Serbia V Scotland - EURO 2020 Playoff Final ( Thursday 12th November)

[Blootoon87]

Anya 2013-2016 would've been perfect for replacing Fraser.

[No_Problemo]

1 hour ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Arsenal are shite though. And we already have McTominay playing pretend centre back. Having two guys doing that is going to get us scudded.

Everything is relative - Arsenal are shite compared to who...

If you play every game at centre half you’re not really a pretend centre half.

A few people clearly needing to have a word with Arteta. 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

7 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

Everything is relative - Arsenal are shite compared to who...

If you play every game at centre half you’re not really a pretend centre half.

A few people clearly needing to have a word with Arteta. 

When the options are playing Scott McKenna or Keiran Tierney you have to accept they have completely different skillsets and fulfill different roles in a team.

Tierney isn't an automatic starter because Andy Robertson is better.

Arteta is licking his wounds after being destroyed by Villa. Perhaps shoehorning players into a line up outside of their capabilities is one of their problems.

[craigkillie]

4 hours ago, DAFC. said:

Jack and McGregor have shown absolutely nothing in a Scotland jersey to suggest they should get a start ahead of Christie, but McGregor most certainly will start, however, as McTominay is now cemented as a CB.
 

They play in totally different positions, Ryan Christie is not going to graft in a deep midfield position which is exactly what McGregor and Jack are asked to do.

[craigkillie]

25 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

When the options are playing Scott McKenna or Keiran Tierney you have to accept they have completely different skillsets and fulfill different roles in a team.

Tierney isn't an automatic starter because Andy Robertson is better.

Arteta is licking his wounds after being destroyed by Villa. Perhaps shoehorning players into a line up outside of their capabilities is one of their problems.

Tierney has been playing centre-back in a back three for Arsenal since June. In that period they have only lost a handful of games, won the FA Cup and have beaten the likes of Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd. The fact that they took a doing from Aston Villa and Tierney had a poor game doesn't suddenly invalidate all of that.

Anyone who has actually watched Kieran Tierney playing football will immediately identify his game intelligence and adaptability as one of his biggest strengths - he's a very tactically flexible player, and played centre-back for Celtic and Scotland long before Arteta started picking him there. Some very knowledgeable posters on this forum have been identifying him as a possible centre-back for Scotland for years based on his skillset.

On 19/06/2016 at 02:26, craigkillie said:

Tierney is a much better defender than Robertson, so much so that I could even see him playing centre-back at some point in his career.

On 06/09/2016 at 03:21, craigkillie said:

I reckon Tierney could play on the left of a back three - it's something Rodgers has already experimented with this season

 

The only justification for not picking him and having two of Gallagher, Cooper or McKenna in the team is that the three of those are all better siege defenders than Tierney, who is much more of a front foot player who has typically played with winning teams. However, Tierney has shown up well for Arsenal against the likes of Man City and Liverpool over the last few months in games where they haven't had a lot of possession and he's had to do a lot of defending. His main weakness is in the air, but if we have one big guy to deal with Mitrovic then it might be better to have someone like him who is good at defending on the deck against Serbia's more skilful support players.

[craigkillie]

Just now, Andrew Driver said:

Hi Craig.  

For the first time ever I'm thinking McGregor might not merit a starting berth.   I was a fan under Rodgers but he's regressing.  

Thoughts? 

Based on his performances for Scotland and Celtic I would agree that he should be a candidate for being dropped. The issue is that I don't think there's anyone else in our squad who I could see playing his role as well as he is capable of. Fleck's injury is a bit of a blow in that respect, although even he probably doesn't quite have the same tactical awareness that McGregor does, even if he's a bit better offensively and a bit more punchy in possession. McLean is the only other sort of like-for-like replacement in that left-sided berth, but fundamentally he isn't as good as McGregor, even if I think he has generally played reasonably well for Scotland.

I would be surprised to see anyone other than McGregor and Jack in those two sitting roles in the middle.

