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Doomsday In Central Defence


ErsatzThistle

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It's been said quite a lot over the last couple of years that we are incredibly low on central defenders. Just imagine this .....

Grant Hanley, Russell Martin, Gordon Greer and Christophe Berra all eat a dodgy fish supper from the same shop and are consequently spending more time in the lavvy than the training ground and can't be called upon ! :eek::eek:

Just who the hell could we rely on to take their place, and who are crucially also playing at least at a half decent level ?

Mark Reynolds and Liam Cooper are the only two that readily spring to mind. Danny Wilson anyone ?

Anyone want to make a case for guys at mid table Scottish Premiership sides ?

Or how about it, are we that desperate we need to look at *gasp* a dreaded granny rule player ! ? :ph34r::ph34r:

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Martin and Hanley have never let us down but it's worrying to think that they are, not only, our first picks but when either one of them is missing, the general feeling is 'we are fecked'.

Seriously light in that department.

I don't think we have ever lost when Greer has played.

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He has played there for man u, emergency cover.

Can seem to remember they got pumped though, cant blame him if he was played out of position.

I seem to remember a spell over a few games where be played at the back with Michael Carrick. I'm sure they were both better than Wes Brown!

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I am friggin' puzzled by this whole thread. So Gary Caldwell was masterful? Was he heck. Give me our current crop of defenders over him any day. Need I remind folk we are NOT I repeat NOT leaking goals like there is no tomorrow at the moment so where in hell is this Doomsday in Central Defence. Our current crop are part of the team that has us in strong contention for qualification and it ain't from us being a free-scoring side. I just think this post reeks of looking at the clubs our options play for and automatically pinning them down as being not up to it. Horse crap. Need I remind people of athe all-conquering Liverpool side when we had Alan Hansen make a calamitous error that caused us to be eliminated from the 82 World Cup? In recent times Caldwell and Pressley scared the crap out of me with their desire to try to swap shirts with opponents mid-match and it cost us penalties/errors and red cards - far more so than our current crop of defenders. In recent years (say the last five years) I'd only take David Weir and have him in the side.

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In short in their last 20 games Scotland have conceded 20 goals and that is from games against the likes of Croatia X2, England x2, Poland x2 and Germany. Now if the OP wants to hanker back to the good old days of Gary Caldwelln Steve Pressley et al you will notice a big difference. From 2006 to the end of 2011 Scotland played 48 matches and conceded 56 goals - that looks like more Doomsday than the current crop to me. Ah I do like to dispel myths. :D

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In his matches to date, Strachan has set us up so that the centre halves are better protected than they were previously (under Burley in particular).

Not taking anything away from Martin or Hanley, who still needed to step up and perform to make the system work.

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In short in their last 20 games Scotland have conceded 20 goals and that is from games against the likes of Croatia X2, England x2, Poland x2 and Germany. Now if the OP wants to hanker back to the good old days of Gary Caldwelln Steve Pressley et al you will notice a big difference. From 2006 to the end of 2011 Scotland played 48 matches and conceded 56 goals - that looks like more Doomsday than the current crop to me. Ah I do like to dispel myths. :D

Both average out around 1 goal per game so not much of a difference really.

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Both average out around 1 goal per game so not much of a difference really.

It is still a tighter defence now than it was a few years ago when we had the likes of Caldwell (he played 55 matches in which we conceded 79 goals) and a lot of the time he had a rock like Davie Weir beside him. Also look at others we played like Matt Elliott, Steve Pressley etc etc etc so calling the here and now defence anything like Doomsday is wrong especially if the pretence is that our defence of five years ago for example was more secure when it clearly wasn't.

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As for the back-up players then Christophe Berra has 29 Caps and in those Scotland have conceded 39 goals (average of 1.34 goals per game) and Gordon Greer has 7 Caps in which Scotland have conceded 5 goals (average of 0.71 goals per game) so far less a Doomsday scenario than say having Gary Caldwell and Matt Elliott in there.

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Don't think Hanley and Martin would have a better record than Caldwell if they played under Burley and Levein for years.

Caldwell also played under McLeish and Smith to counter-balance that argument (and Brown) PLUS he had the steadying influence of David Weir alongside him. And Hanley and Martin did both play under Levein (all be it briefly).

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What is apparent now is that Strachan has instilled a real team work ethic. Something that was missing for years. Whether it's Hanley, Martin, et al, everybody mucks in and a tighter all round defensive unit has been created from midfield back to the keeper. It also puzzles the hell out of me why someone like Levein couldn't get that basic part correct given his playing days(albeit short) in defence.

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