Toepoke Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 Following on from a discussion on the other thread, and to satisfy my own curiosity after finding it more and more difficult to spot the Scot on MotD, I decided to compare the make up of the starting XIs from a couple of Scotland v England games: Wembley in 79 (one of the first I remember watching) and the last meeting in 2014. Both of which we lost 3-1 coincidentally. I've listed the clubs the players represented at the time and those clubs' placings in the English league at the end of each particular season. SCO - Denotes Scotland player ENG- Denotes England player Lower league sides in italics 1979 1. Liverpool - SCO SCO ENG ENG ENG...4. Everton - SCO ENG5. Leeds Utd - SCO SCO6. Ipswich Town - SCO SCO ENG..9. Man Utd - SCO SCO ENG.....15. Man City - SCO ENG ENG......22. Chelsea - ENG....27. West Ham - ENG Also SV Hamburg - ENG and Dundee Utd - SCO 20141. Chelsea - ENG2. Man City - ENG3. Arsenal - ENG ENG ENG4. Man Utd - ENG ENG ENG..7. Southampton - ENG ENG...11. Everton - SCO 12. West Ham - ENG.....18. Hull City - SCO ...22. Watford - SCO 23. Norwich City- SCO SCO ....28. Derby County - SCO 29. Blackburn Rovers - SCO .31. Cardiff City - SCO ...........43. Wigan Ath - SCO Also Celtic - SCO SCO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thplinth Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 An interesting example that demonstrates the point well. Money and foreigners may have crowded out English and Scottish players but we have suffered a far worse decline than the English. We are just not producing any top quality players anymore. Wales do so it is a particularly damning stat and the blame rests largely with the SFA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 Do something similar for Senegal Nigeria or Ivory Coast. They have went up. Scotland have sent down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hertsscot Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 An interesting example that demonstrates the point well. Money and foreigners may have crowded out English and Scottish players but we have suffered a far worse decline than the English. We are just not producing any top quality players anymore. Wales do so it is a particularly damning stat and the blame rests largely with the SFA. I think part of the reason the Welsh do it is because their biggest senior teams have access to the Loadsamoney English set up. I'm not so sure Bale and Ramsey apart that they are much more successful than we are though - okay I'd add Ashley Williams to that group as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stocky Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 depends where you start from ten years ago all we had was Fletcher at Man U and Faddy as a sub.( Gordon?) we have a lot more now... we prob have a whole team from the EPL, xcept for a goalie... so better than ten years ago, but not better than 20 or 30 years ago.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 The decline of Scotland producing top players to compete with the best anywhere in Europe is simple. Our bairns are not interested in playing sports anymore like they used to be. How many wee laddies do you see taking the initiative and grabbing a ball to meet up with their pals anymore? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thplinth Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 The decline of Scotland producing top players to compete with the best anywhere in Europe is simple. Our bairns are not interested in playing sports anymore like they used to be. How many wee laddies do you see taking the initiative and grabbing a ball to meet up with their pals anymore? Totally agree Ormond. But why is the decline (seemingly) worse in Scotland than the rest of the UK. They (england, wales) have declined also as foreign talent has pushed them out of the EPL but no where to the extent of the Scots. We are utter second raters now. And this is reflected in our national team. So why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PASTA Mick Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 depends where you start from ten years ago all we had was Fletcher at Man U and Faddy as a sub.( Gordon?) we have a lot more now... we prob have a whole team from the EPL, xcept for a goalie... so better than ten years ago, but not better than 20 or 30 years ago.... Dailly (West Ham), Weir, Naysmith (Everton), Cameron, Miller (Wolves), McCann (Southampton), Dickov (Blackburn?) We did have a few more than just Faddy and Fletch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robroysboy Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 (edited) Dickov (Blackburn?) His career included Balckburn but also was at Arsenal as a youth, Man City (twice), Leicester ( twice) and Leeds. Edited February 10, 2016 by Robroysboy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest allyc Posted February 10, 2016 Share Posted February 10, 2016 (edited) Cos the standard of our national league is poor and most clubs are skint. Edited February 10, 2016 by allyc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toepoke Posted February 10, 2016 Author Share Posted February 10, 2016 Cos the standard of our national league is poor and most clubs are skint. We weren't exactly rolling in it in the 70s. Several Premier League clubs were part-time. The reasons for the decline are manyfold but for me the main ones would be Bosman, Sky and the Champions League. For more or less the first century of the professional game our players featured heavily at England's top clubs, but that