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Ukraine v Scotland (27/9/22)


accies1874

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What a team. What a bloody team. Just when I don't think I could love Stevie Clarke any more, he goes and masterminds one of the best 0-0 draws we've ever had and puts us in amongst the big boys. Who genuinely could have foreseen this after Kazakhstan away, eh?

To state the bleeding obvious as many others already have, Hickey and Porteous were tremendous. Porteous in particular, having had a bit of a rough time on and off the park of late, put in the kind of shift you'd see from Franco Baresi for AC Milan in the early 90s. McLean was the only shanner of a performance, and almost everyone to a man did excellently. 

The bigger takeaway from this that will become apparent soon enough is that we're guaranteed the playoff should the Euro 2024 qualification campaign go badly wrong - the Nations League as a competition has been very good to Scotland and it's also eliminated all the crap, pointless friendlies we used to have to endure. Yes, League A will be a tough shift and there's every chance we might struggle to stay up - but tonight, let's just drink it in and celebrate. Besides, how many times in your life will you get to hear the words "England relegated"?

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3 minutes ago, KingRocketman II said:

O'Donnell not getting a lot of love on this thread tonight. He will always be my right back....

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Hard to say he's never stepped up to the plate and his contributions will be remembered, but times change. He'll always have that performance against England to be remembered fondly for, and this as his undoubted crown jewel.

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OH WHAT A SIGHT
WATCHING SCOTLAND ON A TUESDAY NIGHT
ENGLAND RELEGATED
FUCKING SHITE
WHAT A FEELING, WHAT A NIGHT

Edited by Comrie
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4 minutes ago, Gordopolis said:

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but the offside trap was employed to perfection tonight.

A mate of mine was listening on the radio, and the commentators obviously didn't realise this was the tactic, as he came away thinking Ukraine had shellacked us for 90 mins and we had just got lucky.

We did get lucky at times, but the defensive line moving up was strategy, not luck.

Yeah they did very good at the offside trap tonight. 

Jack Hendry was a huge leader in the defence tonight. He is 7 years older than Hickey and 3/4 years older than Taylor and Porteous. Hendry took charge and led that defence to the clean sheet tonight.

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What Steve Clarke has done so impressively throughout his reign is bring a bit of a feel good factor back to the national team. For years, particularly under Burley, Levein and Mcleish (2nd spell), you got the impression that for some players, playing for Scotland was a chore. You’d get the usual pull outs and then some sheepishly saying they wanted to solely focus on club football (Ritchie, Snodgrass, S. Fletcher)

Now everyone seems genuinely desperate to play and combine that with probably our most talented pool of players in years, certainly in my lifetime, it’s bodes so well going forward in terms of reaching major tournaments regularly

A number of people are quick to discredit Clarke for his style of football but I think we’re beginning to witness the fruits of sticking by him through the tougher times. We’re slowly evolving from a technical perspective from an extremely compact and stuffy team to a confident, brave yet still aggressive and hard to beat team.  
 

A striker and a goalkeeper to come through over the next couple years would be lovely but the way Gordon is playing, I’m convinced he could play at the top level til he’s 42 or 43. What a resurgence from the guy the last couple of seasons. I thought he was finished after leaving Celtic but that Hearts move has done wonders in terms of top level performances

Edited by qpfc
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14 minutes ago, Fratelli said:

How the f**k have we went from being basically fucked at RB (what feels like) months ago to suddenly having two Premier League starting right backs to pick from - neither of whom have even turned 21 yet. Maybe Mark Wotte's revolution worked after all. 

It does feel emblematic of the overall improvement in our squad though. We've slowly crept up a level, to the point where Premier League regulars such as Fraser - who would've been the forced talisman we desperately pinned our hopes on in the past - are just regular squad players who can come in and out. The average level of our squad feels like a full division higher than it was a decade or so ago and it's very encouraging. 

A decade ago a lot of our players played in the English championship and it showed. 

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17 minutes ago, Fratelli said:

How the f**k have we went from being basically fucked at RB (what feels like) months ago to suddenly having two Premier League starting right backs to pick from - neither of whom have even turned 21 yet. Maybe Mark Wotte's revolution worked after all. 

It does feel emblematic of the overall improvement in our squad though. We've slowly crept up a level, to the point where Premier League regulars such as Fraser - who would've been the forced talisman we desperately pinned our hopes on in the past - are just regular squad players who can come in and out. The average level of our squad feels like a full division higher than it was a decade or so ago and it's very encouraging. 

The average level of our Squad basically has gone up a level, if not 2.

Players at the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, Man U. Champions league players, Premier League & Serie A players. They aren’t just bit part players of those clubs either, most are first team regulars. 

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4 minutes ago, accies1874 said:

The past year supporting Scotland has been the highlight of my time as a football fan.

 

Agreed. And one of the things that’s so good about it is the idea that some of these players will form the bedrock of the national side for the next decade or more. None of this worrying about players being sold pish that afflicts Scottish club football. 

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From turning round that disastrous result in Dublin, making the decision about the change of formation and dealing with a shit load of injuries over three difficult games, this has been a superbly managed week from Clarke - I'd say his best since he took the job. 

Taking us to pot 2 from the starting point of that Kazakhstan game is some doing, an even more impressive milestone than getting us to the Euros. The emergence of some really good players has obviously helped, but integrating them properly is a challenge in itself and I'm not convinced someone like McLeish would even have capped people like Hickey, Patterson, Gilmour, Adams, Dykes by now.

f**k the play off and f**k the seeding. The European 'elite' are dross across the board and fully ready for a hounding - get this competition won.

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