Your Club's Manager, As A Player

[Guest TheJTS98]

Glass was an excellent player unlucky with injuries.

One of these things probably influenced by age, I don't know.

No way Malky is above Glass and Alexander.

[ATLIS]

4 hours ago, thisGRAEME said:

Agreed. McPake was unlucky with injuries but rarely showed what he had. Also hasn't megged David Villa.

Was Martindale not a fairly decent junior level player?

Had a contract on the table from Rangers as a boy, decided to go play 5s with his pals and broke his leg and Rangers rescinded the offer. So would've had something about him I'm sure

[DukDukGoose]

3 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

Had a contract on the table from Rangers as a boy, decided to go play 5s with his pals and broke his leg and Rangers rescinded the offer. So would've had something about him I'm sure

I'd like to play the Gregg Wyldecard.

[Ludo*1]

I accept the Alexander above Malky shouts. I thought Malky primarily played for Norwich in the Prem, but turns out it was the Championship having checked so my memory deceived me there.

Not accepting Goodwin above McPake though. McPake was playing in the English Championship for a sizeable chunk of his career and then captained Hibs and finally, arrived at us when people thought he was finished and gave us good service in the top flight as well. Goodwin's only season at English Championship level was when his Scunthorpe side were papped straight back down to League One. Without getting Dundee involved, I'd say Coventry and Hibs are bigger than any side Goodwin played for bar the exception of Celtic (he played 1 game as a youth for Celtic) & Huddersfield (I still think Coventry and Hibs are bigger tbh) upon which they were in League One at the time.

Both have a cap for their respective national sides and McPake was pretty much plagued throughout his career with injury issues which is the only thing that brings Goodwin close in terms of his career IMO.

It's like 2 bald men arguing over a comb, however, as neither had careers anywhere near the top half did (Neilson excepted).

[Guest TheJTS98]

Robbie Neilson wasn't the world's greatest footballer, and the man himself is quite open about his limitations.

But I think some over-state his level of ineptitude.

He played 200 times for Hearts and was a regular in sides that finished third twice, second once, won the cup, and he put in some good shifts for us in Europe. He played in our win in Bordeaux, played when we gubbed Braga, and scored the winner when we won in Basel.

When Levein put him into the side regularly in 2003-04, the number of goals we conceded dropped by 20%. Although not the main man - Craig Gordon came in at the same time - he was a solid player in a very good defence. Those numbers fell by another 25% and stayed low for five of his six years. He regularly got a game at a club that only finished in the bottom half of the league once in his six years and had one of the better defences in the league.

The thing that I think speaks best for Neilson is that in an era when we spent a bit of cash and upgraded quite a few positions, nobody ever shifted Neilson from right-back.

Edited July 28, 2021 by TheJTS98

[Dons_1988]

13 minutes ago, TheJTS98 said:

Robbie Neilson wasn't the world's greatest footballer, and the man himself is quite open about his limitations.

But I think some over-state his level of ineptitude.

He played 200 times for Hearts and was a regular in sides that finished third twice, second once, won the cup, and he put in some good shifts for us in Europe. He played in our win in Bordeaux, played when we gubbed Braga, and scored the winner when we won in Basel.

When Levein put him into the side regularly in 2003-04, the number of goals we conceded dropped by 20%. Although not the main man - Craig Gordon came in at the same time - he was a solid player in a very good defence. Those numbers fell by another 25% and stayed low for five of his six years. He regularly got a game at a club that only finished in the bottom half of the league once in his six years and had one of the better defences in the league.

The thing that I think speaks best for Neilson is that in an era when we spent a bit of cash and upgraded quite a few positions, nobody ever shifted Neilson from right-back.

Someone should add ‘survived Romanov lobbing any viable eastern european player at any position’ to his CV. 

[craigkillie]

Neilson was a solid SPL player as far as I remember. Maybe the equivalent of someone like Shay Logan or even Michael Smith from his own team.

[Guest TheJTS98]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

Someone should add ‘survived Romanov lobbing any viable eastern european player at any position’ to his CV. 

He certainly saw off Barasa.

[DukDukGoose]

2 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Neilson was a solid SPL player as far as I remember. Maybe the equivalent of someone like Shay Logan or even Michael Smith from his own team.

