Daniel Amokachi

Redknapp is just as out of our league as Guardiola and Mourinho, even if we're in the SPL

There's a lot of thick supporters out there when you see how favorable GDS's involvement is regarded.

He already drove one club to the wall. A complete and utter crook.

A new deal for McCUlloch .

Probably a massive wage increase too

Taking Celtic out of the CL group stages twice. Winning the SPL 3 times in a row. Far worse than Levein?

His progression in Europe was down to sheer luck and had nothing to do with his ability.

His success in the SPL largely had no credible opposition.

Outside Celtic he's been a no mark and he got sacked from Boro.

It's quite funny how when he says something against that lot or slags the SFA he's suddenly loved again.

When he's saying something not popular like criticising Charles Green, he's seen as a deranged nut job.

He's our version of Phil Three Names and his lunacy should stop getting exposure on Rangers forums.

Anyone of these would bring a much bigger improvement.

 

Steve Clarke

Graeme Souness

Gordon Strachan

Walter Smith

Gary McAllister (as a No.2)

Stuart McCall

Paul Lambert

Joe Jordan

Kenny Dalglish

George Graham

 

For the last 12 months Ive barely recognised players in the squad but after seeing the squads for the last 2 matches and knowing Commons, Brown, Black, Wallace, D Fletcher and S Fletcher could be added to it then I actually think its a pretty good young squad and someone with decent tactical knowledge would have won both games.

Commons, Brown, Black, Wallace and Darren Fletcher wouldn't make a huge difference. Black would certainly help as he is actually a proper central midfielder but these players are no marks compared to what the Croatians and Belgians have.

I'd agree with Steven Fletcher as he's actually a player that performs in the big leagues.

As for your managers, Steve Clarke just got a job in the EPL and has little experience as a number 1, Souness has been out the game for years and did terribly in his later roles, Strachan is dire, Smith will play even more negative football, McCall isn't really proven against decent opposition, Lambert isn't available but would be a great shout, Joe Jordan (really??), Dalglish (really??), George Graham (when did he last have success?)

People are talking about Strachan as a replacement. Personally, he is a far worse manager even than Levein.

Regardless of who we appoint, this squad of players won't amount to anything to be honest.

I really think all British nations should be pushing a lot of their top young players to foreign clubs if they want the home nations to improve. These foreign players just run rings around the UK players in terms of ball retention, skill, attitude.

I've also heard it said that Walter should come back. Sorry but again, that's a terrible idea. Scotland have had enough negative tactics in recent years, just focusing on trying to pick up some points and not caring about a long term plan.

The only way Scotland are going to get remotely good again is to have a team of players that can keep the ball and amounts attacks. International football is very tight and is often a long, drawn out affair where the victor shades it by a goal or two just by winning the possession battle.

PS - I have also heard big Eck mentioned. If I have to watch his brand of football again I will seriously chuck it.

Miller off for Adam. Presumably Mackie moves to striker from wherever he has meant to have been playing.

Or we're going with 4-6-0 again.

PS - James Morrison has to be the most consistent player the Scotland side has. He is utterly dreadful in every single game.

Can't believe Levein is starting with five defenders again. Looks like he's planning to not lose the game and maybe if we're lucky, sneak a goal.

5 defenders, 4 attacking midfielders/wingers/forwards and 1 striker. It's like he deliberately wants to lose with the tactics he deploys.

We are currently playing a 5 man midfield yet not one of those players is a proper midfielder.

In fact, I would argue that playing 5 defenders isn't the key issue here, the key problem is the lack of midfield and balance we have.

The team should be a simple 4-3-3 with one main striker, two wingers/forwards supporting and 3 PROPER midfielders in the middle of the park

Nowhere in that piece does it quote him as saying they vow to do better at Ibrox next time.

In fact nice words from the Elgin boss.

Yep....read articles before commenting. They are written by idiots

Please don't use words belittling people with a handicap.

It really depends. Some countries who've been keen on the idea in the past may be less interested now due to recent success in Europe or otherwise increased revenues.

 

For it to really be a success it would need to have Holland and Portugal onboard at an early stage or else it would probably end up as a northern European league with the likes of us, the Irish pair and the Scandinavians. That WOULD struggle to take off.

 

If the bigger better version happened any time soon I can see Scotland only getting one spot which would probably initially go to Celtic. The OF derby would be attractive but lets not kid ourselves on that Scotland would get 2 places in a European Super League.

There's also the basic logistics of how it would integrate with the champions league.

We all know the Europa is an irrelevant competition that nobody cares about and it could become another version of it

At the end of the day it's not going to happen so c'est la vie. I don't know what we're going to do because we basically have a long term goal of competing in a league nobody wants to be in

A decent coach, foreign or otherwise, will have little to no impact on the national team unless and until there is a compleete overhaul of the game from top to bottom and vice versa.

 

Start at grass roots and try to re-create the game. The state of Scottis football is such that we now need to realise that we will lose a generation - but if we truly want to compete again internationally we need to realise that and put a LONG-TERM plan into action.

 

It took the French 20 YEARS for their plan to come to fruition in 1998 and it took the Spaniards a similar amount of time to see theirs come to fruition too.

