Ireland v scotland

[BFTD]

12 minutes ago, Stoo61 said:

Just heard the score, what the f**k?

Cheer up - it probably should've been worse.

Even better when you realise that at no point did we look like scoring in the second half.

[Satoshi]

26 minutes ago, Bogbrush1903 said:

Each country has its own aims what constitutes success.

For example, if San Marino finished second bottom of a qualifying group then that would be a successful campaign for them.

Scotland's aim has to be qualifying from the first round of both the Euros and the WC. That's our golden fleece. 

However, due to our long list of failed campaigns, just qualifying for a tournament now can be considered a success.

Clarke reached the semi-finals of the play-off where we were knocked out at home in a one-legged match against a team of roughly the same quality.

If, in your world, the constitutes success then fill your boots, but you'll have a hard time defending that position in a football forum.

On the first point - exactly different nations have different definitions of success.

We should be qualifying for a 24 euros, no doubt, but not a 32 world cup from the European section. We will sometimes, but not that often (nobody has qualified more times than us from our peer group nations, nobody is even close. Scotland have qualified for more than 3 times as many world cups as huge football mad countries like Turkey).

Our performance in the playoffs was disappointing, clearly, but getting there was not. I would have 100% taken that at the start of the campaign, most fans would have. If the draw had been different and Italy or Portugal had knocked us out would it suddenly be a success?

For me the WC qualifying was a success, and the playoffs themselves disappointment. I would be delighted to make the next world cup playoffs.

[2426255]

Stephen O'Donnell should've started. 

[G51]

10 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Stephen O'Donnell should've started. 

Playing our fourth-best right back would have made all the difference.

[2426255]

Greg Taylor should've started

[Lurkst]

Yesterday reminded me of one of those dreadful end of season Home International away performances in Wales or on Ireland. Fortunately they didn't have long term impact at the time and I'm hopeful the squad will recover from this.

 

 

[FrankyFourFingers]

Hope you lads enjoyed the trip despite the result! 

Not sure where we pulled that one out of - we don't do that to anyone, least of all a side better than us. The changes in formation and personnel definitely gave us a lot more, the midfield was a huge problem against Armenia and Ukraine but the introduction of Molumby and moving Knight back made it very well balanced, and Obafemi and Parrott as two up top worked perfectly. We had always thought we could put in a performance like that under Kenny but hadn't done it until yesterday - the challenge is to play like that consistently.

Scotland are still a far better side than us on paper and looked like they didn't have any ideas - the manager has gotten you to a finals and close to a 2nd one so must have done something right, but given the gulf in quality between us and Scotland on paper it looked like a side that wasn't very well drilled yesterday.

Interesting group now, although it looks like Ukraine will probably win it. Hopefully we can take points off them on Tuesday.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

24 minutes ago, FrankyFourFingers said:

Hope you lads enjoyed the trip despite the result! 

Not sure where we pulled that one out of - we don't do that to anyone, least of all a side better than us. The changes in formation and personnel definitely gave us a lot more, the midfield was a huge problem against Armenia and Ukraine but the introduction of Molumby and moving Knight back made it very well balanced, and Obafemi and Parrott as two up top worked perfectly. We had always thought we could put in a performance like that under Kenny but hadn't done it until yesterday - the challenge is to play like that consistently.

Scotland are still a far better side than us on paper and looked like they didn't have any ideas - the manager has gotten you to a finals and close to a 2nd one so must have done something right, but given the gulf in quality between us and Scotland on paper it looked like a side that wasn't very well drilled yesterday.

Interesting group now, although it looks like Ukraine will probably win it. Hopefully we can take points off them on Tuesday.

It’s so hard to work out exactly what to do when we’ve been so abject. Ireland looked well-motivated and ran tirelessly, but difficult to tell how good you were relative to how bad we were. 

If you can play every game with that energy and discipline, then your results will improve. However, don’t ever let Duffy play the ball out from the back. Against an in-form McGinn or a better team, and you’d have handed away the game.

My only point would be, don’t read too much into it until you play someone that’s not us. That’s the fourth time we’ve not turned up in a big game in the last year. Anyone can turn us over when we do that.

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[Glennie]

fucking shambles

series lack of winners on the park, rockets needed up a load of arses

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

3 hours ago, Bogbrush1903 said:

Each country has its own aims what constitutes success.

For example, if San Marino finished second bottom of a qualifying group then that would be a successful campaign for them.

Scotland's aim has to be qualifying from the first round of both the Euros and the WC. That's our golden fleece. 

However, due to our long list of failed campaigns, just qualifying for a tournament now can be considered a success.

Clarke reached the semi-finals of the play-off where we were knocked out at home in a one-legged match against a team of roughly the same quality.

If, in your world, the constitutes success then fill your boots, but you'll have a hard time defending that position in a football forum.

Scotland aren’t one of the best 13 teams in Europe. Not even close in fact.

Success is qualifying for 24-team European Championships and being in, or close to WC playoffs. 

We’re a third seed side, and playing like one. We can give a game to those above us, but consistency is the problem. That’s no different than Norway, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Czechs etc. They are all our peers in this group.

We have performed better than many in the last year or so, and worse than some. The top half of Group B in the UNL is where we belong, and where we’ll almost definitely finish, despite yesterday’s shambles.

Edited June 12, 2022 by HuttonDressedAsLahm

[Bogbrush1903]

38 minutes ago, HuttonDressedAsLahm said:

Scotland aren’t one of the best 13 teams in Europe. Not even close in fact.

Success is qualifying for 24-team European Championships and being in, or close to WC playoffs. 

Never truer words spoken judging by those performances against Ukraine & Ireland.

