Optimism or doomed for another glorious failure

[friendofalegend]

So after the Wembley defeat I decided enough was enough and I would give attending games a miss for a while. Far to many poor performances, dead end mid-week games and poor atmosphere both pre match and during games. Maybe I am getting old and crabbit but it used to be a great day out with optimism heading on to Hampden, recently that just has not been the case for me hence reason the TA is over...and the TA continuing to sing 'doh a deer'

Anyway I found it refreshing to sit at home and watch what I thought was a great performance. Dominated the first half and should have been one or two up. A great result when it mattered. Did Slovenia turn up? would we have beaten a team that came to Hampden and actually tested our defence? I Guess we will find out in June!

It seems the Nation (Happy clappers some may call them) now feels we can qualify after one result! Or is this Scotland at their best and setting us up for another glorious failure...it would make a difference to recent years and just standard failure.

6 points out of a possible 9 are a must in the next 3 games as not expecting anything from England with their qualifying record. Anything would be a welcome bonus. Then its see where we are at and take it from there. Also hoping England beat all the others.

I look forward to watching the games in the comfort of the couch and boozer, unfortunately I think Lithuania away will bring us back down to earth with a thud!! Apologies for my negative outlook but a victory and a good performance against a team that did not turn up just does not cut it for me! Happy to be proved wrong and will be cheering the boys on from the armchair!

[vanderark14]

We have to beat England. 

If we are to qualify we need to treat every match as a must win. Targeting 6 points out of 9 is what we always do, instead we should take every single match one by one and treat each as a must win.

[MacTaz]

Never over till the fat lady sings as they say. Not convinced we will qualify but at the end of the day we're still in it. Yesterday's first half was encouraging we should have been 3 up at half time .Lost the plot for a while in the second half but still managed to grab a winner even playing shit which is what all the best teams do. 

Quietly optimistic I'd say. 

 

[jamboman]

You know what, before the game i am usually buzzing. Yesterday i was far from that. Seeing the line up got me buzzing. I actually think strachan is done with his tried and tested guy (fletchers, hanley, ritchie). I think the importance of Brendan rodgers in scottish football needs to be appreciated. 

We had 6 celtic players in the team, including the MOTM and without them we would have been done!  As long a Rodgers has celtic playing this way we have a chance in any game in this group. I think only forrest will leave the team if fraser is fit, but i do think forrest worked really hard yesterday. 

[fraz65]

I'd love it if we could return to the days of glorious failure. The last one was the 2008 campaign. We've just been failing ever since.

[Reevesy]

11 hours ago, friendofalegend said:

 

It seems the Nation (Happy clappers some may call them) now feels we can qualify after one result! Or is this Scotland at their best and setting us up for another glorious failure...it would make a difference to recent years and just standard failure.

 

Where are you seeing people say this?

All I've seen is people relieved that we won on Sunday and kept our very slim hopes alive. If we somehow manged to beat England then I'd imagine the expectations might go up a bit but most people, in my experience, are still pretty realistic about our chances.

[Toepoke]

8 hours ago, fraz65 said:

I'd love it if we could return to the days of glorious failure. The last one was the 2008 campaign. We've just been failing ever since.

Agreed. Our failures have been miserable not glorious for the past decade...

 

[stevenmcn]

12 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

We have to beat England. 

If we are to qualify we need to treat every match as a must win. Targeting 6 points out of 9 is what we always do, instead we should take every single match one by one and treat each as a must win.

Totally agree. I don't think it's coincidence that our best performance in the group came in the first "must win" game. If we'd had the same attitude from the first match we could easily be sitting second, but now because the coaching staff thought previous games weren't "must win" we're left in a very difficult position. 

[Guest BlueGaz]

The general optimism I am seeing is because we are back in the mix with the 3 points the other night, and this is correct.  I am not sure we can judge the performance the other night as a turning point though as there was no opposition to speak of, which made some of our players like Mulgrew look good.

