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Time to go Steve Clarke


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36 minutes ago, BingMcCrosby said:

So you don't think the change of formation and tactics helped us in the 3 games?

The is that he hasnt radically changed his tactics in response to setbacks.  He's organically grown the team.  As he's spent more time with the players and got a settled squad, it makes it easier to integrate younger prospects.  It also means that his players are better drilled in what he wants, and so he can set up his teams differently.

It seems you've been demanding his resignation since long before I signed up, and now you're trying to get out of it by claiming that you were right about tactical changes.  However, your demands for radical kneejerk changes would have been folly.

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22 minutes ago, BingMcCrosby said:

I agree with alot of this.

What people are looking for is vengeance rather than enjoying the success.

What people are looking for is me and others to admit they got it wrong.

BTW I was wrong, I didn't think Clarke would change his tactics and make us a more progressive team. But he has and its great. So in that aspect yeah I was wrong.

I've not been personal once about Clarke, and have praised what I see as his good qualities many times. As well as suggesting where he was going wrong.

Am I going thru the threads demanding an apology from the posters who were insistent that 5 at the back was working and we were doing well? No, because that is pointless

Steve Clarke has recognised it himself and improved the team, and improved himself as a manager. Which is great for all of us.

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8 minutes ago, BingMcCrosby said:

You would have to ask Clarke personally his reasons for changing formation and tactics. But its not even debateable that that is what happened.

It’s extremely debatable, because it didn’t happen. We have won plenty of games with the back 3, and played very well with it.

It’s not like we were losing consistently until he changed it, we have been doing well until those handful of games in June. 

Tactically we are flexible and will play the 3 or the 4 at the back when he wants to. He might even change them in the game. It’s not one or the other and I don’t agree that either of them are clearly better, for all we were sound defensively last night it still wasn’t our best performance. 

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36 minutes ago, BingMcCrosby said:

What people are looking for is vengeance rather than enjoying the success. What people are looking for is me and others to admit they got it wrong.

For me it isn't about that. Once you put things out there on a public forum then people have the right to recall it and comment on it regardless of when it was and you can't have a reasonable expectation that won't happen. I'd suggest perhaps the reason you don't want it recalled is because it reflects poorly on you.

Furthermore, it's important to highlight your posting history is so that if in the future you have another change of heart it can be placed in a context of you being fickle which is important information. You are happy to dish out the criticism to Steve Clarke so you can have a wee taste of it for yourself.  

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37 minutes ago, Falcor Roar said:

Can we also claw out Tom English while I'm at it? He's another that's gushing again this morning but has been doomsday when we've stalled. 

Yes we can. He has no sense of balance to his perspective. When you consider how the media like to dramatize things it's maybe not too surprising. I skip mostly past what he says as he isn't very insightful unless he is talking about journalism.

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Just now, ExiledLichtie said:

The is that he hasnt radically changed his tactics in response to setbacks.  He's organically grown the team.  As he's spent more time with the players and got a settled squad, it makes it easier to integrate younger prospects.  It also means that his players are better drilled in what he wants, and so he can set up his teams differently.

It seems you've been demanding his resignation since long before I signed up, and now you're trying to get out of it by claiming that you were right about tactical changes.  However, your demands for radical kneejerk changes would have been folly.

Last paragraph, well a different manager may well have approached those games differently and we would have had more positive results. So thats all speculation.

First paragraph, he absolutely did completely change formation and tactics. Giving us more options further forward, allowing us to be a more progressive team.

Just now, Jambomo said:

It’s extremely debatable, because it didn’t happen. We have won plenty of games with the back 3, and played very well with it.

It’s not like we were losing consistently until he changed it, we have been doing well until those handful of games in June. 

Tactically we are flexible and will play the 3 or the 4 at the back when he wants to. He might even change them in the game. It’s not one or the other and I don’t agree that either of them are clearly better, for all we were sound defensively last night it still wasn’t our best performance. 

Your saying its debateable, and then admitting he changed formation and tactics?

I completely agree, with the ability to be flexible with the formations. I posted something very similar after the home Ukraine game. If we're up against a really good team i could understand the 5 at the back coming out.

There was good and bad points to the back 5, it did give us more defensive stability. But also stopped us controlling and competing better in games we should have been able to. But yeah we played it well at time, and at times not so well.

