What if this is as good as it gets?

Can I finish writing before we find out if Scotland are still in the World Cup? Do we live to fight another day? More likely we live to be shite another day. How best to sum up the last three games...

You know the post credits scene in the very first episode of Still Game? The one where Winston's grandson Joe has his boxing match and Jack and Victor arrive to watch just as the bell rings but by the time they take their coats and scarves off and turn around to watch he's already been knocked out. It's been pretty much like that really.

I got up to watch the Haiti game and tbh, spent most of the second half watching through my fingers. After initially starting well and building several good moves using the same pattern of play where McGinn moved to an inside left position, Robertson or Hendry passed to him then Robertson sprinted to receive the return pass before crossing or playing the ball into the strikers, then scoring the goal it all quickly petered out as Haiti countered our plan A so we quickly regressed into lumping the ball which was food and drink for the Haiti team who were mostly all big, strong lads. They also looked far more comfortable on the ball than us (a common theme) and it really did become a game of cat and mouse with us on the one hand trying to hit them on the break but on the other hand clearly fearful of committing too many players into attack in case they cut us open. It all had shades of United vs Airdrie in the Championship. I know they had a lot of players playing at a decent level but come on to fuck, if' we are as good as some people like Neil McCann seem to say then surely we could have been more capable of actually imposing our game onto them? Did we not have any semblance of a Plan B??? We never tested their fat goalkeeper from any distance and I can only remember one shot from McTominay first half and one chance that McGinn shanked in the second. It was a win, great. Yeah it was great seeing and hearing so many Scots in Boston. But failure to really go for it cost us later on. Deep down I'm sure everyone knew it at the time. Anyway, fuck Haiti, machete weilding bastards. 'mon the Dominican Republic.

I'll be honest, I was pissed watching the Morocco game. We'd been invited to my nieces house for it and arrived there about the back of 7. She put on a braw spread and had plenty of drink in. It was fucking roasting too so by the time we got to 11pm I was sleeping with my eyes open. Drink and pollen are the twin scourges of the contact lens wearer so I do remember the MyPa 47-style offside trap opening goal but not much else about the first half. I did go and clean my lenses at half time so I do remember us playing a fair bit better in the second half but creating nothing. I remember McTominay's penalty claim which was Tony Watt-esque in the blatant dive stakes but don't remember McGinn's penalty claim or Adams getting fouled by the last man (which on viewings the next day were absolute bricker decisions). I don't know whether we deserve praise for largely stifling Morocco or we deserve criticism for not really hurting them. It kind of felt like we did neither and Morocco definitely weren't all they were cracked up to be. I thought they'd be dark horses for this but I'll be surprised if they even make the quarter finals. Another opportunity missed. 

I was desperately hoping it wouldn't happen but Scotland, like about a dozen other teams in this World Cup already were caught by the scourge of modern football: trying to play out from the back. Boys who think they are footballers when in reality they are players who are used to doing it at their clubs in slow motion with opponents who are poorly coached and don't have the quality or wherewithal to set traps and don't really press. A boy at work said last week that the metrics suggest that playing out all the time is effective but surely to fuck this is only looking at the top leagues in the world because when you look at the teams who have been caught out doing it at the World Cup it is all the lower ranked teams with the bulk of their players who are playing in weaker leagues. Maybe these are players who are just not able to do it at the top level due to the pace and know-how of the top, top players who will punish even the slightest mistake?

However, it was actually really interesting watching this tweet though which, although it doesn't exonerate the hapless McKenna of blame for Brazil's first goal does point out that had Ferguson simply played a return pass to McKenna that the press of Brazil would have been beaten and the goal would have been prevented. Or indeed, had Robertson's starting position been a bit higher, Gunn could have found him with a longer clearance (or rather, a goalkeeper who actually has decent distribution could have found him, which is not Gunn). McKenna's casual jog back to take the pass from Gunn (which ended up behind McKenna causing him to have to adjust his feet) also gave the boy Rayan that time to narrow the passing angle which also didn't help. Just a catalogue of errors fucking us after a pretty decent start. Am I the only one though that thought the first goal came from us getting a bit cocky after Hendry sold their player a dummy a few minutes before?

Hendry must've still been high on this wee moment of glory when he thought he could dribble out from the back and take on half the Brazilian forward line for the disallowed goal. The cunt had a pass on too. I know Clarke seemingly said in his Haiti team talk that the players should think back to when they were wee playing football because Hendry seemed to think he was on some sort of playground mazy. So after shooting ourselves in the foot but hitting a steel toecap we decide to basically blow our fucking heads off with the second goal. I was watching the game on my own but remember thinking Robertson had done well up until that point but his decision to try and play a pass in a packed box to a boy who was surrounded by opponents was absolutely infuriating. There's a few minutes to go, just put your foot through the ball and try to see out the half, get in and count your blessings it's only one nil. But no.

