Holland Vs Scotland

[edd]

I think it's over now for us but 3 points on Wednesday would at least keep it a wee bit interesting. Anything less than a win and the knives'll be out for GB. Maybe rightly so.

 

Bring on Iceland.

it's not over yet - norway looked rubbish at hampden (even though we couldn't beat them on the day) and have already lost to holland and drawn with iceland at home. i would take our results over theirs so far in the group.

 

realistically we couldn't have expected a result from holland away and we were always looking at 2nd place since the groups were announced, so why be despondent after last night's result?

 

i agree with what most people are saying about the players, though (mccormack good, teale bad, miller bloody frustrating etc.)

[chrissiboi]

First 20 minutes I thought we did well , Millar's chance you can't pass up gifts at this level against better opposition. The combative Van Bommel and DeJong put the foot into our best asset the midfield with some rather nasty challenges .

 

TWO cardinal sins for both goals in the first half. Christ I wonder if Madame Tassuads replaced Graham Alexander . The second before half time a real kick in the stones.

 

So what was Burley's masterplan for the 2nd half , keep things the same , that would have kept the Dutch guessing .

 

Lets face the guy Fecked up in the Norway game and although Boydis a lazy moody so and so we don't have an abundance of prolific scorers to pick from.

 

Damage was done and the Dutch controlled the game .

 

Still we could have made it a nervy finish if Caldwells effort stood , still don't see where , why or how the ref blew his whistle .

 

After that he pen another frustrating body blow .

 

Teale ?????????????? mince

Alexander ???? rabbit caught in the headlights

 

 

Role on Iceland we need a victory ,lets hope they don't watch the tapes of our defending.

 

 

[Mr.Blue]

First 20 minutes I thought we did well , Millar's chance you can't pass up gifts at this level against better opposition. The combative Van Bommel and DeJong put the foot into our best asset the midfield with some rather nasty challenges .

 

TWO cardinal sins for both goals in the first half. Christ I wonder if Madame Tassuads replaced Graham Alexander . The second before half time a real kick in the stones.

 

So what was Burley's masterplan for the 2nd half , keep things the same , that would have kept the Dutch guessing .

 

Lets face the guy Fecked up in the Norway game and although Boydis a lazy moody so and so we don't have an abundance of prolific scorers to pick from.

 

Damage was done and the Dutch controlled the game .

 

Still we could have made it a nervy finish if Caldwells effort stood , still don't see where , why or how the ref blew his whistle .

 

After that he pen another frustrating body blow .

 

Teale ?????????????? mince

Alexander ???? rabbit caught in the headlights

Role on Iceland we need a victory ,lets hope they don't watch the tapes of our defending.

Boyd has done f*** all for scotland or rangers in europe and he cannot get a game at the moment in front of kyle Lafferty . Iwelumo, Fletcher, Mccormack and Lee Miller all have a better case for playing than him

[Honor Todd]

Why the feck did McGregor allow that Goonie lookalike to impede him at corners. He should have been pulling him out of the road before the corner was hit so that the referee became aware of the situation. We are extremely naive.

 

Brown appears to be the only guy who gets stuck in. I also thought Caldwell put in a decent shift. Quite a miserable experience watching Scotland. As correctly stated no Plan B...

[Mortonbug]

I don't think the result was that unfair. Other than getting that goal chopped off, I have no complaints. Other than having to stand behind two annoying Dutch girls in the Old Bank!

 

The penalty was a stonewaller, and playing one of the top 6 teams in the world, we were always losing at their place. The fact it was only 3-0 I am grateful for.

 

We need to win every match between now and the return match against them at Hampden. That way, hopefully, there won't be as much pressure as there was going in to the Italy match 18 months ago.

[Mr.Blue]

Why the feck did McGregor allow that Goonie lookalike to impede him at corners. He should have been pulling him out of the road before the corner was hit so that the referee became aware of the situation. We are extremely naive.

 

Brown appears to be the only guy who gets stuck in. I also thought Caldwell put in a decent shift. Quite a miserable experience watching Scotland. As correctly stated no Plan B...

 

Think thats why our goal was chopped off. Teale 'impeded' the keeper

[e_f]

Alexander was poor at the first goal but that shouldn't have mattered. Hunterlaar had to stoop to get to a ball that came across an empty six-yard box. It should have been a straightforward catch by the keeper. It was the sort of cross you see them practicing bofore every game. He was slow at coming off his line three or four times before the goal. Although he was impeded for the second he is supposed to play in a physical league - he could've pushed Kyut away before the corner was hit. Again, stuff that you see every week in our league.

