Steve Clarke named the Scotland squad for their three games in September earlier, Stephen Kenny is expected to name his squad on Thursday
No huge surprises. I might have included a couple of the likes of Manning, Sykes, Connolly (shoot me, I know), McGrath and Kelly. Not mad on Hourihane but there’s a serious lack of midfielders who can sit - we basically just have 3 for 2 slots - Molumby, Cullen and Hendrick - the last slot is very bleak - either you pick someone from the 21s who isn’t ready yet or you’re looking at Hourihane, McCarthy, Arter or someone in LOI (a rovers midfielder or Chris Forrester I guess)
Kelleher still injured I guess? He's had no luck at all (and hasn't helped make his own luck either of course)
McGrath hasn't done much this year - he's playing for a Dundee United side getting ****ed on with alarming regularity - and much and all as he's never let us down, I don't think he offers much. Bit like Horgan in that regard.
Keane is probably the most interesting omission. And Brady the most interesting inclusion
Edit - I see the RTÉ article suggesting Connolly will be in the 21s squad announced later today. That's a rare demotion
I know we are badly deficient in midfield options, but Hourihane? When does "never having done anything remotely positive or useful" become a consideration for his selection. Would seriously have preferred Byrne as a left-field option who offers something different from the bench. Be interesting to see how he gets on tonight against opposition who are probably much stronger than Armenia and at a level with Scotland.
I think that the best squad available to him. Nice to see Brady and O'Dowda back - both are good on the ball, bring creativity and guile, and given our aerial strength, we can take advantage of Brady's dead ball deliveries/ crossing.
To be fair, Byrne is only just back from injury that kept him out the whole summer. His first 90 minutes since May at the weekend past. If he had been fit, and gave Rovers a bit of a kick through Europe, he might have been in considerationQuote:
Originally Posted by third policeman
The only positive The return of Brady with a bit of craft, without any attacking mid it is settle The 3-5-2 then
Thanks, Dont wanna start an argument but the Scottish roster is on paper stronger in club level analysis. However it could be just a cause of discrimination and an anti Irish hiring policy in the clubs of England, keeping into account that the Championship is actually the 8 the stronger football division in the old continent. But alas it also could be something more. Could it be that Ireland are producing better international footballers that club footballers? Could it be that, with the way Eire vanishing Scotland the other match, it could have been 4-0 if the Hogan header wasn't saved over the line in a last grasp attempt.
Andrew Omobamidele ruled out through injury and replaced by Liam Scales.
manning must have done something to SK, cant understand sk picking scales over him.
I think Scales has been playing more at centre-back than full-back for Aberdeen this year, but then you have the same question with Lenihan instead of Scales.
I think when you look at the Scottish clubs in Europe this year (ignore Rangers and Celtic obviously - but Motherwell losing to Sligo, Dundee United getting hammered 7-0 by Alkmaar, and Hearts losing home and away to Zurich), then it's probably safe to say that an SPL player outside of Rangers/Celtic is going to have to be running the show for their club to really be in contention.
lenihan is injured i think. personally think the level of SPL is low, its better than LOI for sure but its not a patch on the championship/higher l1 when you take the big 2 out of it. scales was way out of his depth at celtic so im not too sure what kenny think he adds to a national team
Lenihan has missed the last three games through injury. Jimmy Dunne is there also and could probably feel hard done by. Scales is a CB and left footed, don't think we've any other left footed CB that's been in the seniors.
Have to say I don't really know what to expect from these two games.
We saw real green shoots in June (the last two games) but also two awful performances which characterised much of the early Kenny reign. Which is the real Slim Shady? Did we catch Scotland jaded at the end of a long season and on holiday mode after World Cup exit? (And ditto Ukraine, their fourth game in a week after months of no football and a war added in). Scotland are missing Robertson for this one, but he was crap in Lansdowne anyway. They also still don't have a keeper, but I just can't see them being as lax again. On the flip side though, I can't see us being as lax against Armenia as we were in Yerevan, which is the kind of performance I thought we were putting behind us. But you could have said the exact same thing after March, with a decent hour against Belgium (B) following on from a dreadfully lax showing against Lithuania.