Boys who think they are footballers.

There's a bit at half time when the camera cuts to a couple of Brazilian players laughing and joking walking off at the pitch It can only be about how shite we are. Dearie me.

We did rally for spells in the second half and Tierney was decent (unlike his Celtic form) but when the Brazilians stepped it up we just looked levels below and their 3rd goal had such an air of inevitability about it that I couldn't even really get annoyed. But for Angus Gunn it could have been 6 or 7. There have been loads of takes in the last 24 hours about Scotland which largely fall into two camps: i) the Tom English camp that the players are simply not good enough and ii) those who are blaming the manager and stating that when you go through our line up there is more than enough players playing at a high level that we should be doing better than we currently are in major tournaments but are being held back by Clarke's dour tactics and tendency to stick with his favourites. Those performances from a few years ago against Denmark* and Spain now seem a distant memory. *I don't mean the one we qualified in where the three wonder goals papered over an absolutely shite performance for about 85 minutes, I mean the one from a few years before where Che Adams actually took a game. 

We are now 3 tournaments in with this group of players. 9 games. We haven't performed in any of them other than being dogged vs. England, the Swiss and Haiti (not the same thing as playing well) and a no bad half vs. Morocco. At what stage do you look at it and realise issue is that they simply aren't good enough?

I had previously put myself in the latter camp but I must say I am now moving into the former. Before the tournament started I did however feel that Scotland had about 6 players that they simply could not do without and losing even one or two of them would kill our chances due to a lack of quality replacements. For me the six were: Hickey, Robertson, Gilmour, McTominay, McGinn and Doak*.

*His mamma called him Clay, I'm gonna call him Clay.

My heart sunk when Gilmour went down injured in the friendly. For me, he's our most important player because he's our only midfielder who can actually look after the ball. The Brazilian first goal wouldn't have happened if he'd been playing since he would have picked the right pass in the build up to it. That's not a slight on Lewis Ferguson who is one of the few who left this tournament with some credit in the bank but he is not a midfielder who looks comfortable playing precise passes and trying to dictate the tempo of a game. 

You go through the rest of those six and none of them have really had any sustained impact on this World Cup. Hickey looked a bag of nerves in the Haiti game and then was injured in the other two. Robertson was probably the best of this group until he sold the jerseys for Brazil's 2nd goal. McGinn scored the winner against Haiti but has been pretty anonymous otherwise. Doak played well against Haiti, was left out for tactical reasons against Morocco but again looked dangerous when he was brought on but looked like a little boy lost against Brazil. McTominay on the surface has been piss poor. You can question how much this bug took out of him but to me he looked like a man who has started believing his own hype. Tweet of the night last night was the one that said: "How shite must Napoli be?" "No wonder Italy never qualified for the World Cup."

 


What's going wrong at youth levels?

I'm not sure kids actually want to play. Certainly not in the street or in the park. Too many of them just want to sit on phones scrolling aimlessly. If they are playing it's at organised levels (dragged there by parents) where, at training the latest en-vogue coaching methods are foisted on them. Now there's nothing wrong with that per se. However, it's repeatedly playing in parks and streets where you hone your skills and most importantly, work on your touch. But that's just not happening nearly enough these days sadly. My young lad has just finished u18's so has spent about 11 years in the boys setup. I can honestly say in the 100's of training sessions I watched for the three different teams he played for, I never once saw drills where they specifically practiced controlling the ball. To me that's fundamental and should be reinforced every single session be it control in tight situations or taking the ball down out of the air or being able to control the ball on your chest or knee, including being able to take it and turn away from an opponent. I taught him how to do these things, but he didn't practice them enough. The young foreigners still seem to play the game more and practice their skills much more than we do. It just seemed to be taken as a given that they can do it (when they really can't do it to a proper standard). The young lad played lots of games on Dawson Park this season where the pitch was really bobbly and heavy during the winter. I heard people say they shouldn't be playing on that pitch but should instead be playing on the astroturf pitch along at the road at Whitton Park because it's a 'true' surface. But to me, good players should be able to play on Dawson. It's where you separate the boys who's touch is good from the one's who's touch is poor. Perfect, bowling green astroturf pitches mask this. Do you think the kids in Brazil or Morocco are learning the game on nice, perfectly flat 4G surfaces?