[G51]

26 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Tierney has been playing centre-back in a back three for Arsenal since June. In that period they have only lost a handful of games, won the FA Cup and have beaten the likes of Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd. The fact that they took a doing from Aston Villa and Tierney had a poor game doesn't suddenly invalidate all of that.

Anyone who has actually watched Kieran Tierney playing football will immediately identify his game intelligence and adaptability as one of his biggest strengths - he's a very tactically flexible player, and played centre-back for Celtic and Scotland long before Arteta started picking him there. Some very knowledgeable posters on this forum have been identifying him as a possible centre-back for Scotland for years based on his skillset.

 

The only justification for not picking him and having two of Gallagher, Cooper or McKenna in the team is that the three of those are all better siege defenders than Tierney, who is much more of a front foot player who has typically played with winning teams. However, Tierney has shown up well for Arsenal against the likes of Man City and Liverpool over the last few months in games where they haven't had a lot of possession and he's had to do a lot of defending. His main weakness is in the air, but if we have one big guy to deal with Mitrovic then it might be better to have someone like him who is good at defending on the deck against Serbia's more skilful support players.

Agree with much of this.

Even if we played McKenna over Tierney, I don't think it's particularly likely that McKenna would win the aerial battles against Mitrovic anyway. He's too strong. What we'll have to do is double up on him when the ball is played direct in to him - one at the front (either Jack or McGregor), and one of the CB's  tight behind him.

We'll also have to make a particular effort on stopping crosses from coming in - so if the idea of playing Tierney at RWB wasn't dead already, it should be when you consider the opposition.

[JagsCG]

Well...literally impossible not to be right up for this game after watching this, let’s hope we can actually do it this time!

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

Tierney has been playing centre-back in a back three for Arsenal since June. In that period they have only lost a handful of games, won the FA Cup and have beaten the likes of Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd. The fact that they took a doing from Aston Villa and Tierney had a poor game doesn't suddenly invalidate all of that.

Anyone who has actually watched Kieran Tierney playing football will immediately identify his game intelligence and adaptability as one of his biggest strengths - he's a very tactically flexible player, and played centre-back for Celtic and Scotland long before Arteta started picking him there. Some very knowledgeable posters on this forum have been identifying him as a possible centre-back for Scotland for years based on his skillset.

 

The only justification for not picking him and having two of Gallagher, Cooper or McKenna in the team is that the three of those are all better siege defenders than Tierney, who is much more of a front foot player who has typically played with winning teams. However, Tierney has shown up well for Arsenal against the likes of Man City and Liverpool over the last few months in games where they haven't had a lot of possession and he's had to do a lot of defending. His main weakness is in the air, but if we have one big guy to deal with Mitrovic then it might be better to have someone like him who is good at defending on the deck against Serbia's more skilful support players.

I can see the case for dropping McTominay and giving Tierney the start as he is a more natural defender.

Starting both is asking for trouble. If Serbia work a move that pulls the big centre back out and then Mitrovic is outmatching McTominay and Tierney that is a huge problem. There is a reason almost every team has two big, strong centre backs. No one is playing a back 4 with just one big centre back and a midfielder unless it is Pep Guardiola (and last season the lack of true centre backs was one of the factors of them being also rans by christmas)

Milinkovic-Savic is also not a small guy and none of our midfielders is a physical match for him making it even more important to not be playing two lightweights in a back 3.

 

[Ray Patterson]

Gordon Petric gave an interview in Serbia about the game and he seems to suggest that Serbia are the underdogs, and Scotland's form is "scary"

 

https://nova.rs/sport/fudbal/petric-za-nova-rs-strasna-forma-skota-ali-srbija-se-pita/

[craigkillie]

I can see the case for dropping McTominay and giving Tierney the start as he is a more natural defender.
Starting both is asking for trouble. If Serbia work a move that pulls the big centre back out and then Mitrovic is outmatching McTominay and Tierney that is a huge problem. There is a reason almost every team has two big, strong centre backs. No one is playing a back 4 with just one big centre back and a midfielder unless it is Pep Guardiola (and last season the lack of true centre backs was one of the factors of them being also rans by christmas)
Milinkovic-Savic is also not a small guy and none of our midfielders is a physical match for him making it even more important to not be playing two lightweights in a back 3.
 

