Mon the bonnie Scotland!!!

kevin04 · Mon the bonnie Scotland!!!

let's get our campaign kicking off in style tomorrow in Macedonia, it's a mighty difficult game but I think we can show the spirit and go there.. a point would be a good result but a win would be amazing.

mon the scotland!!!

i will support you through thick and think....

enjoy the game tomorrow rinty, lothian sky, william, relucant hero, aberdeenfc, alasdair, redjustice, and all the scottish fans on this boardl

Reluctant Hero

Pretty disappointing result today.

We just weren't at the races in the first half. Lot better display in the second.

Thought when Maloney came on, he looked particularly dangerous. Don't know why it was left so late to bring him on though. Thought he should have been on way before Commons.

It continues to amaze me what the big deal about Scott Brown is! He is mince! Should never be playing for Scotland.

McFadden and Miller played their hearts out and Gordon had a couple of wonder saves.

The ref had a pretty dodgy game. First it was never a free-kick for their goal, then he denied us a stone-wall penalty.

Nevermind, it is only the first game. If we can somehow pick up 3 points on Wednesday, it will be a half-decent start to the campaign.

kevin04

very disappointing start for us yesterday, felt the macedonias totally bossed the first half and controlled the game in points. I was half expecting us to lose this game and not totally convinced by GB so far.

For me, Kenny Miller is the type of player we should be throwing on at 62 minutes when 1-0 up or so - he'll chase everything but his first touch is shocking.

The second half gave me a bit of a lift but still no end product and why couldn't we have started the game like that? Maloney and Boyd need to start on Wednesday - Boyd has a fantastic goalscoring rate for club/country, and a good win would get the confidence back hopefully and also would set the table up very nicely if Macedonia/Holland draw or a dutch win.

Still all to play for but 6pts in our next 2games is a must and I've seen Iceland lose 3-0 to Liechtenstein this year so we can surely beat them and if we cannot we don't deserve to be at world cups and such.

azzuri

...pish, but we're going to beat Iceland 3-0! Very Happy

Reluctant Hero

Good result for Scotland tonight, although I do fear that somewhere along this World Cup qualifying process, we are going to take a hammering.

Our defence was again at sixes and sevens at times tonight.

Nevermind, that is for another day, just enjoying the moment just now Very Happy

kevin04

Hard win against the Icelanders but 3pts on the board, none the less.

Attention now turns to Norway at home and again I´ll take a unfancied 2-1 win for Scotland here and now, the Weegies then play away to Holland and if they lose both their games they'll be on 1 out of a possible 9 points - so we need to be aware that they'll be fancying something from Hampden.

Iceland-Macedonia in October and hopefully a draw or an Icelandic win could help us.

Great to see Maloney, Boyd, Mulgrew and S.Fletcher all playing quite well at the weekend. I´d take Mulgrew into the squad for the next game and Fletcher has been rank the past 3 games for us, I´d look at dropping him for Norway unless his club form is superb.

kevin04

Well it's back round again, the international fixture build up.

A tough game on Sat against the Weegies Laughing

, I'd take a nerve bitting 2-1 win here and now and if we manage to get 3pts, Norway's next game is Holland at Oslo and if they lost that, They'd be sitting on 1pt from 9 - of course thinking ahead is never the answer but hopefully a better performance than last time and a win to go with it,

Good luck the lads.

Reluctant Hero

I see that Miller is out. Hope that doesn't make too much difference. Hopefully he will go with Boyd and McFadden up front.

I'd take a 2-1 right now as well, but looking at our defenders, I think we may need more than 2 goals to win!

kevin04

I know what you mean about our defenders,

Weir is 38! I can't believe he's the best we've got to play there, Burley should have at least given Berra a few minutes in the N.I game or even the Iceland match when McManus was sent off.

We have a good nucleas of a squad in midfield and upfront.
Maloney, Hartley, Ferguson, Thomson, Fletcher, Brown, Robson are all good enough..

Reluctant Hero

Well, where do I start after that performance?

We had the majority of possession, but never looked like doing anything with it. The few times Norway got the ball, it was head in the hands stuff as they carved through the Scottish defence.

Before the match I was willing to give Burley the benefit of any doubt. I liked his attacking mentality and thought that any criticism was perhaps a wee bit unfair after so few games, but after today I have no sympathy.

Before I go any further, I do not support either Celtic or Rangers so any praise, or more likely criticism, is not based on petty rivalry.

I had slight doubts about Burley's selections in previous games when he brought on Kris Commons. I have no doubt he is an excellent player, but is he good enough to pull on the Scotland jersey?

Those doubts were carried forward into this match. It is all very well going for a 4-3-3 formation, but you would think at least one of the front players should be an out an out striker. A finisher. Someone with clinical instinct.

Maloney and McFadden are more creative players, although McFadden has done great of late. And James Morrison? Maybe it's my ignorance of football, but does he merit a starting place?

Onto the game, Scotland started brightly with a couple of corners and my hopes started to rise. But it wasn't long before it was obvious that we would have a good deal of possession, but no cutting edge.

At the other end, we were being sliced open more times than a carcus on a butcher's table. Weir in the centre of defence FFS? He is 38!! And Broadfoot gave the ball away more times than I have got fingers, so I lost count.

Thought Burley called it right when he made the changes though. It was the perfect time. Get Boyd on in place of Morrison to partner McFadden up front. Perfect partnership.

