Scotland down the years

Baldrick wrote: if Ireland qualified last night against Slovakia you would have seen the same passion from the Irish players.    Scotland won two peno shoot outs to qualify one at home one away.  We lost our peno shoot out away.  Slovakia and Serbia are much of a muchness and Scotland and Ireland are much of a muchness.    If we won our own shootout and Scotland lost theirs they could have easily been in Wembley been pumped by England.  It’s tiny margins for 2nd and 3rs seeds.  Scotland are just further down the road of their new manager and have the sticky part and bedding in period over and done with. I don’t think for a second their players are more passionate than ours.

At the moment I don't think Scotland/ Ireland are really much of a muchness at all. Tierney (Arsenal), Mc Tominay, (Utd), Roberston (Liverpool), Billy Gilmour (Chelsea) are all relatively young players  finding a niche at Elite Clubs this is the stuff of dreams for ROI fans at the moment. With a strong supporting cast of Mc Ginn, Stuart Armstrong,Ryan Fraser,James Forrest, Callum Mc Gregor, Ryan Christie they have the makings of a very decent first 11, despite the notable lack of a marquee striker,or top level centre back. In addition they have a manager with vast experience of top level football, with clubs like Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle, West ham, West brom, Villa etc, and a pragmatic streak which masks scotlands short comings, Its way too early to call Kenny but every game he manages at the moment is the biggest game of his career and he doesn't have a blueprint that is proven to work for any level outside of LOI. Clarke is only 14 games into his Scotland tenure so they're hardly street ahead in their progression.  

Larsson7 wrote: At the moment I don't think Scotland/ Ireland are really much of a muchness at all. Tierney (Arsenal), Mc Tominay, (Utd), Roberston (Liverpool), Billy Gilmour (Chelsea) are all relatively young players  finding a niche at Elite Clubs this is the stuff of dreams for ROI fans at the moment. With a strong supporting cast of Mc Ginn, Stuart Armstrong,Ryan Fraser,James Forrest, Callum Mc Gregor, Ryan Christie they have the makings of a very decent first 11, despite the notable lack of a marquee striker,or top level centre back. In addition they have a manager with vast experience of top level football, with clubs like Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle, West ham, West brom, Villa etc, and a pragmatic streak which masks scotlands short comings, Its way too early to call Kenny but every game he manages at the moment is the biggest game of his career and he doesn't have a blueprint that is proven to work for any level outside of LOI. Clarke is only 14 games into his Scotland tenure so they're hardly street ahead in their progression.

exactly.  

ErsatzThistle wrote: Baldrick wrote: How was Clarke doing after 6 games into his reign?   IIRC he had won two (Cyprus & San Marino) and lost four (Belguim & Russia). Conceded a lot of goals too.  It taught Clarke that we couldn't play with four at the back and several players were either past it or not good enough.

ErsatzThistle wrote: YBIG didn't have to go through the Berti Vogts years

sid waddell wrote: ErsatzThistle wrote: YBIG didn't have to go through the Berti Vogts years  At least Bertie Votes wasn't the actual Prime Minister of your country

ErsatzThistle wrote: Trap junior wrote: Would you recommend we keep going or just pack in international football? Take it from someone who is used to having his head in his hands in sheer anger and frustration when it comes to his national team- stick with Stephen Kenny. He's got the right idea about how football should be played.  YBIG didn't have to go through the Berti Vogts years  We had guys like (see if you can remember any of these) Kevin Kyle, Maurice Ross, Rab Douglas, Scott Dobie, Scott Severin, Michael Stewart, Gareth Williams, Lee Wilkie, Stevie Thompson, Paul Devlin, Robbie Stockdale, and Stevie f**king Crawford etc etc etc turning out for us. It was utter pish. A truly horrible few years. I should add to be fair, that those aforementioned lads did try their best of course but none of them were anywhere near good enough for international football. It was horrible and we were the laughing stock of European football. Michael Stewart and Stevie Thompson have turned out to be pretty good pundits though.  Here's a quick quiz question for you - who are the only two players from the current Scotland squad that made their debuts under Berti Vogts ? (hint: they both play the same position) Answer: David Marshall and Craig Gordon

McG wrote: Graeme Sharp 12 caps