make that save, we're in a different mood, but so what? If Fraser scores the chance he had then it's 4-1. It seems fairly weird to ponder "if Shagger doesn't  make that save" without also pondering other hypothetical situations where we score more goals. 

Yes, I'm pretty sure fans of other national teams will pore over hypotheticals too, or are you treating us to more of the tedious "Wha's like us?" pish that this particular forum seems to specialise in?

It's entirely reasonable to reflect on that particular save, because had that panned out differently, we can all make a pretty convincing stab at what the result of the match, and therefore the campaign, would very probably have been.   We can't really do that with the same confidence about earlier incidents.

We played well the other night and deserved to win.  We did however, come within a whisker of blowing it, which would have obviously given rise to a very different reaction, particularly regarding the manager.  Why saying so sparks such defensiveness, I don't know.

 

[eez-eh]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Yes, I'm pretty sure fans of other national teams will pore over hypotheticals too, or are you treating us to more of the tedious "Wha's like us?" pish that his particular forum seems to specialise in?

It's entirely reasonable to reflect on that particular save, because had that panned out differently, we can all make a pretty convincing stab at what the result of the match, and therefore the campaign, would very probably have been.   We can't really do that with the same confidence about earlier incidents.

We played well the other night and deserved to win.  We did however, come within a whisker of blowing it, which would have obviously given rise to a very different reaction, particularly regarding the manager.  Why saying so sparks such defensiveness, I don't know.

 

He does have a point.

When we lose a game anyone who comes out with “we would have won if X or Y happened” is quickly shouted down but whenever we win there’s no end of people  talking about all the different ways we might have lost.

[Monkey Tennis]

2 minutes ago, eez-eh said:

He does have a point.

When we lose a game anyone who comes out with “we would have won if X or Y happened” is quickly shouted down but whenever we win there’s no end of people  talking about all the different ways we might have lost.

Rubbish.

Highlighting that despite cruising for most of the second half, we very nearly lost our lead at the end, should not cause some people the difficulty it apparently does.

[eez-eh]

7 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Rubbish.

Highlighting that despite cruising for most of the second half, we very nearly lost our lead at the end, should not cause some people the difficulty it apparently does.

No one said it was causing difficulty. It’s an observation that there’s far more focus on what-if situations when we’ve won.

[Richey Edwards]

McLeish won the group so deserves to remain in his post for the time being.

From what I've seen and heard I don't think Eck is particularly bright or articulate and he doesn't seem comfortable speaking publicly, but those aren't necessarily qualities that a football manager requires. Maybe those are the reasons for the things that people seem to think are indications that he's got something wrong with him?

[Monkey Tennis]

38 minutes ago, eez-eh said:

No one said it was causing difficulty. It’s an observation that there’s far more focus on what-if situations when we’ve won.

But it was a huge 'what if...' moment.

It was exactly the same when Harry Kane scored that late equaliser at Hampden.

 

I don't accept that it happens much more when we've won at all.  I think that to say that's the case is to talk rubbish.

[Gordopolis]

2 hours ago, Friedrich Nietzsche said:

McLeish won the group so deserves to remain in his post for the time being.

From what I've seen and heard I don't think Eck is particularly bright or articulate and he doesn't seem comfortable speaking publicly, but those aren't necessarily qualities that a football manager requires. Maybe those are the reasons for the things that people seem to think are indications that he's got something wrong with him?

He used to be (10+ years ago) pretty laid back and more at ease in interviews, so I think it's the contrast between then and now that people are picking up on. IMO it's poor taste to keep going on about it. Let the guy get on with his job. If he fails to get us to a tournament then by all means criticise him for that.

Also, I don't think it's fair to assume that someone is bright or otherwise based on their public speaking skills.

[velo army]

14 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Yes, I'm pretty sure fans of other national teams will pore over hypotheticals too, or are you treating us to more of the tedious "Wha's like us?" pish that this particular forum seems to specialise in?

It's entirely reasonable to reflect on that particular save, because had that panned out differently, we can all make a pretty convincing stab at what the result of the match, and therefore the campaign, would very probably have been.   We can't really do that with the same confidence about earlier incidents.

We played well the other night and deserved to win.  We did however, come within a whisker of blowing it, which would have obviously given rise to a very different reaction, particularly regarding the manager.  Why saying so sparks such defensiveness, I don't know.

 

The first sentence of this starts off with a (deliberate?) mis-reading of my point and ends with a fairly bizarre conclusion. I'll address the former.

Firstly I didn't wonder if other fans pored over hypotheticals. I imagine they do. I was drawing attention to the fact that we won a game and the hypotheticals being explored were entirely negative and betrayed a certain foreboding of joy which is irrational. 

You seem to be making my point well enough with parts two and three of your response. Ryan Fraser and Steven Fletcher both had decent opportunities when we were two up. If they had scored then we know what the outcome of the match would have been, we would have skooshed it. Of that we can be very confident. You and others chose not to explore these hypothetical outcomes. This, one can reasonably surmise, shows a bias towards negativity in spite of a favourable outcome.

Really the crux of my point is; lighten up, enjoy the victory as they haven't been too common, and stop focussing on only they ways it could have gone wrong. That way leads to suffering and general crabbit b*****dry.