But what is this? He is bringing McFadden OFF? Barely 55 minutes gone and he is bringing off Scotland's most creative player? That is OK, he is putting on a proven goalscorer, Boyd.

NO?

WHO?

Iwelumo?

Maybe it is my ignorance coming through again, but WTF?

Nevermind at least it is a striker.

Second later......ball into the box, Iwelumo is 2 yards out. He is in the centre of the goal. It is an open goal! He must score! He has put it f_______ wide?????!!!!!!!

I was sitting in the pub watching it. I honestly thought that he had slotted it into the back of the net and the reason he had his hands on his head was because he was offside. Boyd must have been sitting on the bench thinking WTF do I have to do to get a game.

If Scotland can't win matches like this, the pure and simple fact is they don't deserve to go to the finals of the World Cup and if George Burley doesn't pick a decent team from now on, surely he should be out of a job.

I never ever thought I would say this, but bring back Craig Brown!!

kevin04

Some good points there Reluctant Hero, I agree with a lot of that.

For what it's worth, here's my two..

We started brightly and held onto the ball quite well and put the Norwegians under a bit of pressure early on with Maloney looking very sharp causing corners and runs at their right back who looked to be struggling with the skill and pace of the wee man,
But staright within the first 15mins or so we knew exactly that the McFadden alone wasn't going to work against a back four that must have averaged about 6'2 in height.
I'd even argue that McFadden isn't even a striker..

then Norway got back into the game and quite a bit of posession and at half-time 0-0 seemed far enough,
2nd half again we puffed and panted a bit with the ball but didn't do nearly enough. Our defence looked woeful, Broadfoot? He had a good game against Iceland but how many times did he give the ball away or even just look really terrible on the ball with bad passing or slicing balls, Caldwell had a complete nightmare, kept jumping too early for high balls causing Carew to get and have a field day, Weir is too old! time for the bigman to call it quits, Carew steam rolled through both them today. Naymsith had a decent game.

Iwelumo, was a strange sub as well. Pick a game where we really need 3pts to win and throw on a 30 year old debutant, Question

Just seemed bizzare logic from Burley, An awful lot of pressure on him and well of course that miss but we won't go there..

Norway had 2-3 chances to finish us off as well, if i twasn't for poor decision making from Iversen, Carew and some great keeping from Gordon, We'd have certainly lost that game...

A lot of the blame does have to be laid at Burley, I'm not calling for his head but he needs to take a look at the squad, we aren't world beaters and we probably never will be, but McLeish had us playing some decent stuff at times and although it was quite tight and counter-attacking football, it's probably what we are best at. One thing about Burley's reign has shown me is that we can't seem to create anything inside the final third of the box, which was also the case with Berti Vogts.

Scotty Brown looked good in the centre and glad he's placed him in that charging-holding type role, he looks excellent there but also some of Burley's decision making needs to be looked at.

We've got a bit of a mountain to climb but the one thing in our favour is that the 4 of us battling for 2nd place are all as bad as each other at the moment, We've now got Argentina now which is going to be a disaster probbaly if they turn on the style, if we lose the game and play poorly even though a friendly, it surely will take an effect on the side going into the next qualifiers in March next year.

Norway - Holland and Iceland - Macedonia on Wednesday, no idea what we hope for from this game. If we can get our act together we can beat anyone on our day with a bit of luck but we're probably looking and hoping for Holland to hump everyone and then they'll maybe send a youth team to us in the last game of the campaign.

How can it go from looking so good a year ago after the heart ache of Italy to looking like a few years back, ?

Blackleaf

What a glorious day it is today.

Despite being October, it's bright and sunny with blue skies and quite warm (I bet it's not in Scotland, though).

England beat Kazakhstan 5-1, and Scotland are back to their normal selves with a 0-0 draw against mighty Norway.

Everything is okay at the moment.

azzuri

The Lithgae Jambo

The Lithgae Jambo

As an update, this is in the Herald today

Other grumbles of discontent have been heard from within the camp and The Herald understands senior figures in the squad have become concerned by what they believe to be decision by committee, manifested in Tommy McLean's growing influence within the coaching set-up. McLean, the former Rangers youth coach, has been relaying messages via earpiece from the stand to Burley's assistant, Terry Butcher, on matchday.

....a wee bit ironic given his complaints about Romanov.

Rinty

I think we are always over the top re football.

The guy has played three competitive games, won one, drew one, lost one. But for the freakiest bit of bad luck for Iwelumo on saturday he would have won two.

He has a very limited squad and the good players that we do have tend to all play in the same one or two positions.

If Scotland had Ferguson, Hutton, Miller and McManus, Burley would have played them and we would probably have won all three games.

We drew at home to Norway, but they drew at home with Iceland, who we beat away from home.

I am still confident of second place, still think Burley is the best man available for the job.

I assume Boyd is now going to ask for a transfer from Rangers as Smith has the same attitude as Burley re Boyd.

agentmancuso

I agree with Rinty. Boyd is a fat lazy prima donna.

kevin04

Well, Well, Well.

Some fortune in the midweek games have left us in 2nd place but we really need to improve if we are to have any chance of making the playoffs. Best result of the international double header has to be Macedonia losing to Iceland which leaves us in a good position.

Hopefully McCormack will get his call up to the squad next month v Argentina, he's hit a bit of form and more so than Iwelumo. Give them a both a run out in November even if to let Iwelumo make up for his miss. I've seen him play a few times both at Charlton and Colchester and didn't rate him at all but we'll see how he gets on with Wolves.