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18 minutes ago, BingMcCrosby said:

Last paragraph, well a different manager may well have approached those games differently and we would have had more positive results. So thats all speculation.

First paragraph, he absolutely did completely change formation and tactics. Giving us more options further forward, allowing us to be a more progressive team.

Your saying its debateable, and then admitting he changed formation and tactics?

I completely agree, with the ability to be flexible with the formations. I posted something very similar after the home Ukraine game. If we're up against a really good team i could understand the 5 at the back coming out.

There was good and bad points to the back 5, it did give us more defensive stability. But also stopped us controlling and competing better in games we should have been able to. But yeah we played it well at time, and at times not so well.

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1 hour ago, Falcor Roar said:

You're trying to spin this like Clarke has had some road to Damascus moment. We haven't completely changed tactics, our positive style has been quite consistent and the players are well drilled. We've had games where the players haven't followed through with the game plan either/or because the opposition have played too well or because we've lost confidence leading to poor shape and a reliance on hitting it long (Czech Rep and Croatia at Euro 2020, Ireland away, Ukraine playoff). It happens, international teams are particularly vulnerable to inconsistency.

We played a back 4 for years before Clarke and it didn't work. We used a back 3 to steady the ship. We're moving back to a 4 because things have evolved and the manager is competent enough to bring in changes as and when needed. 

 

 

 

Can we also claw out Tom English while I'm at it? He's another that's gushing again this morning but has been doomsday when we've stalled. 

Tom English is not perfect but if you'd rather have Bonner, Biscuits, Neil McCann, Peter Grant & the rest of the thick as mince ex pros rather than literate journalists then just carry on knocking him. Gushing praise over this week's achievements is merited but I fail to see how a 3-0 pumping from a shit poor Ireland was anything other than doomsday. Those trying to claim they knew all along that things would be fine have overdone the hindsight on their chips.

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Just now, kennie makevin said:

Tom English is not perfect but if you'd rather have Bonner, Biscuits, Neil McCann, Peter Grant & the rest of the thick as mince ex pros rather than literate journalists then just carry on knocking him. Gushing praise over this week's achievements is merited but I fail to see how a 3-0 pumping from a shit poor Ireland was anything other than doomsday. Those trying to claim they knew all along that things would be fine have overdone the hindsight on their chips.

Aye, I remember the evening of that Ireland game.  We'd just been soundly beaten by both Ukraine and Ireland, and looked largely rank in doing so.  I think people could be forgiven at that point for believing the sky was falling.  Not in terms of being relegated, but if anyone was confident we'd be where we are now on that Saturday evening, I'll happily call them a liar.  

That's not to say that journalists and the media haven't got out the red paint for the front door before.  I remember when we had that match against Israel, the radio commentator just about wanked himself into a coma getting out the stat about World Rankings and how awful it all was. If I'm not mixing up my games (which I might be given we played Israel 800 times) then that was also the campaign we ended up getting to Euro 2020 through.  So I guess a very similar situation to this one, although I'd argue the playoff defeat followed by Ireland was far more demoralising than losing once to a side ranked below us.

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There's been a sense of '1 step backwards - 2 steps forward' under Clarke which is slowly but surely getting us where we'd want/love to be. Euros was disappointing but then followed that up with a terrific run in the world cup qualifiers. June was a disaster but followed that up with a sensational week here. Shows a good attitude/desire/togetherness in the camp where as in previous years/managers we would have turned one of those 1 steps back into 2 steps back etc untill the whole thing unravelled

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I think if you look at the whole picture not just results it's been quite clear that we are going in the correct direction and the impatience of posters like @BingMcCrosby is just shite. It's one thing to be unsure and it's another thing to be calling for the managers head.

He's been in charge for 3 years, but only 40 games - that's the equivalent of one league season. In that time the progress cannot be doubted in terms of improvements in culture, engaging with the support, recruitment, youth as well as performances/results. It's all there. It's what we all want. What he has done goes beyond just the results and that's what the knee jerk posters haven't recognised.

Look at where we started when we played Cyprus in 2019. It was a mess. He has done a lot.

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1 minute ago, Elgin Macca said:

There's been a sense of '1 step backwards - 2 steps forward' under Clarke which is slowly but surely getting us where we'd want/love to be. Euros was disappointing but then followed that up with a terrific run in the world cup qualifiers. June was a disaster but followed that up with a sensational week here. Shows a good attitude/desire/togetherness in the camp where as in previous years/managers we would have turned one of those 1 steps back into 2 steps back etc untill the whole thing unravelled

When we f**k up against sides we'll likely finish ahead of, there are always folk who'll say, "aye, but we could still take points off the top seeds", which has felt like extravagant optimism for the past twenty years (even if it has happened on occasion).

