That’s exactly what we should be doing. Clarke should be starting Shankland.
Scotland Euro 2024 Squad and Discussion
- Thread starter SilentWitness
- Start date
Yes. I don't really get the thinking behind giving him 3 minutes last night. We needed a goal and our best goalscorer is on the bench.
I think McTominay is our best goalscorer and our biggest threat. But, that seems by design rather than him grabbing the game by the reigns.
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Tend to agree with your analysis. History tells us that having to win the last game, including by a specific margin, is not the kind of pressure situation we can handle.
I was desperate for us to have more of a go against the Swiss towards the end. Imagine the lifting of pressure in the last game if we only needed a draw.
I’d change to a back 4 against Hungary with Tierney out. I don’t think he will but I think it’ll expose the RB less.
That’s what I think I’d go with, but I reckon he sticks with the back 3 and Ralston.
Gunn
McCrorie - Hendry - Hanley - Robertson
Gilmour - McGregor
Forrest - McTominay - McGinn
Shankland
McCrorie - Hendry - Hanley - Robertson
Gilmour - McGregor
Forrest - McTominay - McGinn
Shankland
That’s what I think I’d go with, but I reckon he sticks with the back 3 and Ralston.
I'd agree, get McT as a second striker behind Shankland in whatever way that works but most likely it does in this respect.
I like that, and agree with it being what we should do. Shankland should start and so should Forrest, with McT pushing up into the box. It's given us a chance the other night, but really isn't the situation we are good at handling.
I wouldn't be against that. I definitely want to see Shankland start.
But he's a stubborn so and so is Clarke, and I mean that affectionately. He won't let an issue like lack of appropriate personnel get in the way of playing his preferred system.
I don't think Scotland could've asked for more , win against a Hungary team that likely still fails to qualify even if it wins . It's as close to playing the team with one eye on the beach as they could have got .
I’m Not Scottish but rooting for them, love the country and the people and have good friends there.
Hoping for a McTerminator special, but a McOG will do too.
Time for Shankland to start?
Come On!
Hoping for a McTerminator special, but a McOG will do too.
Time for Shankland to start?
Come On!
Interesting point made. 82 and 86? Ok 82 was against that great Brazil side and your first opponent was New Zealand, but your third game against the USSR maybe Scotland best in the toournament?
86, didn't watched your first match against that great Danish side, but I recently watched your second game in Mexico against Germany and Scotland competed well, first goal scored by Strachan, Germany in the end justified the victory but it was a balanced game.
Didn't watched the third game vs Uruguay but do remember reading some strong comments by British media made at the time calling the Uruguayans a disgrace, don't know what they did but I presume they were being a classic Uruguay side from the 80's that everything possible to win is justified, and I like that mindset from them.
It’s a good dynamic as it forces Hungary to commit as a draw is likely useless for both sides.
Remain concerned about the right-hand side of the team, but feck it let’s go.
I hope you do it .
Ralston - started all 3, not good enough
Adams - started all 3, not good enough.
Germany performance was terrible.
Settling for draw against Switzerland was questionable.
Only going for it in final 20 minutes or so against Hungary when we needed a win to progress - unforgiveable.
We got everything we deserved.
If qualifying for Euros is enough, fine. If not, Clarke needs to go.
Adams - started all 3, not good enough.
Germany performance was terrible.
Settling for draw against Switzerland was questionable.
Only going for it in final 20 minutes or so against Hungary when we needed a win to progress - unforgiveable.
We got everything we deserved.
If qualifying for Euros is enough, fine. If not, Clarke needs to go.
Exactly. His tactics are dog shite. Donkeys like Ralston shouldn’t be in the squad. Shankland should have started every game. Awful tactics. We deserved to go out. I knew that we’d ultimately not get through. Ridiculously upsetting.
Clarke’s approach and decision making never gave us a chance. Continually playing Adams ahead of Shankland was a terrible decision.
Exactly. It’s like playing Antony instead of Amad. Absolutely ridiculous decision. He needs to have somebody give his head a big wobble.
Heartbreaking ending to the match, should’ve gotten a penalty.
What is the point of VAR? If they just randomly pick and choose what gets looked at and what is ignored?
Referee was in a “look at me, I’m the star of the show” literally right from the kick off, disgrace.
Shankland should’ve started, Clarke should’ve been more proactive earlier, it is what it is.
Keep your head high Scots.
What is the point of VAR? If they just randomly pick and choose what gets looked at and what is ignored?
Referee was in a “look at me, I’m the star of the show” literally right from the kick off, disgrace.
Shankland should’ve started, Clarke should’ve been more proactive earlier, it is what it is.
Keep your head high Scots.
