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10 hours ago, Grant said:

Don't reckon Steve Clark will be particularly chuffed at that performance. 

 

Agreed.

However it's a friendly, a glorified exhibition match. Results don't matter. Said for years these games should be either free entry or behind closed doors, they're totally meaningless. 

The best thing about the Nations League is we have far, far less friendlies clogging up the domestic calendar.

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I was there last night and it was really poor. As poor a performance as I can remember us putting in under Clark.

However, they played 10 men behind the ball the entire game and weren't really interested in attacking. It was summed up by the big donkey of a centre back smashing the ball into the top row of the stand to clear it with about 25 mins to go under no pressure. 

Credit where it's due, they defended with everything and probably got a better result than they expected. We on the other hand struggled, as we sometimes do against poorer teams, to be the team with possession, and break them down. We passed the ball so passively in front of them, but with not enough pace or tempo required to create gaps. I was sitting level with the 18yd line in the second half and the amount of time Tierney or Christie had the opportunity to be direct and run at them and checked back to pass it back to Cooper was ridiculous. Cooper's pass completion stats must have been massive.

Adams came on and made at least three great runs looking for a ball over the top and was ignored for a pass back along the back line. This was especially annoying when the big centre back couldn't run for the last 20 mins due to cramp, we should have been targeting him all night after that. Sure, I like the passing based possession game, but you have to mix it up and be a bit more direct sometimes. It was far too congested to try and pass through and continuing to do that for 90 mins was playing right into their hands. 

Having said all of that, I agree with Clark when he says we should be peaking in June and not March. We will also get a lot more room to play, like we did against the Dutch, in the Euros. This is when we are better. We have won only 2 out of the last 19 friendlies, but 15 out of the last 21 qualifiers. Out of the recent run of 7 without a win, we've 4 of the top ten in the World, and played well generally speaking in 3 of those, despite the scorelines. It's not all doom and gloom.

ON the booing, I never boo, any team but I could understand why folk did. It was likely due to having to listen to their fans singing 'Scotland get battered everywhere they go' on a loop for 80 mins. Which is galling to hear from a team as poor as them.

On booing the national anthem, maybe it's to do with the song being sung by a bunch of Scotsmen from Lanark and Larkhall in the wrong end supporting our opposition. Absolute weirdos.

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The fuss on social media / media around the booing of GSTK is bizarre. It was getting booed as far back as the late 70s when it was played as Scotland’s anthem until when it was later changed (90s I think).

Even Scousers are at it now.

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20 hours ago, DA-go Par Adonis said:

I don't disagree that it was worthy of criticism, but to boo them off in a friendly at half time is just nonsense. The team have credit in the bank and deserve better.

The team do have allot of credit in the bank, Clark is the one of the few (McCleish and Smith also?) Scotland managers in my lifetime who could lose that game last night, in the manner that they did, on a 7 game run without a win and not have serious criticism aimed at him/calls for his head. 

10 hours ago, da_no_1 said:

Agreed.

However it's a friendly, a glorified exhibition match. Results don't matter. Said for years these games should be either free entry or behind closed doors, they're totally meaningless. 

The best thing about the Nations League is we have far, far less friendlies clogging up the domestic calendar.

Couldn't agree more. 👍 IMO allot of the frustration from fans there is the money invested in going to the game, plus as Digs posted. 

9 hours ago, Digs said:

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ON the booing, I never boo, any team but I could understand why folk did. It was likely due to having to listen to their fans singing 'Scotland get battered everywhere they go' on a loop for 80 mins. Which is galling to hear from a team as poor as them.

On booing the national anthem, maybe it's to do with the song being sung by a bunch of Scotsmen from Lanark and Larkhall in the wrong end supporting our opposition. Absolute weirdos.

I'm a petty *******, hearing that on repeat all game knowing it was likely a bunch of Rangers fans irked me. They were doing it to wind up the Scotland fans, and fair play, it done ma tits in. 

I am worried about a few things with the squad, primarily Hickey coming back and the two centre back partners for Tierney. 

I'm also not convinced by Dykes, he's been off it for an awfy long time now. 

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