Big Dec

[weeyin]

11 minutes ago, Spiderpig said:

And so it turned out, we needed 1 win against the bottom team to secure the group and promotion, so Clarke  changes a winning team, normal service is resumed then.

I think you're being a bit harsh, there. He was resting the players that had put in an immense shift two and a half days ago, and who are undoubtedly physically and emotionally spent.

A calculated risk that almost paid off. No doubt we'll see the regular starters back for the Israel game.

And given that we've been unbeaten in the last 9, losing once is the opposite of "normal service".

[Brazilian]

Did Declan say in his club interview the other day his family are still living up in Dundee?

 

[Shaka]

1 hour ago, Spiderpig said:

And so it turned out, we needed 1 win against the bottom team to secure the group and promotion, so Clarke  changes a winning team, normal service is resumed then.

Got to be trolling there. If we had a semi competent striker (literally ANYBODY but McBurnie!) Scotlands B Team wouldve beaten Slovakia 2 or 3-1 in Bratislava. Cant remember the last time we were anywhere near as close

[ropy]

1 hour ago, Brazilian said:

Did Declan say in his club interview the other day his family are still living up in Dundee?

 

Yes he is in Dundee but has family in Hamilton

[Spiderpig]

1 hour ago, Shaka said:

Got to be trolling there. If we had a semi competent striker (literally ANYBODY but McBurnie!) Scotlands B Team wouldve beaten Slovakia 2 or 3-1 in Bratislava. Cant remember the last time we were anywhere near as close

No trolling , but as you say why start with mcburnie he is brutal, keep the same team that got us on the winning run and to the Euros, if the game was meaningless then no argument but we still need to win the group to ensure promotion. 

So the same team should have started, now we need to beat Israel again, a harder game than Slovakia,  making it harder for ourselves its the Scottish way 

[GazzyB]

Qualifying for major competitions, topping our Nations League group and then gurning like fuck coz we lose our first game in ten is the Scottish way.

[Spiderpig]

16 minutes ago, GazzyB said:

Qualifying for major competitions, topping our Nations League group and then gurning like fuck coz we lose our first game in ten is the Scottish way.

 nothing wrong with wanting or expecting your team club or country to win every game they play.

[Welldaft Mk1]

51 minutes ago, Spiderpig said:

No trolling , but as you say why start with mcburnie he is brutal, keep the same team that got us on the winning run and to the Euros, if the game was meaningless then no argument but we still need to win the group to ensure promotion. 

So the same team should have started, now we need to beat Israel again, a harder game than Slovakia,  making it harder for ourselves its the Scottish way 

FWIW I said something similar a day or two ago. If you want to win the group go all out to do so in the game v Slovakia.  Strongest team. They only made 4 changes and we made 8 ! 

Clearly Dykes was suspended but we have left ourselves with a hill to climb. Beating Israel in Israel will be very tough. They beat us comfortably last time we were there if I recall. 

The Czechs will win at home v Slovakia so we will need 3 points. 

Still I felt we were worthy of at least a point today. Almost 50% possession and more chances than a team ranked 15 places above us. We can all see improvements. 

[GrahamH]

4 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

No trolling , but as you say why start with mcburnie he is brutal, keep the same team that got us on the winning run and to the Euros, if the game was meaningless then no argument but we still need to win the group to ensure promotion. 

So the same team should have started, now we need to beat Israel again, a harder game than Slovakia,  making it harder for ourselves its the Scottish way 

What if we played the same team today and they were still done in from Thursday and lost the game? Do we then ask them to go again on Wednesday or play a weakened team in a potential win or bust game? Surely better to take a calculated risk today and then have the strongest team fit and fresh for Wednesday?

[yosemite sam]

Why oh why is McBurnie still in that squad. He is absolutely murder, and shouldn't be anywhere near the Scotland team.

[CoF]

3 hours ago, yosemite sam said:

Why oh why is McBurnie still in that squad. He is absolutely murder, and shouldn't be anywhere near the Scotland team.

Clarke has found a winning system with a big target man up front. We've got absolutely no-one to replace Dykes when he's out so Clarke has a choice of changing the entire system to fit the likes of Griffiths in, or trying to find another target man. He's obviously hoping McBurnie would be that guy, however Clarke will be well aware that it's not really working. 

With international games few and far between, persevering with McBurnie or trying to find a whole new system is a difficult balance to strike. I'm sure he'll make the right judgement either way. 

 

[grizzlyg]

I think about 19 of the 23 squad places are already a shoe in barring injury of course. Up front you have dykes and Griffiths but after that all to play for.....if ever an incentive for Tony Watt it is now,  mcburnie struggling and I actually feel sorry for him, burke and Paterson and even shankland must be looking over their shoulders.  If Watt continues good form then he gives himself a chance.  Hey....how great would it be to have 3 well players in squad? The most provided by any club just behind sellik

[Welldaft Mk1]

59 minutes ago, grizzlyg said:

I think about 19 of the 23 squad places are already a shoe in barring injury of course. Up front you have dykes and Griffiths but after that all to play for.....if ever an incentive for Tony Watt it is now,  mcburnie struggling and I actually feel sorry for him, burke and Paterson and even shankland must be looking over their shoulders.  If Watt continues good form then he gives himself a chance.  Hey....how great would it be to have 3 well players in squad? The most provided by any club just behind sellik

Sadly Grizzly they are both likely to be ex players come Euro 2021. Both may be gone come January. Just how it is for us Well fans. 