Same old same old, point the fingers at the wrong thing. Its the players, we simply dont have enough decent players, in fact we only have one or two. As usual the Scottish football community heads down the wrong path. Ive said it before, until such a time we as fans start to demand of the SFA that we produce higher quality players we will be forever failing when it matters. Each year the overall quality of our footballing stock slips a notch and its been like this for 40 years. Our junior programs especially need to have far more highly skilled coaches, our basics are so poor. Without the very best technique and skills at junior level then we wont ever have the required numbers of youth players with the abilities to translate into having a decent senior squad.
You lot at every tournament do the exact same thing, blame whoever the manager is and never ever ever go after the root cause of our inability to play at a level we all want.
Our players are simply not good enough, it wouldnt matter if you put Pep in charge of them, they still wouldnt be able to get through to the next round.
Its the players, wake up.
You lot at every tournament do the exact same thing, blame whoever the manager is and never ever ever go after the root cause of our inability to play at a level we all want.
Our players are simply not good enough, it wouldnt matter if you put Pep in charge of them, they still wouldnt be able to get through to the next round.
Its the players, wake up.
I'm sorry but if you can look at that and not think Clarke has been at fault for anything you're a muppet. So many others teams with low quality players have played far better football. We barely had any shots in two games. That's despicable and is on his management.
Im sorry but all you have done is gone full circle back to going after the manager and completely ignored the whole point I make after every tournament.
Its a collective blindness
I havent mentioned how competent the manager is, I did point out even Pep wouldnt have got asny better.
Our players simply arent good enough. Please dont make me laugh and tell me you think they are because if you think they are then you are a muppet.
As soon as our fanbase and the wider football community starts demanding better players we start to see change.
Ive been watching Scotland for about 55 years now and its been a slow slide to the bottom. The overall quality of this squad is just anoth small notch worse than last time. The next one will be another slow slide.
Hey but you keep concentrating on the manager.....
Scotland should have had a pen.
Yes, I'll concentrate on a manager who doesn't set up to win as you can have the best or worst side in the tournament but if you set up in that way you'll do nothing.
I know england are a bit of a joke in our own right, but maybe scotland could take a look at what changed in English coaching to produce lots of talent in this gen. same footballing culture so it shouldn't be too hard to implement. Or maybe they already do that? I dunno
Clarke lacked courage and deserves to go, but the quality in the Scotland squad is shocking. Players from Georgia, for example, far more technically sound and comfortable receiving the ball under pressure.
SFA should come under massive scrutiny.
SFA should come under massive scrutiny.
I think there's a good amount of quality in the team. A lot of PL players.
But the setup and playstyle is terrible. Against Germany? Sit the whole team back in two banks of four, really narrow, allowing Germany to do whatever they wanted on the wings.
In the previous game against Switzerland, Mcginn was so far forward you had no midfield. Mctominay as the deep midfielder when he's terrible playing at passing. No midfield means you basically cannot string two passes together. Scotland should've just gone 4-3-3 and actually had some structure. Or 4-4-2.
Something like
Back 4 including Robertson
Mcgin - Gillmour - Tierney
Christie - Adams - Mctominay
Only one that sticks out in that front 6 is Mctominay, but I'd have him there for his goal threat. Tierney is comfortable on the ball. All premier league players. There's really no excuse for the sit 10 men behind the ball with no midfield and not being able to string 3 passes together structure that Scotland displayed. You've had some terrible teams over the last 15 years that I've been watching football. This one actually has quality. Now that most of them are getting older, you'll revert back to what you had ten years ago, which is a shame.
Shocked at how conservative and negative they were tonight. Hungary are a well drilled team and you need to get close to the Liverpool guy but the rest of the team are far closer to Scotland's level than Swiss or Germany.
Look at comparable squads like Slovakia and Romania and both have won a game at this tournament and had far more attacking ambition.
Really disappointed in Clarke's tactics. He's clinging on a bit now like Rob Page was after last World cup I think and much harder to qualify for World cup than Euros so can see them making a change in the next year.
Look at comparable squads like Slovakia and Romania and both have won a game at this tournament and had far more attacking ambition.
Really disappointed in Clarke's tactics. He's clinging on a bit now like Rob Page was after last World cup I think and much harder to qualify for World cup than Euros so can see them making a change in the next year.
I'm not even sure they'll qualify for the next Euros. There's a lot of good younger squads in the 'lesser' nations and most of Scotland's best players will be past 30 in 4 years.
It's a shame to make a Euros and then put on that in 3 games. I get that there's not many top calibre managers looking to be international coaches, but surely you can find someone that plays non-useless football like Mckenna or Carrick from the lower leagues to give it a go for a year or so during the international tournaments.
Both Clarke and Southgate heavily carried by good squads.
It's a shame to make a Euros and then put on that in 3 games. I get that there's not many top calibre managers looking to be international coaches, but surely you can find someone that plays non-useless football like Mckenna or Carrick from the lower leagues to give it a go for a year or so during the international tournaments.