Scott McTominay is 6ft 4 and fairly strong to go with it, and even Tierney is 5ft 10. We're hardly talking about playing Barry Bannan and Shaun Maloney. They have lots of technical players and we could just as easily get the runaround if we cram our defence with big guys who struggle to defend on the deck.

[greenockraver]

Gordon Petric gave an interview in Serbia about the game and he seems to suggest that Serbia are the underdogs, and Scotland's form is "scary"
 
https://nova.rs/sport/fudbal/petric-za-nova-rs-strasna-forma-skota-ali-srbija-se-pita/

Mind games

[Aufc]

I can see the case for dropping McTominay and giving Tierney the start as he is a more natural defender.
Starting both is asking for trouble. If Serbia work a move that pulls the big centre back out and then Mitrovic is outmatching McTominay and Tierney that is a huge problem. There is a reason almost every team has two big, strong centre backs. No one is playing a back 4 with just one big centre back and a midfielder unless it is Pep Guardiola (and last season the lack of true centre backs was one of the factors of them being also rans by christmas)
Milinkovic-Savic is also not a small guy and none of our midfielders is a physical match for him making it even more important to not be playing two lightweights in a back 3.
 

This is a total dinosaur view. Picking people because of their size

[King Kebab]

Well...literally impossible not to be right up for this game after watching this, let’s hope we can actually do it this time!

Some tremendous days and some wonderful nights there!!!
And one or two truly horrendous strips, that grey change number ffs!!!

[Bing.McCrosby]

1 minute ago, Aufc said:

 

This is a total dinosaur view. Picking people because of their size

 

If you were the manager would you pick a goal keeper who was 4ft 2? Say he was an excellent keeper, best technically we had. Would you pick him for the team?

[Dons_1988]

Back three of Mctominay Mckenna Tierney for me. F**k the Mckenna haters.

I can't in good faith say big Andy is the best man for the job, as much as it hurts.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Dons_1988

[thruthenight]

12 hours ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Arsenal are shite though. And we already have McTominay playing pretend centre back. Having two guys doing that is going to get us scudded.

Arsenal are shite so let's replace him with Motherwell's Declan Gallagher or Aberdeen's Andy Considine?

[AJF]

1 hour ago, BingMcCrosby said:

If you were the manager would you pick a goal keeper who was 4ft 2? Say he was an excellent keeper, best technically we had. Would you pick him for the team?

That question is hyperbolic and cannot be answered seriously. If you used a more realistic example such as a theoretic choice between Allan McGregor (6 ft) or Chris Kirkland (6 ft 6 in), you'd choose McGregor every day of the week which shoots down your theory.

The choice isn't between defenders that have 2 feet of a difference between them.

Edited November 11, 2020 by AJF

[Bing.McCrosby]

Just now, AJF said:

That question is hyperbolic and cannot be answered seriously. If you used a more realistic example such as a theoretic choice between Allan McGregor (6 ft) or Chris Kirkland (6 ft 6 in), you'd choose McGregor every day of the week which shoots down your theory.

The choice isn't between defenders that have 2 feet of a difference between them.

What if mcgregor was 4ft 2?

He'd be too small eh, so there's a height that is too small for you (dinosaur). There's a reason 99.9% of teams have 2 centre backs and gk over 6ft. Its not because their dinosaurs. Its because its advantageous.

The odd wee guy playing centre back proves nothing. 

Edited November 11, 2020 by BingMcCrosby

[Stellaboz]

Name any footballer ever under 5ft, your argument is nonsense.