If you're using the FIFA rankings as your guide then we (39th in the world) shouldn't be collapsing against the Irish (47th).

We're actually the 20th placed UEFA team in those rankings so we really should be qualifying for a 24 team Euros given a fair wind. I maintain that success in the Euros would be reaching the 2nd round which we were miles off at Euro20 despite playing two of the matches at Hampden.

However, lets see how we get on against the 92nd placed Armenia in Yerevan.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Bogbrush1903

[Monkey Tennis]

Watching the highlights, what's especially galling is that despite being much better than us, you could clearly see that this Irish side really is pretty poor.

Neither side could successfully play it out from the back, while both sides treated us to some bloody awful passing generally.  

We managed to combine an inability to retain the ball with a willingness to stand off them when the Irish had it.  Really lousy stuff.

I'm not sure where we go from here (apart from Armenia of course).

[Binos]

5 hours ago, Satoshi said:

We reached the playoffs. Which for me is a success, we should be aiming for that each year from a very difficult European qualifying section. 

It's like saying getting to the world cup is a failure if you don't win the tournament, don't agree at all.

It's a backwards step

How can it be a success 

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

13 minutes ago, Bogbrush1903 said:

Never truer words spoken judging by those performances against Ukraine & Ireland.

If you're using the FIFA rankings as your guide then we (39th in the world) shouldn't be collapsing against the Irish (47th).

We're actually the 20th placed UEFA team in those rankings so we really should be qualifying for a 24 team Euros given a fair wind. I maintain that success in the Euros would be reaching the 2nd round which we were miles off at Euro20 despite playing two of the matches at Hampden.

However, lets see how we get on against the 92nd placed Armenia in Yerevan.

If we’re ranked 20th by FIFA in Europe, would that make us a second seed for WCQ? 

They are yet to confirm how playoffs will work for ECQ, but you’d imagine that coming second in our group would be enough. Beating Armenia and Ireland would near-enough guarantee that. 

Losing to Ireland, in itself, isn’t a huge setback. It’s the abject surrender that is very concerning.

 

[Binos]

5 hours ago, 2426255 said:

We qualified for the playoffs from the world cup group. We didn't qualify for the world cup from the playoffs.

We failed to qualify for the world cup 

[Broony88]

17 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Watching the highlights, what's especially galling is that despite being much better than us, you could clearly see that this Irish side really is pretty poor.

Neither side could successfully play it out from the back, while both sides treated us to some bloody awful passing generally.  

We managed to combine an inability to retain the ball with a willingness to stand off them when the Irish had it.  Really lousy stuff.

I'm not sure where we go from here (apart from Armenia of course).

Said to my mates in the ground (home end) that there really wasn’t that much between the two teams. All around us waxing lyrical about the players and manager was a bit baffling as we probably shaded the chances and game in the first 20-30 minutes and found ourselves two down. Two poor teams is the reality of it but Ireland were clinical and by the end probably deserved the win. 

[Satoshi]

3 minutes ago, Binos said:

It's a backwards step

How can it be a success 

What's a backwards step?

2 minutes ago, Binos said:

We failed to qualify for the world cup 

Nobody is disputing this, but we qualified for the playoffs which is a success.

The poster above is right, we are not one of the best 13 teams in Europe. Better teams than us didn't qualify for this world cup. Occasionally we might get there but it will be euros and occasional world cup for us. Realistic goal is going for the playoffs which we achieved.

[Binos]

4 hours ago, Satoshi said:

On the first point - exactly different nations have different definitions of success.

We should be qualifying for a 24 euros, no doubt, but not a 32 world cup from the European section. We will sometimes, but not that often (nobody has qualified more times than us from our peer group nations, nobody is even close. Scotland have qualified for more than 3 times as many world cups as huge football mad countries like Turkey).

Our performance in the playoffs was disappointing, clearly, but getting there was not. I would have 100% taken that at the start of the campaign, most fans would have. If the draw had been different and Italy or Portugal had knocked us out would it suddenly be a success?

For me the WC qualifying was a success, and the playoffs themselves disappointment. I would be delighted to make the next world cup playoffs.

We had a gift of a group draw and a gift of a playoffs draw

We should have qualified 

[2426255]

5 minutes ago, Binos said:

We failed to qualify for the world cup 

That's correct. Steve Clarke's contract permits two attempts at reaching a major tournament and so that's one of his lives lost. If we start Euro 2024 qualifying badly then that's the point id expect him to go if he doesn't resign before then.

[HuttonDressedAsLahm]

2 minutes ago, Binos said:

We had a gift of a group draw and a gift of a playoffs draw

We should have qualified 

It’s small margins. We qualified for the Euros which is great. We then played fairly badly against three sides higher ranked than us.

We then took 7 points off teams higher ranked than us in ECQ and were the highest placed 2nd placed team into the playoffs.

We then played badly in a single game against a team who are both higher ranked and better than us. Our players are clearly tired. The Ukrainians, for obvious reasons, were not. 

It happens. It happened to Italy twice recently, and to the Netherlands repeatedly.

We’ve then collapsed in Ireland, and whilst it’s hugely concerning it also effectively means nothing. We’re seeing poor performances and results across Europe right now, and though we might have a mentality problem, we’re not alone.

Objectively, our results have been better than any other time in 25 years. We’ve under-performed, but that’s not failure - yet.

Get Tuesday done with and let’s forget about this month.

The positive slant I’d put on it is that we’ll revert to type in September. England, whose players are similar in setup (if not talent) have a similar issues. They haven’t scored in open play in 4+ hours. I’d expect them to smash their games in September. I’d fully expect us to boss ROI off the pitch in the next game.

If we’re abject again, then get the knives out. Until then, success has neither occurred nor been denied.