Scotland v Russia (Match Thread)

[SpoonTon]

We played the midfield I didn't want us to play last night. I thought McTominay had to play. We need someone with that discipline. But adding McGregor and McGinn to that played out as I thought it would. Both have their qualities, but neither have the guile, creativity, or ability to move the ball on that Armstrong or Christie have. As soon as I saw the line up I thought McBurnie would be isolated and Fraser and Forrest would lack inside support. McBurnie is the wrong type of forward for that role. 

That being said, some of the players we have to play are nowhere near the required level. O'Donnell is so far our of his depth. Russia figured out our weaknesses and played us off the park for long spells. I actually thought Russia looked like a very good side. 

[come on shire]

16 hours ago, ForzaDundee said:

Didn't realise Scotland rugby were playing at Murrayfield tonight anaw. Not that I care about what the Tories are up to but you'd think they could schedule them on different days as imagine at least a handful of people would go to both rugby and football internationals.

I vote SNP. Sorry to upset your stereotype lol.

[HibeeJibee]

2 hours ago, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

It was genuinely a bit surprising to me that last night wasn't even close to being full. Probably the most meaningful game of the qualifiers, with Scotland still in with a shout, at home on a Friday night? The prices weren't ridiculous so that's not an excuse.

Clocking-in at it 32,242... about 3/5 full... it was barely over the Cyprus game (31,277) which was on a Saturday afternoon.

TV schedules plus years of ineptitude have corroded the support.

[Louis Litt]

1 hour ago, TavTastic said:

Getting rid of Strachan was a mistake imo.

No chance. 

[paddymcp]

It must be said when they were agreeing the fixture dates whoever’s idea it was to play Belgium and Russia back to back twice is thick. It was always going to be a struggle but that effectively ended our hopes before they began. 

[BrigtonClyde]

We got what we deserved last night because it was entirely self inflicted.

Start well & take the game to a very average Russian side with a suspect defence & a decent striker but who has no pace.  Get a break with an early goal at which point Russia are all over the place, absolutely there for the taking.  Instead of going for the kill, we sit back & invite them onto us, as advocated by Davie Provan "we don't need to go chasing the game"....at 1-0 ???

Russia can't believe their luck.  They've been given a get out of jail card that takes the pressure off them, settles them down & allows them to play their way into the game.  Inevitably we lose our way & 2 goals.  It's easy to look world beaters when you're given at least 60% of the pitch to do whatever you want.  As usual, it's not until the last 20 minutes the penny drops that maybe it'd be an idea to play in the Russian half, we do so, the Russians don't look so clever any more but by that time it's too late.  

Robertson, McGinn & Cooper say as much in their post match, but that either means it's down to the players or Clarke and a succession of managers going back years & years have told them to do that.  It's pathetic.  We play every game like this, even the recent home game against Cyprus.  It seems they're playing on the assumption that every single team we're up against are probably better than us.  When we do press teams higher up, including spells at Belgium away, all of a sudden cracks appear, they're not just as great as we're making them look.

This goes back to Smith's time in charge but at that time we had an aging defence with no pace, we had to play that way.  That's not been the case for some time but we still do it against absolutely everybody.  Perhaps only with the exception of McLeish's first time in charge were they a little more positive, but generally this is what we get game after game.  I know we're not blessed with the ability we used to have but we're still better than this.   Last night wasn't down to one or two individual performances or mistakes, all of that was caused by playing far too deep for far too long, and it's a stuck record going back over the past 2 decades.

We've got the "safety net" of a playoff to keep us in with a chance.  If the most Clarke does from now until then is change this defeatest mentality that's infected the national team for years, he'll have done a job.         

[Richey Edwards]

Through poor passing and defending we gifted that game to Russia. Scoring in the 10th minute then defending very deep was never going to work - especially when we kept gifting possession to them with a defence that simply wasn't robust enough to keep defending attack after attack and was always going to concede the winner eventually. Defend like that against Belgium and it could be embarrassing. 

For what it's worth, McBurnie performed his thankless task as isolated striker pretty well. Unfortunately he was denied service for much of the game.

I'm not a massive fan of McBurnie or Mulgrew, but neither were bad last night. Mulgrew was probably one of our better performers.

[Gordopolis]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

Project Brave certainly isnt.

It clearly is. It's hardly been designed to make our game worse. I understand that many feel it has been hijacked by the bigger clubs to guarantee that they get the better youth players, but the underlying intent it to produce better youth.

[bennett]

1 hour ago, Mon_The_Fife said:

Russia were streets ahead of us last night in so many areas it was embarrassing and 1-2 flattered us. Our weaknesses have been highlighted over the last few pages, it has been the same old shite for 20+ years.

Why can’t we produce footballers to a decent standard? The whole game needs a complete shake up from grassroots right through to the SFA and SPFL. Germany did it and reaped the rewards so why can’t we? Until something changes then we will continue to regress.

 

Probably because slightly built players who show any skill are rejected while big lumps who can boot fcuk out of opponents are favoured.