An older lad at work who loves his football often speaks about playing fives with boys who played Junior and in the Scottish lower leagues in the 1980's and 1990's (boys like Gus Malone) and how even though these lads were long since retired they still demanded really high standards and had real quality when looking after the ball. In particular, they would lose the rag if you played a pass to their wrong foot. In some cases this would be wanting the ball to their stronger foot, but it was also demanding that you passed it to the most appropriate foot that would enable them to take the ball in their stride and move away from an opponent (which would sometimes be their weaker foot, which incidentally they'd have no issues with using). Having been listening to this I made a point of watching out for it in the Brazil game. 32 minutes in I posted on a group chat that I had lost count of the amount of times Ferguson and McLean had played passes to players 'wrong' foot and you could visibly see players having to check their runs instantly killing their momentum and forcing the player (and team) to change the angle of what they were doing and more importantly, putting players under pressure from Brazilian opponents who's eyes just lit up at the opportunities. Now, if boys who are ex-Juniors from 30-40 years ago expect this to happen and still demand it, surely to fuck internationalists who are playing at the World Cup and who's clubs are in Serie A and the English Championship earning tens of thousands of pounds a week should be able to execute this on a consistent basis? It's just not good enough.

It makes you wonder what is actually being taught to kids, particularly those in Scottish academies each costing about three quarters of a million pounds each year. I still shake my head at an interview from about 5 years ago with former head of the United academy Andy Goldie who said that they focus on developing the players strengths rather than working on improving their weaknesses. So if their touch is poor or they were one-footed it was just ignored??? If that approach was replicated across Scotland then no wonder we can't properly pass or control the ball. Frightening. The Brazil game showed up players weaknesses being horribly exposed all over the pitch.

The future?

When Steve Clarke was interviewed after the Curacao game and was asked about his new contract he cited Tyler Fletcher and Finlay Curtis as reasons why he wanted to continue in the managers job. I'd like to think he knows something we all don't. But looking at the current team, I'm not sure. There are not that many players who will still be around in 4 years time at the next World Cup. I am leaving out the ones who will be 35 or above. Looking at things then Gunn and Kelly will be 34. Be surprised if they play 34 games between them in the next 4 years though. Patterson and Hickey will be 28. Patterson desperately needs a move though. Souttar and McKenna will be 33, Tierney will only be 32 but I suspect his body will have given up by then. Ralston will be 31(st choice right back at Celtic). In midfield McTominay will be 33, Doak will be 24, Curtis will be 23 and Fletcher will 23 but he is still an unknown quantity. Strikers-wise Dykes and Shankland will be 34, Stewart and Adams will be 33, Hirst will be 31. I know players are fitter now but that's a decidedly aged group of forwards who are already pretty below average at international level.

So you add in younger players who didn't get in the squad for whatever reason who will all be of a more realistic age to be competing for places: Billy Gilmour, Lennon Miller, Connor Barron, Tommy Conway, Kieron Bowie, Josh Doig, Luke Graham, Ross McCrorie, Andy Irving, Josh Mulligan, Lyall Cameron, Stephen Welsh, any goalkeeeper who is actually getting a regular game? Long shots might also be Ross Graham and Sam Cleall Harding, Jack Milne, Elliot Watt, Dylan Tait, Jason Kerr, James Penrice, Luke McCowan, Max Johnston, James Wilson and Robbie Ure. Dare I also forsee a way back for Ryan Porteous who would be about 31 by the next World Cup?

It's pretty slim pickings though.

You could be looking at an extended squad of:

GK: Gunn, Kelly, McCracken? Clark?

RB: Patterson, McCrorie, Johnston

LB: Hickey, Doig, Penrice

CH: Hyam, Porteous, Luke Graham, Welsh, Milne, Souttar, McKenna

CM: Gilmour, Ferguson, Barron, Miller, Fletcher, Irving, Watt

AM: McTominay, Mulligan, Cameron

W: Doak, Curtis

S: Adams, Conway, Bowie, Stewart, Hirst, Wilson, Ure, Burke

My big worry is the current squad that has got us to three tournaments this decade might be as strong as it gets for a generation. Why? Well because looking at that potential squad above, coupled with how poor the u21's have been for the last 5 years, the total lack of young Scottish players actually getting game time in the Premier League and the others who are being sold down South at age 16-17 then disappearing completely you really have to wonder what the actual fuck that the future is going to look like for for the Scottish national team???? The scary thing is this current team might be a golden generation for the Scottish national team. What if this is as good as it gets?

Scotland also hasn't benefited from immigration in a sporting sense anything like many of the other countries in the World Cup (particularly England, France and tbh just about every other European team) so it's not like we're getting the benefits in terms of players coming from different cultures and outlooks on life, fitness, diet, alcohol and so on.

