2012/2013 Scottish Football Thread

[SiMania]

Black before Commons? Really?

[David]

I've tried to stay off the 'Levein has no idea what he's doing, he's an idiot' bandwagon, but come on? As a Scotland fan I'm actually more annoyed that Black is in than about Wallace being left out.

It's not a bandwagon, it's simply a case of more & more people realising the truth as time goes on. The most disappointing thing is that I know we won't be at the World Cup in Brazil. I can't believe I'm going to be looking back in years to come knowing that we were stupid enough to have someone so inept in charge when the worlds premier international tournament was being played in Brazil.

[Daaaaaad!]

I'm going to Easter Road tomorrow night for the Australia game and whereas a few months ago I'd have been pretty pleased about it, after the USA game and with all the withdrawals I'm not optimistic. My aunt who lives in Linlithgow has seen the Aussies training at Prestonfield and even she could tell they were looking good. I notice David Goodwillie was brought into the squad recently which is actually quite good news considering how short on striking cover we were, but some of the squad selections are still not exactly settling my mind.

 

Worrying.

[bAzTNM#1]

If he takes a hammering tomorrow, the knives will truly be out. He seems to have got an easy ride off the press since he was appointed for some reason. Even the Lichteinstein newspaper reports were only about the last minute winner and not about the 70 minutes they were humping us. USA game really found him out as not having a clue.

[Daaaaaad!]

Thing is though, he won't get sacked. He's in very deep with the Scottish FA and they seem to love him. It's been a couple of months and Regan still hasn't gone, so why would the constantly stagnant SFA worry about changing the international manager? I'm sure it can't help that there aren't many options out there aside from Gordon Strachan mind, but that's not much of an excuse.

 

It also amuses me a bit that Levein loves to play one up front yet has frozen out the only man who is proven to be capable of scoring goals at the highest level within that system.

[BiffingtonClyro]

Does anybody think Fletcher would've been called up to an England squad yet if had indeed chosen to represent his home nation?

[Maverick]

Does anybody think Fletcher would've been called up to an England squad yet if had indeed chosen to represent his home nation?

With the likes of Jay Bothroyd, Frazier Campbell, Kevin Davies (good player, just getting on) and Carlton Cole all being capped in recent years there's a chance he would have been given a chance for a friendly but I doubt he'd have made much of an impact as the England striker spots have been pretty sewn up for the last few years bar the odd exception.

[Daaaaaad!]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19262676

 

Darren Fletcher played 20mins as Man Utd captain in tonight's Neil Simpson testimonial at Aberdeen. I know it's not only Scottish football specific but it's still absolutely fantastic news. Hope he continues to recover.

[Big Jock Knew]

Before I begin, want to wish Darren Fletcher well. He's a quality player and a nice guy to boot; hopefully he can get some sort of playing career back on track.

 

Baz, you say about Craig Levein:

 

He seems to have got an easy ride off the press since he was appointed for some reason

 

Well, not so much anymore. Today he has turfed out and banned journalists and correspondents from the Daily Record. I used to think Levein had balls and wouldn't be pushed around by anyone: that's why I was so disappointed when he became the Scotland manager and seemed to become the archetypal yes man, the tick-every-box SFA sponsored mouthpiece. Well, after a slew of horrible decisions and even worse performances on the park, Levein seems to have earned some credibility again. IMO, he is to be congratulated for treating the mainstream Scottish press with the contempt and revile it deserves. The hacks nationwide are beginning to hit the panic button because they can feel themselves becoming out of date and irrelevant. Morons like Hugh Keevins, Jim Traynor, Keith Jackson etc will be no more. It's nobody's fault but their own; their head-in-the-sand reportage of the Rangers liquidation saga is the best example of this. This was the first time the "internet bampots" (read: ITK freelancers) overtook press vehicles you'd find in newsagents, ASDA and what have you. Nobody wants to read their nonsense anymore, unless it's a particularly mewling piece. Look at this hilarity from Traynor today:

 

Levein's in the huff when he needs to be in the zone

 

CRAIG LEVEIN banned Daily Record journalists from his press conference yesterday

[Jambo]

We've signed Martin Boyle from Montrose today, pretty happy with the signing, he'd been training full time with Aberdeen and trained with Celtic in pre-season, and despite it being a decent step up from D3 to the SPL, he's deffo one for the future. Would like to see a big fuck off target man at Dens though to go with a creative CM we are lacking.