 

[Guest DAVIDB69]

It must be said when they were agreeing the fixture dates whoever’s idea it was to play Belgium and Russia back to back twice is thick. It was always going to be a struggle but that effectively ended our hopes before they began. 

We don’t agree fixture dates anymore they are automatically generated similar to a champions league draw

[TavTastic]

28 minutes ago, Louis Litt said:

No chance. 

We've fallen off a cliff in terms of his performances since he left. Clarke sets up the team so negatively. 

[GiGi]

2 minutes ago, bennett said:

Probably because slightly built players who show any skill are rejected while big lumps who can boot fcuk out of opponents are favoured.

 

Yes because last night's team was filled with giant carthorses. Forrest, Robertson, Fraser, McGregor etc probably brought the average height of the team down to about 5 foot 3. That's a lazy criticism. 

Definitely nothing to with the typical lifestyle of the young Scottish man being largely incompatible with proper physical and technical conditioning of the 21st century game. Even that would only account for some of our troubles. But we need more Robertsons and Frasers willing to dedicate themselves to reach that level.

[RandomGuy.]

18 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

It clearly is. It's hardly been designed to make our game worse. I understand that many feel it has been hijacked by the bigger clubs to guarantee that they get the better youth players, but the underlying intent it to produce better youth.

Is it? When has, vastly, reducing the amount of coached players ever been a great idea for improving the overall standard of player? 

It's a stupid fucking idea that got rushed through in a blind panic, and has now been enforced. My own club has had to punt the majority of their youth players to afford the coaching side of things, otherwise we'd never attract youth players. It's stupid.

[Dons_1988]

Quite surprised people are calling Russia shite. Must have been watching a different game.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Good to see the Rangers lads still hurting after Sir Steve did a number on them last season.

[Jambomo]

Quite surprised people are calling Russia shite. Must have been watching a different game.

Yeah, I thought they were really good. Dzyuba is an absolute unit, didn’t stop him falling over in a gust of wind though.

[QwaarJet]

33 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Quite surprised people are calling Russia shite. Must have been watching a different game.

They weren't shit, but they weren't good either. Most of their good play was us allowing them to do it.

[Frankie S]

13 hours ago, Gordopolis said:

Marshall - 7 - sharp and vital in keeping the score down
Robertson - 4 - really poor by his own standards
Mulgrew - 5 - rarely looked in control
Cooper - 1 - absolutely atrocious, rabbit in the headlights, as I feared
O'Donnell - 4 - a few clever fouls drawn, but nothing more
McTominay - 4 - no signs of the composure and leadership seen at Man U this season
McGinn - 6 - good positioning for the goal but not much else
McGregor - 3 - might be because I was steaming but can't remember a thing from him
Fraser - 4 - totally off it. Just didn't look EPL quality. None of the velcro touch and powerful drives we're used to seeing on MOTD
Forrest - 3 - anonymous
McBurnie - 5 - a few good flashes and a bit of a pest for our goal, but we need much, much more from a lone Scotland striker in a team this poor

Bah f*cking humbug.

Hilarious that you thought Cooper was 2 points worse than McGregor and Forrest, both of whom did absolutely nothing last night, and 3 points worse than O’Donnell, who is so far out of his depth in international football we might as well alert the RNLI. Cooper wasn’t great, but no-one was. 

There’s always a scapegoat though. With some Scotland fans, it’s usually one of the guys born in England, or all of them. If the answer is to play more Scottish Premiership players, then I’d hate to know what the question is.

Always amused to see our midfield hyped up before every match, as if it’s an area of strength. McGregor is a distinctly average player who looks half decent because he’s playing for a team head and shoulders above the opposition every week in a desperately poor league. Forrest has been more or less invisible for Scotland for his entire career, that flash in the pan in a couple of Nations League matches apart. McGinn, McLean, McTominay all have their limitations. Armstrong can barely get a game for Southampton.

Our greatest weaknesses are that we lack a decent spine: (goalkeeper - at least after this half decent batch retire; centre backs, striker), and we have nothing in the right back department, but let’s not kid ourselves, the midfield isn’t up to much either.

[SpoonTon]

3 minutes ago, QwaarJet said:

They weren't shit, but they weren't good either. Most of their good play was us allowing them to do it.

I thought they came out in the second half and played some very, very good football. 

We let them settle in and work us out in the first half, and once they figured out that we were posing no threat they really started started to play. 

So, yeah, we could have done much more to contain them, stop them from playing, and provide a threat but a part of it was also them being a good team. I don't think we made an average team look good, I think we allowed a good team to look very good. 

[RandomGuy.]

20 minutes ago, Jambomo said:

 

Yeah, I thought they were really good. Dzyuba is an absolute unit, didn’t stop him falling over in a gust of wind though.

 

21 goals in 37 caps, including 6 goals in 5 games in these qualifiers alone, and as many goals at last years World Cup as Hazard and Diego Costa. Hes better than any striker we've produced in fucking decades.

Yet theres folk on here who seem to be suggesting hes a giant plank of wood who could be easily stopped, when our best defensive options are Mulgrew and Cooper. 

A great laugh.