 

[wellsince75]

51 minutes ago, Welldaft Mk1 said:

Sadly Grizzly they are both likely to be ex players come Euro 2021. Both may be gone come January. Just how it is for us Well fans. 

 

agree - take pride that we helped develop Gallagher to this level and somewhat lucky to land ODonnell for a short period of time.

possible to keep both til the end of the season  - that would be decent. 

[grizzlyg]

1 hour ago, wellsince75 said:

agree - take pride that we helped develop Gallagher to this level and somewhat lucky to land ODonnell for a short period of time.

possible to keep both til the end of the season  - that would be decent. 

As I said before I think we will have them till end of season but after that ye i reckon both will be off. January is huge for them, if an offer came in elsewhere do they take the financial security and risk their place in euro squad incase they dont get game time...or stay till euros and put themselves in shop window in front of huge audience 

[CoF]

On 11/16/2020 at 7:37 PM, grizzlyg said:

As I said before I think we will have them till end of season but after that ye i reckon both will be off. January is huge for them, if an offer came in elsewhere do they take the financial security and risk their place in euro squad incase they dont get game time...or stay till euros and put themselves in shop window in front of huge audience 

Not a bad position to be in but it's a gamble either way. Move to a new club to earn the big money, but risk the chance to step out in front of 80'000** for Scotland at Wembley.

 

** If our governments get their shit together. 

[weeyin]

Back to the Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd, Motherwell, Motherwell defensive line up tonight.

[Spiderpig]

1 hour ago, weeyin said:

Back to the Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd, Motherwell, Motherwell defensive line up tonight.

The Motherwell content of the defence has been subbed after 72 minutes both of them had a good game.

[Andy H]

If Watt keeps playing how he is playing he should be in the squad.  McBirnie is utter dog shite

[Spiderpig]

Who would be a Scotland fan.....Great result last Sunday team on a great run and a place at the Euros secured. Next target win the nations league group for promotion to league A and in with the good teams, 1 win from two games against the 2 bottom sides who we had already beaten was all that was required to round off a great week, and we fuck it up in both games  glorious failure, Scotland are the best in the world at it.

[grizzlyg]

1 hour ago, Spiderpig said:

Who would be a Scotland fan.....Great result last Sunday team on a great run and a place at the Euros secured. Next target win the nations league group for promotion to league A and in with the good teams, 1 win from two games against the 2 bottom sides who we had already beaten was all that was required to round off a great week, and we fuck it up in both games  glorious failure, Scotland are the best in the world at it.

This time last week if someone had said you won't win nations league but will qualify for euros I know what I would have taken....onwards and upwards 

[weeyin]

1 hour ago, grizzlyg said:

This time last week if someone had said you won't win nations league but will qualify for euros I know what I would have taken....onwards and upwards 

Of course. The Czechs are better than us right now and deserved to win the group. It would have been nice to win it, but it's progress when people complain we missed out in playing with the elite teams rather than complaining about struggling against San Marino.

We know what is needed now to qualify from our World Cup group, so the rest is up to the players.

A decent balance of  "fantastic, we are in the Euros!" and "we still have work to do to improve".

[Goggles & Flippers]

I just realised, since Thursday, our nation became England.

I'll take you back to the 2018 World Cup, England are in not the hardest group, but loose out to Belgium (they are pretty good) hump Panama (expected) and squeeze by against Tunisia (not expected). They then get Colombia (tasty but crazy streak) and get through on pens. Next is Sweden who won their group and probably most people's weakest team when the draw was made in F, crazy in itself as Germany and South Korea went to shit. 2-0 vs them and then Croatia, the first team of any pedigree or class other than Belgium, and then they're out at Semi Final stage. They meet Belgium again third place playoff and again papped. They faced 3 games against decent teams and were beaten in all three.

The come home as 4th in the world, Southgate given an OBE, English press say "its only a matter of time".

I don't want to take anything away from our achievement, the nations league by definition puts teams of similar stature in the same group so games are going to be tight. We scraped through a few, rode our luck in others (but we've been at the worse end of that in our time so I'm happy to accept it). The Czech team getting covid and having to field a virtual brand new one was a major bonus for us away from home. We had 10 points and all we had to do was see it through. I wonder if Clarke regrets not fielding more from Thursday night against arguably the weakest team in our group on Sunday. However the Czech's won it and fair play to them on balance they deserved it as they got results that we didn't ..... but we were in such a good place going into these games.

Thursday night heroics maybe masked a few issues we still have. We got there via another penalty shootout in October where an outstretched arm was the difference. While we were immense, Serbia were unexpectedly chronically bad and then it went to a penalty lottery as we didn't screw the nut in the final minute.

We just need to be more lethal with our chances in the way Motherwell were so wasteful for the first 6 games or so this season. I don't think McBurnie enhances the squad, he seems there based on the stature of his club team rather than what he has brought. 

[yosemite sam]

I agree about McBurnie, 14/15 games and no goals. His hold up pay is virtually non existent , he's not that great in the air. We need another option up front for the future, he ain't it.

[Well Well]

Inevitable

https://www.teamtalk.com/news/exclusive-sheff-utd-wba-chasing-declan-gallagher