outlet has been locked shut. I don't think it's a coincidence that the strength of the Scotland team has dipped over the past 20 years. Look at the players from 1979, they are the equal of their English opponents in terms of stature and ability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 Attitude and culture. Aggression, physical, "get stuck in" and "get it up the park" still the dominant theme in our coaching, play and demand from players. There are changes happening in youth but it is struggling against the old aged attitudes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErsatzThistle Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 40 minutes ago, Alan said: Attitude and culture. Aggression, physical, "get stuck in" and "get it up the park" still the dominant theme in our coaching, play and demand from players. There are changes happening in youth but it is struggling against the old aged attitudes. I don't normally agree with your posts but on this occasion I do. Have witnessed myself coaches encouraging dangerous tackling of opponents, telling dribblers not to "arse about with the ball", prioritising talentless no-hopers purely because they happen to be over 6 feet tall and telling the talented, wee guys to feck aff. Many people sadly think just because it was acceptable in the old days it's worth keeping. Our set-up at Largs that Craig Brown, Walter Smith and co are always lavishing praise on and telling us that we should be proud of - is nothing more than an old boys club that teaches long outdated coaching methods and needs to be overhauled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapofGlencoe Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 (edited) would agree the reasons are multiple and varied. Is there a case for us not really going backward but just staying still and others getting better?? 70s/80s the English Prem couldn't search worldwide for players the same they can now. There are simply more countries now. Yugoslavia has broken up and these countries have had an economic boost. These are no backwaters but fantastic places to live with better climate and pride in their national teams. We were competing against numerically fewer nations in the past. Africa has seen an incredible increase in footballing ability. there are barely a team in the top that doesn't have players from this region now. Fitness, players were less professionally minded in those days. These other countries have got their act together. We were big fish in a small pond. Hate to say it but we'll never know how your dalgleishes and gemmills would have fared in today's prem, my contention is they were great players but from a more limited scope. Also, agree there are more things to do now. there are more sports out there than football. I would guess there are fewer fathers and sons going to games now than their used to be due to ticket prices and better entertainment out there. Edited February 15, 2016 by PapofGlencoe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chesney Hawkes TA Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 What about immigration? England has large Caribbean and now African communities that have produced loads of international quality players and a large proportion of the current England squad. It would have been handy for our football team if we'd had an Afro-Caribbean influx to Scotland as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daviebee Posted February 15, 2016 Share Posted February 15, 2016 6 hours ago, Chesney Hawkes TA said: What about immigration? England has large Caribbean and now African communities that have produced loads of international quality players and a large proportion of the current England squad. It would have been handy for our football team if we'd had an Afro-Caribbean influx to Scotland as well. And when we did finally get such a player he turned out to be a fkin ringpiece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoofitharder Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 the break up of the soviet union and the eastern bloc had a massive effect.instead of clubs coming to Scotland and cherry picking the best young talent they had a larger,cheaper source.Also the post about coaching is spot on instead of looking for new innovative ways of coaching they either stood still or went back to the hit and hope style just like the english clubs did during their european ban. at work we were chatting about aston villa winning the european cup.there were three scots in the starting eleven and one on the bench.Alan Evans (4),Des Bremner (1),Ken Mcnaught (0) and Andy Blair (0) They mustered only five caps between them.hard to believe really. if there were four scots in the champions league final it would mean we were dreaming.or we were in the funny farm Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 On 15/02/2016 at 1:19 PM, Chesney Hawkes TA said: What about immigration? England has large Caribbean and now African communities that have produced loads of international quality players and a large proportion of the current England squad. It would have been handy for our football team if we'd had an Afro-Caribbean influx to Scotland as well. I think you have a point there. France and Belgium benefited from North and Central African migration with connections there from past empires. Netherlands did well from Surinam. A lot of the players in England are from London. Poor areas. Street wise. Tough characters. Football was a way out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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