 

Scotland started well defending from the halfway line and chasing back. That's the way that Liverpool played against Robben & co in the Champions League. After half time, we started to defend behind the ball, which suited the Dutch. Whether that was a deliberate tactic or, as sometimes happens, the players tended to drop a little further back as they had no confidence in the keeper I don't know. But to say that we were completely outclassed is wrong. There were too many stupid mistakes. At international level you expect to have people on the park who are there on merit not because they play for certain teams. This, I think is the major fault in Burley's management style.

 

While I'm on the subject of basic competence, how often have Scotland got the raw deal from bad refs? It's happening too often for it to be a coincidence. The international football authorities want the countries that have more money and potential TV revenue in the big finals.

 

[ThornTON]

How come England call up players to replace injuries in between the double header, I thought that squads had to be named a week in advance, and no more changes after that! <_>

 

Or is that just the SFA way............

[port-ton]

How come England call up players to replace injuries in between the double header, I thought that squads had to be named a week in advance, and no more changes after that! <_>

 

Or is that just the SFA way............

 

They didn't have a double header though.

[ThornTON]

They didn't have a double header though.

Their injuries will still only 3 days before the next game, whether they played a friendly or competitive game on Saturday or not...

[Rasta Ton]

What got me most about last night's game was the lack of fight and invention. We were slow and predictable. Gary Teale is not even fit to warm the bench never mind get a start. We had no-one capable of getting close to Robben. I've said it before but with each passing game, George Burley becomes more like Berti Vogts each day.

[Doc]

Scott Brown was the only player on our team with fight. My biggest complaint with Burley is that I don't think he motivates the players to dig deep and put in the effort that we saw under Smith, but that's the h*** fault more than Burley. I question whither he told them to conserve something for the Iceland game but I've seen this type of performance before so I doubt it was that well thought out.

 

Talking about how naive our performancewas/professionalism : why do Scotland players not fall over a bit more? I thought Van Bommel could have been booked at least two or three times if our players had not tried to stay on their feet. I'm not talking about diving but there has to be a time when you go down, knowing there is a french ref who is a diddy. An early booking to both Van Bommel and De Jong could have been significant.

[cmdc]

Scott Brown was the only player on our team with fight. My biggest complaint with Burley is that I don't think he motivates the players to dig deep and put in the effort that we saw under Smith, but that's the h*** fault more than Burley. I question whither he told them to conserve something for the Iceland game but I've seen this type of performance before so I doubt it was that well thought out.

 

I don't think the defeat in Holland was any worse than the performance we put in in Ukraine under Smith. Similarly, we can't praise McLeish and Smith and slate Burley for Macedonia when Smith played a 4-5-1 at Hampden, and lost, against a Belarus side who had never won away from home...whilst McLeish presided over a really shocking performance in Georgia which, in the end, meant that the wins over France didn't count for very much.

[Rhubarb Mess]

Alexander definitely should have played his last game for us, too slow, too weak and has zero awareness.

 

McGregor (as i feared pre-match) may be a good shot stopper but has no command of his area. Its almost sacrilege for a keeper not to attack a ball in his six yard area.

 

Ferguson was anonymous, as expected, and I wish Millers chance came to him without him having time to think about it as that is when he invariably f***s it up.

 

Poor overall performance with only a couple of pluses, Brown for his effort and S.Fletcher for his directness.

 

Biggest worry is the state of our game when we have a sprinkling of injuries, no depth at all to the squad, but even with that excuse Burley is now on a shoogly peg as the performances are just pish.

 

Good goal disallowed and although I agree it was a penalty, I still get the feeling if it was at the other end of the park the ref would not have awarded us one.

 

 

 

[piehutt]

Anyways... in the cold hard light of day, getting done 3-0 in Amsterdam isn't a disaster.

 

Netherlands have a very strong team out, while we were missing several 1st choice starters.

 

I guess the manner of the defeat is a bit dissapointing, but it's much much more important to pick things up for Wendesday!! The goals we lost in the 1st half were just calamtous.

 

Ok - so automatic qualification is now a good bit beyond us, but I think that was the case after only taking a point from Macedonia and Norway games.

 

We still have 3 home games, as well as a winnable away match in Norway.

[GiGi]

McGregor (as i feared pre-match) may be a good shot stopper but has no command of his area. Its almost sacrilege for a keeper not to attack a ball in his six yard area.

 

Ferguson was anonymous, as expected, and I wish Millers chance came to him without him having time to think about it as that is when he invariably f***s it up.