Having said that, you can only play whats in front of you.  If that same level of performance is produced for the remainder of the games, I think we have a chance, but experience tells me we wont be able to sustain that and we wont be able to qualify.  Be great to be proved wrong though. I have a wee bit more optimism than i did last week though, but not as much as i have done in the past.

Supporting rangers and scotland the last few years has drained nearly all optimism out of me.

Edited March 28, 2017 by BlueGaz

[Jacques Hunt]

12 hours ago, jamboman said:

You know what, before the game i am usually buzzing. Yesterday i was far from that. Seeing the line up got me buzzing. I actually think strachan is done with his tried and tested guy (fletchers, hanley, ritchie). I think the importance of Brendan rodgers in scottish football needs to be appreciated. 

We had 6 celtic players in the team, including the MOTM and without them we would have been done!  As long a Rodgers has celtic playing this way we have a chance in any game in this group. I think only forrest will leave the team if fraser is fit, but i do think forrest worked really hard yesterday. 

Totally agree re Brendan Rodgers but disagree re Ritchie - still feel he can play a part in this squad. I like look of Cairney too. When draw was made I was very concerned (stll am) about Lithuania away being the 'Georgia-esque' banana skin in our campaign - did not seriously consider we would only draw with them at home! All bar Malta (what have I said?) are tricky but sh*t or bust now, play to win and let's see what happens. If asked to bet, it would be on another glorious failure with the 'looking good for next campaign' bit added on as usual. Sincerely hope I am wrong. Loved it that we attacked so well but we only scored one and defence remains a concern. Like you, hope Fraser can bring his club form to the team and looking forward to that. Not often the words 'looking forward' are read on these pages with regard to the players. Usually used with regard to manager leaving. 

[bonny78]

Not beating Lithuania at home will be our downfall

[Bristolhibby]

1 hour ago, bonny78 said:

Not beating Lithuania at home will be our downfall

It's Scotlands slow starts as well. 

Malta aside the last campaigns have been slow burners. And by the time we realise what's needed it's too late.

Lithuania this campaign

Germany away, Poland away & (limping to a home win v Georgia).

Draw at home to a useless Serbia then defeat away to Wales.

Losing away to Macedonia & drawing 0-0 to Norway.

We are 9 times out of 10 out of the running before the first round of fixtures are halfway done. Unnecessary pressure. 

When were we last happy with our first double header i.e. 6 points banked by the first September?

J

 

[Bino's]

15 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

We have to beat England. 

If we are to qualify we need to treat every match as a must win. Targeting 6 points out of 9 is what we always do, instead we should take every single match one by one and treat each as a must win.

i think you're right

 

I think the only reason the performance was so positive was that the players had must win in their minds

 

we need to say england at home is a must win, to have any chance of taking anything out of the game

[Bino's]

15 hours ago, MacTaz said:

Never over till the fat lady sings as they say. Not convinced we will qualify but at the end of the day we're still in it. Yesterday's first half was encouraging we should have been 3 up at half time .Lost the plot for a while in the second half but still managed to grab a winner even playing shit which is what all the best teams do. 

Quietly optimistic I'd say. 

 

we went quiet after Griffiths went off

 

his running in behind was stretching their defence

 

Naismith buzzed about admirably but without Griffiths pace didn't have the same impact

[Bino's]

11 hours ago, fraz65 said:

I'd love it if we could return to the days of glorious failure. The last one was the 2008 campaign. We've just been failing ever since.

we had a glorious failure last time round

 

winning v Poland and going to the play off

 

discover Ireland leading v Germany and then last minute goal for Poland to cap it off

[Bino's]

3 hours ago, stevenmcn said:

Totally agree. I don't think it's coincidence that our best performance in the group came in the first "must win" game. If we'd had the same attitude from the first match we could easily be sitting second, but now because the coaching staff thought previous games weren't "must win" we're left in a very difficult position. 

all home games apart from against the top seeds should be must wins if you ever want to qualify

classic being levein set stall out to draw v Serbia at home.  after 0-0 he was saying good result, everyone else knew we were out after the first home game

[Bino's]

14 minutes ago, Bristolhibby said:

It's Scotlands slow starts as well. 

