[0762]

It will be a major miracle if Scotland pass the "acid test" v Serbia Jim. Agreed we epitomised sheer footie mediocrity last night v Israel and deserve nothing from that play-off final UNLESS CLARKE CAN STOP PUTING BIG NAMES ON POSITIONS RATHER THAN PLAYERS WHO CAN ACTUALLY PERFORM WELL IN THESE POSITIONS!! You're right re Jack and O'Donnell being almost anonymous. I'd give a "special mention" to Gallagher though as he was really "pitched in at the deep end" and played out the role of a traditional CH competing and "clearing his lines" as well as poss. Having played a decent level of footie in bygone days, I must say my perception of this awful match was that not a single player showed any element of courage or commitment to "grasp the occasion" and basically "play without fear" - they were terrified of losing that all important 1st goal! So the default position was to play "safety first footie" - the easy pass with hardly any incisive passes thereby minimising mistakes, covering for any team mate's mistakes and the end outcome was an absolute bore of a footie match lacking any character in the players on view. For starters, IMO we could've done with somebody like Villa's Jack Grealish replacing Ryan Jack to give our midfield formation an element of proper balance and dynamism. My main query re Steve Clarke's perception of taking on this semi-final play-off is, "Did he concur that this Scotland team is rank rotten as an attacking unit anyway? Therefore he set up in a vert tight, stuffy team formation (I call it 'going Italian'!) that was not gonna give anything away with every player being cautious and defensively minded in not conceding many goal opps to the opposition".

[hibeejim21]

A performance like last nights v Serbia will result in a skelping.