[BiffingtonClyro]

No love for the Scotland performance last night? I thought we were excellent in our creativity. Robert Snodgrass is some player, and I would imagine he'll continue his form last night into the EPL (lol) season. He finds space out of nothing and can easily go round players. Jordan Rhodes looks to be exceptional also. He was always looking to get involved and at this point I would pick him over Kenny Miller for the World Cup Qualifiers.

 

The bad point, the defence was switching off far too often. Against stronger teams we would have conceded a lot more than the solitary goal we did. Alan Hutton was great going forward but defensively suspect as per usual. Why has a manager not converted him into a winger already? I seem to remember Harry Redknapp did this for a few games at Spurs and he seemed to do alright. All in all a great performance against a pretty poor Australian team. Bresciano's goal was phenomenal, but that's where their good work ended. They sat back and allowed us to play , and didn't seem to be putting in too many challenges, akin to Scotland against The USA a few months back. The real work starts next month however. I'm scared.

 

EDIT - In regards to Ian Black getting booed. What the fuck? I was flabbergasted at that. I was even more flabbergasted at the fact that a lot of the reporting of the incident wasn't pointing out that it was most likely idiotic Hibs fans that were doing it. Bunch of morons.

[David]

No love for the Scotland performance last night?

Nope, I never watched it. I won't be watching until Levein eventually gets sacked.

[BiffingtonClyro]

No love for the Scotland performance last night?

Nope, I never watched it. I won't be watching until Levein eventually gets sacked.

 

You really can be a massive tit sometimes. David.

[Daaaaaad!]

Was at Easter Road last night and whilst I'm not getting carried away, it was definitely encouraging. Fox down the left hand side looked lively and was always making himself available for passes; he was my man of the match after setting two goals up and it's incredible to think that Scotland now have two solid left-back choices (three if one includes Wallace, should he move) considering of late we'd been playing the likes of Steven Whittaker or the admittedly solid Phil Bardsley there. Hopefully either of those two or Russell Martin come further into contention because Hutton is sadly seeming more and more of a liability now. I'm also not too hot on Andy Webster but presumably he won't be first choice come the qualifiers.

 

Jordan Rhodes is obviously young and perhaps isn't entirely suited to the role of lone striker but he took his goal well and made a nuisance of himself. It's actually to the point now that with McCormack's goal and with the options of Goodwillie, Maloney, Naismith and Mackail-Smith also there to consider, I'd be happy if we started to send Kenny Miller off into the background.

 

Also, re: the booing of Ian Black, from what I observed the boos rang out when he came out but then he was applauded (certainly by our stand) when he touched the ball, suggesting to me that the boos were more aimed at Levein for selecting a third division player than at Black for being on. For what it's worth, I wasn't a boo boy but understand completely why those who were vocal chose to be. If Levein is using friendlies to try out players for the World Cup, he can't have any long term plans to pick Black whilst he's at Rangers, so why select him?

[stumobir]

Craig Levein is a fucking idiot and last nights performance was mediocre at best, it just looked good in comparison to our usual performances. Snodgrass, Rhodes and Maloney had good games but apart from that I was struggling to find positives. Our defence was a mess on several occasions and I don't feel the score was a true reflection of the game. I really can't see us causing problems for Belgium, Croatia or Serbia in these qualifiers and I reckon we'll be sitting another tournament out.

 

In regards to the booing of Black, it's just plain wrong. Whether you're a Celtic, Rangers, Hearts or Hibs fan you should be cheering on Scotland and it's players. I'm a Celtic fan and I found it disgraceful, even if the boy is a cunt, it can't be good for team morale to hear one of our own players being booed.