The McTominay Conundrum

[ArabFC]

I’ve been red-dotted more for this opinion than anything else ever on PnB and I’ve often said Mark McNulty has some skills.

But can we all please finally agree that Scott McTominay is not a fucking centre back?  

Play him in midfield or don’t play him at all.

Until Clarke gets past shit like this and pairing Dykes with a flick-on partner, we’ll never progress.

[red23]

c**t can't defend, end of. Let's stop using him in defence. Far better going forward.

[Dunning1874]

As everyone is aware, following the 2-0 defeat to Denmark (with Andy Robertson at right wing back) we then went on a terrific run of six wins in a row to end the group.

McTominay was at centre back for just one of those games, which also happened to be the only game we conceded, where both goals were a result of our right hand side being a shambles, with the combination of McTominay and an inexperienced right wing back who couldn't settle into the game in the first half exacerbating each others' flaws.

Never again.

[lau03143]

8 hours ago, ArabFC said:

I’ve been red-dotted more for this opinion than anything else ever on PnB and I’ve often said Mark McNulty has some skills.

But can we all please finally agree that Scott McTominay is not a fucking centre back?  

Play him in midfield or don’t play him at all.

Until Clarke gets past shit like this and pairing Dykes with a flick-on partner, we’ll never progress.

Yeah, you're right. Not a center-half, not when we're sitting with three actual centerbacks on the bench and quite clearly losing the midfield battle.

[Bing.McCrosby]

7 hours ago, ArabFC said:

I’ve been red-dotted more for this opinion than anything else ever on PnB and I’ve often said Mark McNulty has some skills.

But can we all please finally agree that Scott McTominay is not a fucking centre back?  

Play him in midfield or don’t play him at all.

Until Clarke gets past shit like this and pairing Dykes with a flick-on partner, we’ll never progress.

Your almost always wrong with your opinions. But yeah he was shit again at centre back and much better when he moved to midfield.

Hopefully thats the end of this mctominay experiment.

[Donathan]

Sorry to say that I was wrong on this one.

 
When both Tierney and Robertson are available, it should be a back three with either Jack Hendry or John Souttar in the RCB role and McTominay benched.

 

If one or both or KT/AR is out then we should revert to a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 formation. 

[G51]

He’s our fourth choice centre midfield. Has some great traits, but his overall game is very limited. Which is fine, because what he can do he does fairly well.

He’s never a centre back and he never will be. He should never be an option for CB while we have competent defenders in the squad. I was shocked Clarke picked him for this game to be honest. One of many baffling decisions he made last night.

[craigkillie]

He's a big game player and his attitude is absolutely superb, which is why I think Clarke wants him in the team. I feel like you saw in the last 20 minutes the qualities that he has in that respect, if anything was going to happen he was going to be at the heart of it.

But just as with Dykes, it was a mistake to favour that character and attitude over the sort of system and style that worked in the Denmark and Poland games in particular. Both players would have been great to bring off the bench last night.

McTominay as a centre-back made a lot of sense at the start, and it shouldn't be forgotten that we had a very strong defensive record in the first wee while that he played there, but since then I think the likes of Hendry and Souttar have matured enough to make it no longer necessary.

[2426255]

What specifically was it about Scott McTominay's defending last night that pissed everyone off? He gave the ball away a couple of times (which isn't really attributable to his defending) and I guess people are blaming him for the 2nd goal - apart from that, I'm not seeing it.

[Donathan]

3 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

What specifically was it about Scott McTominay's defending last night that pissed everyone off? He gave the ball away a couple of times (which isn't really attributable to his defending) and I guess people are blaming him for the 2nd goal - apart from that, I'm not seeing it.

Didn’t he get caught in possession by the half way line very nearly leading to a goal at 0-0? Mind you I thought he was fouled.

[2426255]

21 minutes ago, Donathan said:

Didn’t he get caught in possession by the half way line very nearly leading to a goal at 0-0? Mind you I thought he was fouled.

I was re-watching the game anyway with a particular focus on our build up play out the right hand side because Aaron Hickey played last night.

Scott McTominay was caught in possession at 18:58 near the halfway line but the risk was limited as Hickey, Gilmour Hanley and Cooper were covering which is why he stepped into midfield.  On 50:29 he made a horrible pass picked up by Zinchenko which exposed us badly. 

I don't consider either of those defensive errors and it's always a risk when trying to get out a press that's why I'm asking what about his defensive performance was bad because I didn't really see what everyone is so angry at with McTominay. I assume the 2nd goal is part of the reasoning.

