26/27 football thread

[westlondonmist]

5 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

It's early days, but I'm already feeling concerned about the Pocognoli experiment for Scotland. We've not played badly, but we've been very sloppy and I don't think we have the players capable of working with his preferred formation. We have a fantastic midfield, weak strikers, a liability of a goalkeeper and not enough in the way of strong centre backs for a three person defence to feel secure. 

We seem to miss chance after chance, conceding sloppy goal after sloppy goal - perhaps having McTominay and Shankland would have helped to a degree, but I don't feel confident in saying that. 

You can look at Steve Clarke's early results, awful. I think the 3-5-2 has to go though. I don't think our centre backs are good enough to not have full backs support them and our full backs aren't suited to being wing backs. I imagine the manager has little knowledge of many of the players and he'll make adjustments base on this. Hopefully plays Curtis and Doak as wingers in front of full backs.

I think you are also seeing how reliant Scotland are on McTominay for goals, and how reliant on the midfield for goals they've been for a while. The highest scoring players for Scotland in that squad are McGinn and Christie. They aren't getting any younger and Ferguson and Gilmour don't pose much of a goalthreat. You've then got McTominay and Adams out injured, and even Dykes. I'm not convinced by the three strikers that played, Bowie probably deserves more time but I don't think Ure is ready yet, and McBurnie has reminded me why he wasn't at the world cup. 

[RedTwoster]

48 minutes ago, westlondonmist said:

You can look at Steve Clarke's early results, awful. I think the 3-5-2 has to go though.

That's true, but they were against stronger opposition. As much as I soured on his style of play, I'm not sure Steve Clarke's Scotland would have lost to Slovenia like that. 

That said, Poconogli has time on his side and I hope he adjusts his formation. What concerns me is that the warning signs were there from game one, and have been present throughout. It doesn't take a tactical genius to work out where our weak spots are; and as a result, we're playing reasonably well yet still conceding a lot of goals. 

51 minutes ago, westlondonmist said:

I think you are also seeing how reliant Scotland are on McTominay for goals, and how reliant on the midfield for goals they've been for a while. The highest scoring players for Scotland in that squad are McGinn and Christie. They aren't getting any younger and Ferguson and Gilmour don't pose much of a goalthreat. You've then got McTominay and Adams out injured, and even Dykes. I'm not convinced by the three strikers that played, Bowie probably deserves more time but I don't think Ure is ready yet, and McBurnie has reminded me why he wasn't at the world cup. 

As far as Ure goes, I think the jury is out. McBurnie has been abysmal in each game and Bowie, as you say, hasn't been convincing. The finishing has been shocking, we're creating the opportunities but time and time again we squander them. 

I'd like to see more of Curtis and McPake, I thought they were both excellent when they came on. Gannon Doak is an odd one in that he's capable of getting past players and going on fantastic runs, yet the end product simply isn't there just yet. If he learns to swing in a decent cross, he'll be lethal. 

[Mr_Danger]

When Doak was getting the odd cameo for Liverpool you could see how good he could be but as you’ve pointed out even some years later it’s still the s same part of his game that’s missing. I wonder if his ceiling will end up being as a positive attacking player best served to occupy tired legs at the end of games in service to a better forward getting a bit more space because of him. Reminds me a bit of David Thompson when he looked quite exciting breaking though alongside Gerrard but that was as good as it ever got for him.