One of my biggest pet hates is Scotland supporters who say we should just play the youngsters. As if young automatically equates to good. Have any of these people ever actually watched the u21's or u19's play in the last 5-10 years or even followed their results? Their results have been fucking dire and it's been made even harder by England's growing domination at virtually every youth level. Hardly any of them are progressing on to the full teams and too many are struggling to get a game at their clubs or are players who are playing in English academies and who are not progressing into their first teams, ending up in a succession of unsuccessful loan spells either down the leagues or up in Scotland where, they are quickly found out: Lewis Fiorini anyone? The ridiculous decision to choose Tyler Fletcher over Lennon Miller then not give him even one minute of game time was piece of nonsense given that Miller had actually got really good experience at club level and earned a big move on the back of it and was growing into things at his new club. What a terrible message to send. 

Any Ideas?

This stuff has been debated throughout my 47 years on this earth. Here's my current take:

1. Bring back reserve team football. Teams carry matchday squads of 19 now so at least 4 will not get any game time. Most teams also have first team squads of around 22 players so there are always going to be several more experienced players who would benefit from a proper game during the week and can support youngsters in that progression. The fact that Scott Constable and Sam Cleall-Harding played more minutes for Scotland at youth level than they did for Untied (or Airdrie) in the first half of the season is an absolute farce. Co-operation agreements are a decent idea on paper but they depend on parent clubs having big enough squads to free these players up to go on loan. Dundee United certainly didn't have that due to Mark Ogren's penny pinching meaning we needed these lads to make up the numbers so the bench, particularly during the first half of the season when we were beset by injuries. On that matter too, reserve games would surely enable boys coming back from injuries to actually get match fit and get their confidence back if out of form. I reckon someone like Max Watters would have benefited from this last season after he'd been out injured and to maybe even get dropped but hopefully get a few games and goals to build confidence instead of getting put back into the first team when struggling for form and fitness. Pretty much every ex-pro in Scotland talks about how they benefited as a youth playing in reserve games getting talked through things by more experienced pros. If cost is a barrier (pretty poor if we can't finance 22 reserve games though), maybe diverting some money from the lavishly funded academies would help. At the end of the day, playing reserve games should be part of the academy boys pathway.

2. Mandatory drills that should be used in every single training session at all youth levels at every boys club. These should initially focus on touch (control and weight of pass) and this should continue up to age 18 with other drills being gradually fed in on patterns of play. Every club should be building to a national strategy so good habits and in-game intelligence become second nature throughout the game in Scotland.

3. Raise the age young Scottish players can sign for English clubs to 18. They do this in Brazil and at least the clubs might get some benefit from the investment they have put into their development. It might also give the clubs another couple of years to properly assess whether or not the player can actually cut it. I think United are actually quite happy for laddies to be signed by English clubs at 16, getting 250 grand for someone who might not develop and be finished in senior football by age 20. That is unacceptable in my opinion.

4. People talk about quotas of young players in your squad or even team but I am not in favour of this if the young players are not good enough. It will lead to a teams looking very unbalanced. It has to be done on merit. An extended 16 team Premier League might reduce the pressure however and encourage managers to give younger players more of a chance.

5. A national academy of excellence like the French have at Clairefontaine. Clubs can send their absolute best there (quotas for top league then reduced quotas for Championship clubs) where young boys (and girls?) are developed and educated following a national strategy. Yes the attrition rate is high but also I know from experience that too many kids are leaving the clubs academies without any academic qualifications and not making it either because their attitude and behaviour isn't great. A national centre should operate at the absolute highest football, academic and personal standards. This should be co-funded by the SFA, SPFL and the Scottish Government in the way Jordanhill school is. There is a part of me that thinks Scottish clubs should just scap academies and use the old Brentford model, even letting English clubs who are awash with cash and who can provide better facilities and coaching to take the whole thing over, but that's never going to happen. So this could be a compromise. I do worry that we are now lagging behind Wales in developing young talent because their clubs play in the English leagues, so benefit from much higher levels of funding than we do and their young players will happily sign up with English clubs because they are effectively in that system anyway.

6. Get Kurt Herd involved.

7. Listen to what Ian Wright said about our shite tv deal. Get a better deal which means more money to be invested in the youth system and reduces the financial pressure on clubs, particularly the fear of relegation.

8. The under 16 social media ban and banning mobile phones in schools is a good idea in my opinion so in theory this should get more kids playing football. However, I'm not sure if the bans can actually be enforced. Social media companies, lazy parents and kids themselves will inevitably find ways around it or, just blatantly ignore it. It's really not going to be easy to put the genie back in the bottle. You never know however.

Not sure if this will work, but something needs to change.

0.07% chance now.