I actually thought he played generally reasonably well over the whole 90 minutes in both positions. He did his job in terms of breaking the press through passing and running with the ball very well in my opinion, those previously mentioned slips aside.

Edited June 2, 2022 by 2426255

[Fitbaw_Stu]

is nobody actually going to talk about how bad the referee was last night? and why yaremchuk didn't get a second yellow for leaving the field of play to celebrate with the fans? 

[G51]

43 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

What specifically was it about Scott McTominay's defending last night that pissed everyone off? He gave the ball away a couple of times (which isn't really attributable to his defending) and I guess people are blaming him for the 2nd goal - apart from that, I'm not seeing it.

He's completely incapable of holding his position. If you're re-watching the game, you'll notice the amount of times the ball was played into a Ukrainian forward, he pushed out to meet it, but by the time he got there the ball was played for a one-two in behind the space he had just vacated.

For it to happen once is fair enough. For it to happen every time the ball came into your area is something else entirely.

[2426255]

6 minutes ago, G51 said:

He's completely incapable of holding his position. If you're re-watching the game, you'll notice the amount of times the ball was played into a Ukrainian forward, he pushed out to meet it, but by the time he got there the ball was played for a one-two in behind the space he had just vacated.

For it to happen once is fair enough. For it to happen every time the ball came into your area is something else entirely.

So defensive positioning? I'll re-watch that the now and let you know. 

[ArabFC]

2 hours ago, BingMcCrosby said:

Your almost always wrong with your opinions. But yeah he was shit again at centre back and much better when he moved to midfield.

Hopefully thats the end of this mctominay experiment.

No. Almost always right. It just takes a while for everyone else to catch up

[Bing.McCrosby]

Just now, ArabFC said:

No. Almost always right. It just takes a while for everyone else to catch up

Your consistency wrong.

You come on here (Scotland thread) posting that Russian troops at the border was nothing but sabre rattling and there was no way they were going in.

It was at this exact point I knew the war was going to start.

[Riviera711]

50 minutes ago, G51 said:

.....the amount of times the ball was played into a Ukrainian forward, he pushed out to meet it, but by the time he got there the ball was played for a one-two in behind the space he had just vacated.

For it to happen once is fair enough. For it to happen every time the ball came into your area is something else entirely.

Yes, he was done by three one-twos in the first ten minutes. I like McTominay but he's not a defender; he's not even a good holding midfielder (as shown with his club). He is at his best when driving forward.

Unfortunately, it is another case of a manager's pride and stubbornness winning (losing) over commonsense; he should be playing better defenders now that they've become available.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Riviera711

[G51]

2 minutes ago, Riviera711 said:

Yes, he was done by three one-twos in the first ten minutes. I like McTominay but he's not a defender; he's not even a good holding midfielder (as shown with his club). He is at his best when driving forward.

Unfortunately, it is another case of a manager's pride and stubbornness winning (losing) over commonsense by actually playing better defenders now that they've become available.

He's a classic transition midfielder. It's why he looked so good last night when the game went end-to-end and he was pushed into the middle.

That can be very useful, especially in games where we don't expect to control the ball and it suits us to turn it into that kind of match. For a match you want to control though, he's basically useless.

[jaggyness]

What specifically was it about Scott McTominay's defending last night that pissed everyone off? He gave the ball away a couple of times (which isn't really attributable to his defending) and I guess people are blaming him for the 2nd goal - apart from that, I'm not seeing it.

He gets dragged out of position too easily and caught under the ball a lot. Not entirely his fault as he isn't a centre back but that's the problem with playing him there. It was obvious after 5 minutes last night that Ukraine were targeting him and Hickey. Having them play together in such a huge match was, in hindsight, a massive mistake.

[Antiochas III]

4 minutes ago, jaggyness said:

1 hour ago, 2426255 said:

What specifically was it about Scott McTominay's defending last night that pissed everyone off? He gave the ball away a couple of times (which isn't really attributable to his defending) and I guess people are blaming him for the 2nd goal - apart from that, I'm not seeing it.

He gets dragged out of position too easily and caught under the ball a lot. Not entirely his fault as he isn't a centre back but that's the problem with playing him there. It was obvious after 5 minutes last night that Ukraine were targeting him and Hickey. Having them play together in such a huge match was, in hindsight, a massive mistake.

It's was not hindsight.  It was obvious to many than Hickey wasn't a Right sided defender good enough at the defending part to cover for the RCB frailities.  Absolute mental that people thought he was a better choice than SOD, what was worse Clarke thought it too.  

Edited June 2, 2022 by Antiochas III