Malta aside the last campaigns have been slow burners. And by the time we realise what's needed it's too late.

Lithuania this campaign

Germany away, Poland away & (limping to a home win v Georgia).

Draw at home to a useless Serbia then defeat away to Wales.

Losing away to Macedonia & drawing 0-0 to Norway.

We are 9 times out of 10 out of the running before the first round of fixtures are halfway done. Unnecessary pressure. 

When were we last happy with our first double header i.e. 6 points banked by the first September?

J

 

6-0 faroes at home and 2-1 lithunania away, smiths start to 2008 euros campaign....

[bonny78]

Go for broke v england

[Toepoke]

44 minutes ago, Bristolhibby said:

It's Scotlands slow starts as well. 

When were we last happy with our first double header i.e. 6 points banked by the first September?

 

29 minutes ago, Bino's said:

6-0 faroes at home and 2-1 lithunania away, smiths start to 2008 euros campaign....

Which appropriately enough was our last decent campaign.

Apart from Argentina 78 (only a 3 team group) I can't think of a tournament where we got off to a bad start and managed to qualify...

 

[Rossy]

It was a decent performance, but we've all supported awful, failing club sides where once in a while they eek out a 1-0 win and everyone believes that the corner has been turned.

Until the next game.

Scotland under Strachan has the pungent, desperate smell of failure that Aberdeen had under McGhee.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I simply don't believe that a last minute winner against an incredibly poor Slovenia side at home means that everything is now heading in the right direction.

Scotland's competitive record under Strachan is pitiful and he's the luckiest man in the country to still be in the job. Win every game from here on in, qualify, and yes, we can then say the corner has been turned.

If we fail to qualify...again...Strachan can f*qk off out of town, 1-0 win against Slovenia or not.

[Parklife]

6 minutes ago, Rossy said:

It was a decent performance, but we've all supported awful, failing club sides where once in a while they eek out a 1-0 win and everyone believes that the corner has been turned.

Until the next game.

Scotland under Strachan has the pungent, desperate smell of failure that Aberdeen had under McGhee.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I simply don't believe that a last minute winner against an incredibly poor Slovenia side at home means that everything is now heading in the right direction.

Scotland's competitive record under Strachan is pitiful and he's the luckiest man in the country to still be in the job. Win every game from here on in, qualify, and yes, we can then say the corner has been turned.

If we fail to qualify...again...Strachan can f*qk off out of town, 1-0 win against Slovenia or not.

The most frustrating thing about the other night was that we all knew that the players we have are more than capable of a performance like that first half. We were capable of it vs Lithuania and Slovakia. Yet we got limp, disorganised displays from a side who looked like strangers. 

Before folk get too excited, we need to see this performance level continue (and indeed improve vs England). After all it's likely that this performance is just a variation from the mean, rather than the new normal. 

[Caledonian Craig]

Inconsistency is our massive problem. The other night encapsulated that perfectly. We were all over Slovenia in the first half and played some nice stuff but couldn't score. In the second half we were pretty turgid and lost our way but managed to dig out the win. One good half and one sub-par half in one match.

[Rossy]

24 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Inconsistency is our massive problem. The other night encapsulated that perfectly. We were all over Slovenia in the first half and played some nice stuff but couldn't score. In the second half we were pretty turgid and lost our way but managed to dig out the win. One good half and one sub-par half in one match.

Personally, I would say that our problem has been consistency.

Being consistently shite.

[Parklife]

26 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

Inconsistency is our massive problem. The other night encapsulated that perfectly. We were all over Slovenia in the first half and played some nice stuff but couldn't score. In the second half we were pretty turgid and lost our way but managed to dig out the win. One good half and one sub-par half in one match.

 

1 minute ago, Rossy said:

Personally, I would say that our problem has been consistency.

Being consistently shite.

Yup. What Rossy said. 

[Caledonian Craig]

3 minutes ago, Parklife said:

 

Yup. What Rossy said. 

Yes you could put it that way.