I don't think he's as good as peak Shay Logan but you don't play 200 odd games for Hearts in the 00's if you are a mug.

[Skyline Drifter]

7 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Neilson was a solid SPL player as far as I remember. Maybe the equivalent of someone like Shay Logan or even Michael Smith from his own team.

Neilson was a much better player than Michael Smith is. At the risk of incurring Aberdeen wrath I'd have him above Logan too. He was unlucky not to get more international recognition but wasn't as good as Hutton. I'd have said he was a fairly similar standard to say Stephen O'Donnell now.

Alexander should definitely be above McKay. I'm not sure I wouldn't also have Neilson above McKay to be honest.

 

[Guest TheJTS98]

23 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

He was unlucky not to get more international recognition but wasn't as good as Hutton.

 

Not sure I'd go this far. He was lacking in technique to be an international right-back.

I don't disagree he's of a similar level to the current incumbent, but that's just a reflection on our current difficulties.

Robbie got his cap, which he deserved overall. It's another one of these things that some people love to bang on about as if he was the worst performer ever to wear the Scotland shirt. There was stuff on here along those lines a while back. Maybe the one-cap-wonder thread or something.

In reality, he did ok in what was always going to be a stop-gap appearance. He wasn't great and wasn't awful on a night when Scotland didn't play well (he'd have got an assist if Miller hadn't missed a sitter). And I'd argue Ukraine away in 2006 was a pretty tough international debut to be given. But it wasn't his level.

Edited July 28, 2021 by TheJTS98

[Ludo*1]

Neilson's career is very similar to McPake's.

They both received a cap from their respective countries.  They both played in Europe. They both played for the respective Edinburgh sides followed by a stint at the Dundee clubs - Both in the top flight of Scottish football.  McPake appeared in more than double the English Championship games Neilson did (According to wiki - Neilson listed as 26 with McPake at 68).  Neilson played in a lot more top flight games in Scotland with Neilson at around 221 and McPake nearer 130.

I'd shade it to Neilson due to his Hearts side being much better than McPake's Hibs side, but I wouldn't say there is a massive difference between their playing careers tbh. They even retired around the same age (Although McPake was done at the age of 31) which in my opinion, 3 more seasons of top flight football would have meant his stats were identical to Neilson's.

Again, I think the 3 of Neilson, McPake and Goodwin are the tightest grouping in the league and think that's probably the correct order of the 3. Don't think there's an argument for any of them to go higher than their current placing but some could argue a different order of the 3.

[Skyline Drifter]

Just now, Ludo*1 said:

Neilson's career is very similar to McPake's.

They both received a cap from their respective countries.  They both played in Europe. They both played for the respective Edinburgh sides followed by a stint at the Dundee clubs - Both in the top flight of Scottish football.  McPake appeared in more than double the English Championship games Neilson did (According to wiki - Neilson listed as 26 with McPake at 68).  Neilson played in a lot more top flight games in Scotland with Neilson at around 221 and McPake nearer 130.

I'd shade it to Neilson due to his Hearts side being much better than McPake's Hibs side, but I wouldn't say there is a massive difference between their playing careers tbh. They even retired around the same age (Although McPake was done at the age of 31) which in my opinion, 3 more seasons of top flight football would have meant his stats were identical to Neilson's.

Again, I think the 3 of Neilson, McPake and Goodwin are the tightest grouping in the league and think that's probably the correct order of the 3. Don't think there's an argument for any of them to go higher than their current placing but some could argue a different order of the 3.

We've done this before but McPake never got remotely close to getting a cap with "his" country. He was miles out of the picture and therefore accepted an invitation to represent a grandparent's country. Scotland in the era Neilson played were a far better side than Northern Ireland when McPake parachuted over there too. Lets not pretend he was some sort of James McCarthy-like character whose life's ambition was to play for Northern Ireland.

And you are clearly as entitled to your opinion as I am but I'd have Neilson miles ahead of McPake and Goodwin and, as I said, potentially above McKay, though that's arguable.

[Ludo*1]

37 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

We've done this before but McPake never got remotely close to getting a cap with "his" country. He was miles out of the picture and therefore accepted an invitation to represent a grandparent's country. Scotland in the era Neilson played were a far better side than Northern Ireland when McPake parachuted over there too. Lets not pretend he was some sort of James McCarthy-like character whose life's ambition was to play for Northern Ireland.