McGregor didn't do anything wrong. I'm quite happy with him and Gordon as the 2 'keepers, he didn't have a chance with the goals. D Fletcher on the other hand, just gave up marking van Persie as if he couldn't be arsed, allowing him to score.

 

Ferguson was actually one of our better players on the night. He kept the ball and actually played some forward passes too.

[cmdc]

McGregor didn't do anything wrong. I'm quite happy with him and Gordon as the 2 'keepers, he didn't have a chance with the goals. D Fletcher on the other hand, just gave up marking van Persie as if he couldn't be arsed, allowing him to score.

 

Ferguson was actually one of our better players on the night. He kept the ball and actually played some forward passes too.

 

Agree with both of these points...

 

I'd pick Gordon over McGregor on Wednesday, but only because I think he's a better keeper. Not much McGregor could have done with any of the goals. Badly let down by Alexander and Fletcher.

 

And Ferguson gets a bad press for Scotland, but he's somneone who is genuinely suffering physically, who plays more often than not when we need him...and IMO he's still our best midfielder, and will be until Scott Brown picks up the ability to pass the ball. A bit like Gary Mac in that he is greatly underappreciated by alot of Scotland fans.

[piehutt]

What got me most about last night's game was the lack of fight and invention. We were slow and predictable. Gary Teale is not even fit to warm the bench never mind get a start. We had no-one capable of getting close to Robben. I've said it before but with each passing game, George Burley becomes more like Berti Vogts each day.

 

I think that is the worry... no one seems to rate Burley now and no matter what happens people will criticise him. It wasn't his fault Iwelemu missed that chance etc.

 

I remember listening to Radio Scotland on the way down the road before we played Ukraine away in the last campaign. Smith was the manager and Richard Gordon was asking Jim Traynor, Chic Young, Billy Dodds etc about the team etc. They all kinda said that they trusted Smith to pick the best team and wouldn't have argued with any team Smith had put out.

 

I guess McLeish got that a bit towards the end as well. Even though he had to win people over big style, myself included, but I guess we'd have either one of these guys back in a minute.

 

Agree with both of these points...

 

I'd pick Gordon over McGregor on Wednesday, but only because I think he's a better keeper. Not much McGregor could have done with any of the goals. Badly let down by Alexander and Fletcher.

 

And Ferguson gets a bad press for Scotland, but he's somneone who is genuinely suffering physically, who plays more often than not when we need him...and IMO he's still our best midfielder, and will be until Scott Brown picks up the ability to pass the ball. A bit like Gary Mac in that he is greatly underappreciated by alot of Scotland fans.

 

I'm a Ferguson fan. He's been by far the best player for Scotland over the past 10 years or so, ok Faddy is a legend, but he's not been as consistent a performer.

 

However... I still would not be at all surprised to see an International retirement from him after this campaign.

 

What happened with Gary Mac was ridiculous. Although I guess not playing for Scotland def helped to prolong this guys career and have that amazing season with Liverpool winning the treble etc.

 

Would like to see Gordon playing on Wed. He's the better keeper, even if he's not the best keeper at Sunderland.

[Rhubarb Mess]

McGregor didn't do anything wrong. I'm quite happy with him and Gordon as the 2 'keepers, he didn't have a chance with the goals. D Fletcher on the other hand, just gave up marking van Persie as if he couldn't be arsed, allowing him to score.

 

Ferguson was actually one of our better players on the night. He kept the ball and actually played some forward passes too.

 

Any keeper who does not flatten all before him in order to get to a ball 6 yards from his goal is a keeper who is not commanding his area. He is a good keeper but IMO not good enough. Yes the defence didn’t do its job but he really should have battered his way through.

 

I will stick with my opinion of Ferguson, he was completely outplayed as was D Fletcher.

 

[EanieMeany]

Any keeper who does not flatten all before him in order to get to a ball 6 yards from his goal is a keeper who is not commanding his area. He is a good keeper but IMO not good enough. Yes the defence didn’t do its job but he really should have battered his way through.

 

I will stick with my opinion of Ferguson, he was completely outplayed as was D Fletcher.

 

 

Agree. To say McGregor had no chance with the first goal is just wrong. It was an uncongested box, he had a perfect view of the cross coming over and yet stayed rooted to the line, without even trying to come out to block Hunterlaar's effort. A textbook catch, or should have been. As for the second goal, he should have flattened Kuyt before the corner even came in. Gordon must come back on Wednesday.

 

I also agree about Ferguson, he has a good game every few months, and turns it on for Scotland once in a blue moon. A very good player on his day, but his attitude fairly stinks at times.