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Scotland v Spain 28/03/2023


Donathan

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28 minutes ago, KnightswoodBear said:

I am very much hoping that my dodgy chinese Scotland top arrives before I leave for Spain on Friday so I can wear it to the Cadiz - Seville game on Saturday. 

DH Gate? Tell us what the quality is like.

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It’s very refreshing to visit the TA section of the forum & not have the Billy Gilmour thread top of the pile, even better is that the Mctominay / centre backs / tierney threads holding nothing but praise for their performances. 
I thought the team, to a man, were magnificent last night. The guys who were brought on too. I noticed when the unused subs came on to the pitch after FT every single one of them had a huge smile on their pus, Clarke has got these guys working as a unit & personal performance isn’t a factor, it’s all about the result. Great to witness. 

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1 hour ago, Alert Mongoose said:

I get what you are saying but if you take the game as a whole we deserved to win comfortably.

You could easily turn it around and say it was game over if Dykes had finished just before halftime.

Well that's really what I was saying. I stated in my post that "we absolutely deserved to win that". My comment was I didn't feel it was as comfortable as some were making out.

We were under a rather lengthy period of sustained pressure from Spain leading up to half-time. I don't think many could've complained had we gone in at the break level.

56 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

They had chances in the first half but I was on here before the final whistle saying it was in the bag. Spain had absolutely no idea how to get through our backline. We could still be playing now and it'd be 2-0. 

If that the other way round last night I'd be saying "we're never scoring tonight". It goes to show the faith I have in that defence that I felt comfortable saying "Spain aren't scoring here". 

I agree in the second half we shut them out excellently. The game as a whole however I think is different. As I've already said, we 100% deserved to win it - I just didn't see it as the 'cigars out' type of performance many are claiming (whilst I do accept that Spain totally ran out of ideas in that second half).

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It’s already been done to death but the brass neck on Rodri. You’ll seldom see a more cynical team than Spain last night and it was just a case that they didn’t like it up them.

I was watching Porteous quite closely and it was an absolute masterclass in gamesmanship, things you only notice at the game but he backed it up with a top drawer defensive performance. It’s amazing how various CBs have stepped up in the last few windows (Souttar, Hendry, Porteous) and surely no need to play goal machine McTominay at CB unless in emergency. 
 

I certainly didn’t feel comfortable until the 6th minute of injury time because if they had scored they would have thrown the kitchen sink at us regardless of how comfortable we had been to that point and we would have sat in, but in retrospect we were so solid defensively all they really had were crosses into the box.

It could easily have been 3 or 4 given the chances we missed but not going to complain at 2-0.

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28 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

What’s this nonsense that Andy Robertson was lucky not to be off? 

lets be honest if he did that in SPFL and it went to VAR he'd be off. Not because it was a red card offence but the refs are absolutely hopeless.

Thankfully the refs last night had some common sense.

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3 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

Why are there utter morons all over Twitter saying Robertson was lucky - Richard Gordon even said it last night. He fucking tapped him in the chest. It isn’t a red card in any way. 

The fact it looked like they needed an undertaker rather than the physio tells you all you need to know about Porro’s actions and motives, but I suppose there is always a risk some over-officious ref buys it.

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3 minutes ago, KnightswoodBear said:

Yeah, ive had a couple of tops from there before and they are spot on. Will see what this one is like.

I got the Euro 2020 top from a supplier on DH Gate for me and the boy and they were decent quality. Postmark on the package it came in was that place Covid originated in. 

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6 minutes ago, PrestersKTID said:

lets be honest if he did that in SPFL and it went to VAR he'd be off. Not because it was a red card offence but the refs are absolutely hopeless.

Thankfully the refs last night had some common sense.

If it had gone to VAR he would have been off. If the ref had sent him off, it wouldn’t have been rescinded. It was stupid at best by Robertson, but it’s more a commentary on VAR than the seriousness or otherwise of his actions. 
 

 

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What a pleasing performance.  

Nothing particularly novel to add given the discussions already had.  We were as disciplined as I can remember, and it's very clear that Clarke had an effective game plan to deal with Spain.

That we were able to reduce Spain to taking the ball out wide and lobbing the ball into the area is both testament to how organised we were, but also their relative decline.  It might be a new manager and a new team, but it seems they've not learned anything from their WC exit.

Borrowed from above, but if the positions had been reversed, we wouldn't have believed that we could pull that game back.  We've seen us do it in Georgia and other similar fixtures.  Whilst we were nervous - I wonder how many Spanish fans had any real belief in their ability to recover that game.

It's also brilliant to see us have another way of winning a game of football.  We gave up a few chances, but it's also true that the four/five best chances of the game all fell to a blue shirt.  That is quite incredible.

From having no right backs, a serious impending goalkeeper problem, no quality at centre half, and no strikers... we now have high quality options in every position.  Not only that, but our players are almost all the right side of 30 (if 30 even really matters as much as it used to), and with our most important players now on 30+, 40+, and 50+ caps.  It's entirely conceivable that every player who started last night will make it into the Hall of Fame.  We might not end up with Belgium/Spain levels of caps, but we've never had a core team with the experience this team will have - not even remotely close.

Nothing has been achieved yet, but last night had a 5-point swing on what could have been.  In previous campaigns we lost to the Germans, whilst Ireland got last minute winners in Georgia.  We've also submarined ourselves against Macedonia, Lithuania (x3), Moldova etc.  Both this week's games are examples of our progress.

Spain now cannot let up against anyone.  That is hugely helpful.

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8 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

If it had gone to VAR he would have been off. If the ref had sent him off, it wouldn’t have been rescinded. It was stupid at best by Robertson, but it’s more a commentary on VAR than the seriousness or otherwise of his actions. 
 

 

It did go to VAR. VAR decided nothing untoward.  

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