This is the first time in a good twenty years where I'd be liable to think, "aye, I could actually see that happening". Easily the best time to be a Scotland fan so far this millennium.

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25 minutes ago, kennie makevin said:

Tom English is not perfect but if you'd rather have Bonner, Biscuits, Neil McCann, Peter Grant & the rest of the thick as mince ex pros rather than literate journalists then just carry on knocking him. Gushing praise over this week's achievements is merited but I fail to see how a 3-0 pumping from a shit poor Ireland was anything other than doomsday. Those trying to claim they knew all along that things would be fine have overdone the hindsight on their chips.

Can I not carry on knocking him and also have a preference for somebody other than biscuits, McCann and Grant on the radio? Why is that not allowed?

If the benchmark is for journalists to be literate then that probably serves my point.

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I was just looking back through the results of the Clarke era and I actually think there’s been a marked improvement since the end of the Euros.

 

He came in and beat Cyprus at home with a very late winner in his first game, but lost the next four matches conceding 13 goals and scoring only once. That campaign ended with two wins over poor sides and then covid struck and he had time to soul search.

 

Autumn 2020 will be remembered for the right reasons but when you look back at the actual results, it’s a mixed back really. Three matches against Israel yielded a home draw, a penalty shootout win after a turgid 0-0, and a defeat over there. We traded 1-0 home wins with Slovakia and managed a good double over the Czechs, albeit the away game we made difficult work to get a 2-1 from. l behind after their entire squad had to self isolate and they were forced to pick a bunch of locally based players that were not international quality. Then of course we had the wonderful performance in Belgrade where we really deserved to win in 90 minutes but showed incredible nerve to still win the shootout after the late sucker punch.

 

That autumn was heroic for finally getting back to a major tournament but completing Hibsing the nations league group is a legitimate blot of Clarke’s record.

 

2021 kicked off with a decent 2-2 draw at home to Austria where we were twice behind and another draw against Israel away from home where we were largely outplayed. We completed that window with a thumping win over the Faroes at home.


After a couple of friendlies, the Euros came and were disappointing. At times we played like a team happy to just be there. Wembley was an excellent night but we really should have taken all 3 points. The Czech game wasn’t a bad performance but poor finishing up front and dreadful goalkeeping let us down. Croatia played us off the park.

 

After that is where everything changed for me. The playoff semi final against Ukraine and the 3-0 trouncing in Dublin are the only games since then that we haven’t gotten the results we were looking for. There were some turgid wins by the odd goal against teams we should be easing past and losing late equalisers to both Austria and Poland in the March friendlies wasn’t ideal, but a friendly is a friendly at the end of the day.

 

Bringing through Patterson, Hickey and Gilmour as key members of the squad post Euros has been a huge benefit, as has both Che Adams and Lyndon Dykes settling into the squad and the improvements of the likes of Jack Hendry, Callum McGregor, Scott McTominay and John Souttar.
 

Another thing we have an abundance of is strength in depth. Had we qualified for Qatar, SC would have to name a 26 man squad, but you’d have 35-40 players who’d have a legitimate claim for inclusion. In the past 12 months, 40 players have been included in the squad at least once (plus a 41st in David Marshall who has retired now) so there would certainly be some players disappointed to miss out, where is a great problem for Clarke to have. 

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14 minutes ago, Falcor Roar said:

Can I not carry on knocking him and also have a preference for somebody other than biscuits, McCann and Grant on the radio? Why is that not allowed?

If the benchmark is for journalists to be literate then that probably serves my point.

In an Ideal world where several journalists where employed as pundits and no thick ex-pros were, them yes but while it's a binary choice between thick semi-literate ex-pros or Tom English we do not have the luxury of undermining Tom English.

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1 hour ago, BingMcCrosby said:

What a childish comment

Eh? you're one to talk. 🥱

On 12/06/2022 at 00:24, BingMcCrosby said:

Well I was certainly right alot more than you, which again im not pleased with.

But just for you personally (random person I've never spoken to) ram it right up you. I was right you were wrong ha ha ha

You weren't right though bud. were you? 😄

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