And you are clearly as entitled to your opinion as I am but I'd have Neilson miles ahead of McPake and Goodwin and, as I said, potentially above McKay, though that's arguable.

We've done this before and you'll notice that's the exact same post you've quoted upon which at the time you said, 'it's just a personal slant I have' and that you didn't even know that McPake had been capped so I'm glad to see you've done further research since then.

Being 'miles out of the picture' at CH is much easier to do than it is for a RB. We tend to have decent CH's whereas other than Alan Hutton and Bardsley (who weren't even capped until 07 and 10 respectively) at the time, we didn't have many decent RB's to the point that Neilson was subbed for Stephen McManus (a left footed CH) in that game. Who was our normal RB at that time? I've googled the Scotland squad in 2006 and the candidates are Alexander (who was deployed in midfield at LB the game Neilson played), Kevin McNaughton and Graham Murty. At CH during the same period we had the likes of David Weir, Steven Pressley, Lee Wilkie, Gary and Steven Caldwell, Stephen McManus, Christophe Berra & Russell Martin all of whom were better than McPake (even if some were absolutely terrible for Scotland). McPake also has a very public personal issue with Craig Levein which certainly didn't help his case in the latter stages of his career when he received his NI cap. Even then, the likes of Hanley were breaking through.

McPake was nowhere near Scotland quality. Not for a second suggesting he was. I don't think Neilson was either though and it was good fortune that others were out that propelled him ahead of a much smaller competition pool.

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Ludo*1

[Guest TheJTS98]

6 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

we didn't have many decent RB's to the point that Neilson was subbed for Stephen McManus (a left footed CH)
 

I don 't disagree with the thrust of your post, but I'm not sure a 90th minute sub at 2-0 down and a man down really tells us much about anything apart from that the coach was changing shape to avoid conceding again.

We'd had a centre-half sent off. It's not a huge shock we put another one on.

Edited July 28, 2021 by TheJTS98

[Ludo*1]

1 minute ago, TheJTS98 said:

I don 't disagree with the thrust of your post, but I'm not sure a 90th minute sub at 2-0 down and a man down really tells us much about anything apart from that the coach was changing shape to avoid conceding again.

Fair enough, but as far as I can tell, there were no other RB options for that game other than Alexander who'd been deployed elsewhere on the pitch.

ETA: The squad for that night was as follows:

Scotland: Gordon, Neilson (McManus 89), Weir, Pressley, Graham Alexander, Caldwell, Ferguson, Fletcher, Hartley, Miller, McFadden (Boyd 73).
Subs Not Used: Neil Alexander, McCulloch, Teale, Severin, Brown.

I've said Alexander was played in midfield, but might have been LB now that I look at it. Anyone able to confirm? Was he the regular RB? My memory is hazy.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Ludo*1

[Guest TheJTS98]

9 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

Fair enough, but as far as I can tell, there were no other RB options for that game other than Alexander who'd been deployed elsewhere on the pitch.

ETA: The squad for that night was as follows:

Scotland: Gordon, Neilson (McManus 89), Weir, Pressley, Graham Alexander, Caldwell, Ferguson, Fletcher, Hartley, Miller, McFadden (Boyd 73).
Subs Not Used: Neil Alexander, McCulloch, Teale, Severin, Brown.

I've said Alexander was played in midfield, but might have been LB now that I look at it. Anyone able to confirm? Was he the regular RB? My memory is hazy.

In my memory from the France home game, he played on the left in that one. I was in the South Stand that day and my memory is of him being in front of me in the second half and having a great game.

So, looking at that, I'd say left back.

At 16 years distance I'm willing to be corrected though.

Edited July 28, 2021 by TheJTS98

[Guest TheJTS98]

15 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

I've said Alexander was played in midfield, but might have been LB now that I look at it. Anyone able to confirm? Was he the regular RB? My memory is hazy.

Just watched a bit of Ukraine away and France at home.

Alexander at left-back both times.

[Ludo*1]

Just now, TheJTS98 said:

Just watched a bit of Ukraine away and France at home.

Alexander at left-back both times.

Cheers.

That then leads to the question of, who played RB against France?

[Guest TheJTS98]

3 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

Cheers.

That then leads to the question of, who played RB against France?

Looks like the religious newspaper to me.