So Losing To Georgia

[spud1982]

So officially losing to Georgia cost us the play offs,if only Germany beat Ireland that would off saved us.

[tam4ritchie]

Failing to beat Ireland over in Ireland

[Caledonian Craig]

That, for me, is the big inquest that should be held within the coaching team. What went wrong in Georgia? It has to be addressed as it coat us too dearly.

For me it was having no Plan B. We went out to play like we usually play - hit teams on the counter but you can't play that way against a fellow counter-attacking team. We should have had a Plan B and C such as playing two strikers. We only got some traction in the last few minutes when we got desperate and punted balls into the box and their defence began to look unsettled.

I would also agree with Neil McCann's view where we let too many leads drop and defence needs tightening up.

[wembley67lisbon]

Ifs and buts

In a ten match group there is no room for errors.

[Caledonian Craig]

Well we can't look at the previous campaign and say there were ifs and buts. We weren't even at the races in that campaign.

[Dillinger]

A lot of us saw it coming when the ties were announced. You could see the banana skin a mile away.

[girvanTA]

A failure of plan B in Georgia was our downfall, we started causing them problems when we played hoofball into their box. May not be nice but it is effective when circumstance dictates

[Loch_Sloigh]

A lot of us saw it coming when the ties were announced. You could see the banana skin a mile away.

Yep.Nobody to blame but ourselves.

And to think Ireland took 1 point off us and are in the playoffs.

[Haggis_trap]

Scotland have historically struggled in fixtures like Georgia (A).

IMHO part of the reason is that as a nation we don't value possession of the ball.

Our style of football is rarely patient or measured.

Which makes breaking smaller teams down difficult ?

FWIW : Germany seem to have struggled passed Georgia tonight.
But : I would bet their "possession %" and "total passes" was much higher than ours ?

[spud1982]

Very glad that 94th min goal on Thursday doesn't affect our position. Felt so devastated at that point

[exile]

So officially losing to Georgia cost us the play offs,if only Germany beat Ireland that would off saved us.

I don't think so. We failed by 3 points but had we got 2 more points off our rivals, we could have qualified, as we'd have deprived them of 4.

In fact as pointed out above, you could equally say failing to beat ireland away cost us. We'd have 2 points more and RoI one point less. Plus, they'd be adrift and less likely to get results in subsequent games.

[RabtheBruce]

Aye, but the point is that the other "big three" all took maximum points against Georgia and we should have as well. If we had, our results against Germany, Poland and Ireland would've taken us to the play-offs in a difficult group. That certainly was the killer.

[romanticscot]

If just one match had gone the other way, then we would have scraped the playoffs, I call that progress. Although realistically it was more than one match but it somehow helps look at how we have improved since Burley and Levin.

[John_B81]

Georgia was, ultimately, the killer but settling for a draw in Dublin against an Ireland team on their knees at that point instead of going for the win has to be looked at too. The fans who celebrated that result like we'd just drawn with the World Champions need to look at themselves too.

[Redz]

Georgia was, ultimately, the killer but settling for a draw in Dublin against an Ireland team on their knees at that point instead of going for the win has to be looked at too. The fans who celebrated that result like we'd just drawn with the World Champions need to look at themselves too.

'Sounded/Appeared' like we qualified last night too

[exile]

So officially losing to Germany cost us the play offs.

You could argue that it was losing to Germany, as easily as saying losing to Georgia.

Our two most direct rivals beat Germany at home - we didn't even pick up a point.

It might say something about our psyche and level of ambition, to think we could hope to beat Georgia away, but write off Germany at home.

Edited October 12, 2015 by exile

[Caledonian Craig]

Another way of looking at it is that

You could argue that it was losing to Germany, as easily as saying losing to Georgia.

Our two most direct rivals beat Germany at home - we didn't even pick up a point.

You may say we never expected to beat Germany, but you could say the need to and opportunity of beating Germany at home was similar to the need to and opportunity of beating Georgia away.

It might say something about our level of ambition, to think we could hope to beat Georgia away, but write off Germany at home.

That is a valid point as well.

I don't think it was down to lack of effort or endeavour that we lost both times against Germany as we scored more goals than Ireland did against them. It comes back to our leaky defence.

[exile]

That is a valid point as well.

I don't think it was down to lack of effort or endeavour that we lost both times against Germany as we scored more goals than Ireland did against them. It comes back to our leaky defence.

Yes I agree I wouldn'f say lack of effort, but I think it interesting that Georgia was seen as a must win game, while Germany was seen as expendable. You could say both should have been "must not lose" games and set up to achieve that result

Blaming everything on Georgia tends to focus on the deficiencies in attack - which was an exception - whereas our real problem was in defence

Ugly as it might sound, if we'd played for a nil nil against Germany it might have been the best route to getting a point or even nicking a win (like against France at home) - i think i said this before, not just because of what Ireland did