 

Our problem is we will also be far too reactive instead of pro-active. We will follow others... but the problem there is that those same nations are already moving forward.

Whilst I do agree full heartedly with you Craig, Otto Renneghal (sp? - too pished to bother googling) took a team of complete mediocrity to glory in the Euro's, though as a keen advocate of total football, playing such tactics immediately denigrates such a victory.

Plus they also had a far better team than we do. But I think the point I'm trying to make is that a coach can make a shite team successful. Look at Martin O'Neil, he's made a career out of it. But again, he also plays shite football so I think I'll shut up and get back to my ciders and watching Breaking Bad

PS - As I think I alluded to earlier, a complete overhaul of the Scottish game has obviously been required for the last 20 years, but it isn't going to happen. So the only logical option at the moment is to get the most talented manager possible. And there are very few British managers worth looking at due to the archaic approach of the UK game.

But at the end of the day we had bottom end epl/chamionship players playing against players that play for top EPL/Serie A/Bundesliga clubs today so maybe we cannot expect too much

I also found it quite amusing when McLeish, the worst manager of all time, said Serbia had no game changers compared to us when they had £8m Tosic on the pitch, twice as good as any Scottish player

the only credible suggestions there are Lambert, Davies and Redknapp and only one of those would be remotely obtainable.

Our current squad is better than recent years but is essentially a rigmarole of bottom end premiership players from clubs like Wigan as well as championship level players.

Other similarly ranked nations often have a decent collection of players from champions league level clubs and we're always going to struggle. What's particularly bizarre is even the smallest, most irrelevant of nations seem to develop the odd world beater but Scotland hasn't had such a player since a young Barry Ferguson, and even he was no world beater.

On top of this, we have a terrible manager and a very unbalanced, mediocre side. Again today we had a lopsided team of 5 defensive players then 4 attacking midfielders with 1 past it striker and the net result is a mess that huffs and puffs and tries to fluke their way through games.

In the long term we need to be developing players that once again can go an compete at the top level. In the short term we need a manager that can get the very best out of the players. The only option for me is to get a decent foreign manager but we won't get one on the wages we can offer.

The only Scottish managers worth having are Moyes and Ferguson tbh and obviously they are unobtainable. Billy Davies might be worth a go but I really think this nation needs to pay big on a tried and tested foreign coach that can try and radicalise the game.

The big question imposed is if anybody would prefer to watch Rangers or their respective club play against unknown foreign clubs from far away countries rather than playing Scottish opponents. Think of the figures away fans would make up at the regular "league" fixtures. I don't think many would conceal the amount of time and money needed to watch Gers play in Sweden, Portugal or Belgium on a two - weekly basis.

Surely the whole point of the Atlantic league is there would be no 'unknown' element. It would be the cream of the crop outside the big 5 or 6 leagues

I really don't see it happening. The big clubs in the lesser leagues are now miles ahead of both the old firm as well

Sinclair is a diddy the youths hate. who says things like if you can't get the ball up to the two big strikers faster your getting taken off.

 

who he supports is secondary to the fact he's a diddy by a long way.

He's only getting the players ready for McCoist?

EDIT - Joking aside, I long gave up bothering about commenting on the infrastructure of our club. Scouting, coaching and youth development are all abysmal and that's before you start worrying about the state of non footballing aspects like PR

If you look at our squad I don't think it's a huge surprise to see us struggling against sides like Serbia. Their squad has players at top clubs in Italy, England, Germany, France, Russia etc whereas we are made up largely of players at bottom end EPL, championship or SPL teams

That said, football is a team sport and rarely does the team seem to develop into anything worth mentioning

Putting a centre half in the holding role is a typical example of Scottish football being stuck in the dark ages.

Across the continent you see the holding players become more and more about technique and developing attacks but oh no we just stick some big lump in to try and kick players

Kenny Miller has scored 17 goals since he left us. The stupid prick finally turned into a quality player then lost all momentum and went back to his shite former self when he left.

Also, slightly off topic but the Belgium team that beat Wales last night had £140m worth of players playing from massive clubs. A lot of these nations seem to be improving whilst we just bob up and down in varying levels of shiteness.

Scottish players have virtually no exposure across the continent anymore

There's only 5 players in the entire Serbian squad that have scored a goal at international level.

However, it's quite a young squad and there's a lot of decent players at big clubs.

He always seems to cram as many attacking midfielders into his team as possible and it doesn't really work. We have a centre half in the holding role then ahead of him Snodgrass, Morrison, Adam and Naismith - all attacking players. There isn't any balance.

At the heart of all top teams are a couple of top midfielders in the middle of the park. This is always lacking with Scotland.

I'm pretty sure both us and them count season ticket holders in attendances regardless of whether they turn up and don't announce actual attendances

They have a dire team and play almost as bad football as we do

they made sure to get a bid that coveted their fee. that's all they wanted by the end.

 

frankly I struggle to see how they could have handled things worse.

 

motherwell were in admin for years and came out of it with a cva and a bill a tiny fraction of d&p.

I would imagine that the administration process would be a lot more costly for a huge company compared to the a tiny one