Both Clarke and Southgate heavily carried by good squads.
This is fair. I think Clarke’s done a solid job over his span in charge. Regained some respectability and has been particularly good in the qualifiers. He was also dealt a poor hand by the injuries to Patterson, Hickey, Dykes, Ferguson and Tierney.
But he doesn’t feel like a great fit for this group of players. Refuses to budge from the 361 system which neuters our attack. His tactical decisions in the last 3 games have been poor. It took him 260 minutes to change a shape for the last 10 minutes of the tournament. Yet it was obvious within the first minute against Germany that we had a major structural issue. Doesn’t use Forrest on the right despite him being on fire at the end of the season,, but chooses a defensive right-back sorely out of his depth which gives us nothing on the right of the pitch. Started Gilmour on the bench even though he’s the best passer in the team and would probably start for England. Shankland got about 25 minutes all tournament yet showed more penalty box threat in that time than Adams did in the other 255. List goes on and on.
We’re one of the hosts so we’ll qualify automatically. But yeah, we probably won’t qualify for the next World Cup. We’re going nowhere.
Unlucky. Injuries and lack of quality killed them.
Dykes, Ferguson, Hickey. Good entertainment.
Dykes, Ferguson, Hickey. Good entertainment.
I think the rule is only 2 hosts can qualify automatically, and they plan to let all home nations enter qualification. So you'll probably need to be better than the worst 2 teams to qualify, given that England will definitely qualify. Wales and NI are pretty toss at the moment so you'll probably be better than them.
How about concentrating on demanding we produce better players for a change? Clearly the focus on concentrating on managers isnt working because its been 40 years or more of failure....
We keep thinking that having a sports car chassis will work with a Lada engine
Hopefully that’s the end of Steve Clarke as Scotland boss. Embarrassing statistics for Scotland in the tournament.
keeps his best midfielder on the bench vs Germany. Persists with Che Adams who just couldn’t make anything work. And played negative, “no risk” football in a game that was a must win. Between that and his obnoxious interviews I’ll be glad to see the back of him.
keeps his best midfielder on the bench vs Germany. Persists with Che Adams who just couldn’t make anything work. And played negative, “no risk” football in a game that was a must win. Between that and his obnoxious interviews I’ll be glad to see the back of him.
Sorry i just cant agree, the quality is very very poor.
We couldnt handle the German press because our technique and skill levels were so poor, we ended up playing long ball football not because we wanted to use that as a tactic but because we simply were forced to by our lack of ability on the ball.
Against Hungary we had really poor ball speed, not because we didnt want to move the ball quickly but because our player body position and technique before receiving the ball is not what is needed at this level.
Our players simply arent good enough.
Top comment on his post match interview:
"Why does he always look like he's peeking over a fence?"
I gave you a lineup of a front 6 of 6 PL players. Are you saying the technique of PL players is poor?
It's the setup and the tactics.
Let's go back ten years to 2014 world cup qualifcation. This is the lineup Scotland fielded against Belgium, almost none of whom played in the PL.
David MARSHALL (GK)
Alan HUTTON
Steven WHITTAKER
Russell MARTIN
Grant HANLEY
Shaun MALONEY
Charlie MULGREW
Scott BROWN (C)
Leigh GRIFFITHS (-68')
Robert SNODGRASS (-57')
James FORREST (-86')
Im saying that the depth of players we have that are capable of getting out of group stages is not good enough. We always have 1 or 2 decent players who are good enough but the rest are journeymen. Che Adams isnt good enough, he is a PL player but seriously if you think he is good enough I dont know what to say. We need more depth in terms of quality. Seriously that team we had out there tonight was just not good enough and even when we swap out the players that we all agree shouldnt have played their replacements are simply not much better.
As you go higher up the level the technique and skill levels have to increase as you go. A journeyman EPL player has no chance at playing at the level of a team thats getting out of groups or going even further. They have to be able to do the simple things perfectly under pressure and at pace. I can look fantastic playing sunday league but move up the level and I just look like a muppet.
Me blaming players doesnt mean Im defending the manager.
However every tournament the when we fail the fans blame the manager and nobody talks about the dire lack of really great players.
We have an absolute glut of journeymen players but not a single world class player and very very few players who are standouts at top clubs.
We keep failing not because of shit managers (of which we have had plenty) but because we do not produce enough players at a high enough level for us to qualify out of tournament group stages.
My argument is simple, we will have success in the future if Scotland fans put even half as much effort into demanding the SFA do something about improving our junior player development as we fans do in moaning about managers.
Blaming managers each failure deflects attention away from the root cause of our problems.
Would Dykes have made the difference in these last couple of games then do you reckon