Up front will be the interesting part I think - our in-form forwards in June are now out of form. Obviously if your forwards don't perform, you're in trouble. But maybe the change of an international window will do them good.
I think most of all out of this window, I'd like to get some sort of idea as to which way the Kenny reign is going to go - it can't keep fluctuating as wildly as in March and June.
The only way we’ll find out is if he back the young players who actually fit the system instead of backing older players who just don’t, it was no coincidence that we improved the minute these changes were made.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Scotland as a collective haven’t been great for awhile really, they’ve had afew games here or there where it’s worked but tbh I still think quite afew of their players are dining out on that Serbia performance in 2020 and results like in June had been coming for awhile now.
It’s one of those games that can go either way really as you don’t really trust either side.
It might until we get some consistently performing forwards......Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Did Scotland catch us jaded after travel back and forth to Armenia, and getting the run around by Ukraine?Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
It's a fair question, yep.
Though Scotland also got the runaround by Ukraine (and the first team at that), so I don't think we can use that excuse.
A bit of consistency would make it easier to see which way we're tending towards is all
The reason I lean towards it being more of an Irish problem than a Scottish problem is if you look at the Armenia & Ukraine (H) games we had a lot of older players who clearly aren’t comfortable playing the Kenny style but in those games our best performing players were the young players who are good at playing this style. But once Kenny dropped a lot of older guys and backed the young players from Scotland on we started seeing improvements which for me is hardly a coincidence.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The lesson Kenny needs to have learnt is not back these older players anymore.
Feels like a very relaxed start to the international window considering the situation we are in. That probably comes from taking 4 points from the last two games, but at the same time there's an outcome in the next week where we come fourth in the group and that's surely the end of the road for Kenny as manager. Even scraping third with 1 point from 6 would probably make his position untenable.
I expect we'll beat Armenia and he'll continue on into the groups for better or worse, but the precarious situation he's currently in seems oddly unmentioned this week so far.
Even if he loses both games. He is getting the euro 2024 qualifying campaign.
He's done well to finish the last couple of windows on a high I think. June - two dire performances followed by two really encouraging ones. March - dross against Lithuania, 30 minutes of not getting a touch of the ball against Belgium, followed by a change in tactic and a much-improved final hour. Or take last year as a whole - largely poor stuff (the draw in Portugal aside) but we ended the group strongly with those two away wins in particular. And finishing well creates optimism for the next window.
I think your prediction of beating Armenia and he'll continue on is correct but I think two consistent (and decent) performances are vital here. I'm not sure I agree with otoh's point on our forwards' form dictating the team form. It's not entirely untrue, but some of the turgid, pedestrian stuff we've played goes beyond having nobody up front. Probably CSAD is closer the mark in terms of our more experienced players not stepping up to the new style, and yet there's no particular reason why that should be. Maybe Coleman, Stevens and Hourihane are just past their peak now (cue obvious comments as to what Hourihane's peak ever was)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diggs246
Even if we lose home and away to Armenia - how low is the bar being set for this man, Armenia are absolutely awful?!
He surely can't continue if that happens.
Stephen Kenny has never been more than 2 games away from getting the sack. Looks like that continues for moment.
Unless we win in Glasgow it's going to be one game I think. Albeit the game is at home against one of the worst teams in Europe.
But that's a rod he has made for his own back with the bad results against Luxembourg, Azerbaijan and Armenia, mostly caused by poor choice of formation/selection on his part. He has never given himself a comfortable buffer despite having had opportunities to do so.
I don’t think the players not stepping up is necessarily because they are past their best but more so that they are not comfortable playing out from the back (eg Duffy).Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
I see from the other side that UEFA have changed the rules a bit and third in our Nations League group is now unlikely to get us into the playoffs for the Euros, we'd need to finish second ahead of Scotland. Added pressure for the Glasgow game now, it's no longer a free hit in terms of Euros playoffs qualification.
I think we'll get four points. If we lose both games, it would be an abomination should Kenny keep the job. Losing at home to Armenia would be the definitive sackable offence.
Think it was already likely known that a third place finish would be stretching it for a play off spot once they extended League A to 16 teams.
I have given up trying to figure out what Kenny needs to do to get sacked. Lunge wildly at the pope, maybe.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snapshot
It hasn't been every game but quite a few would have been very different if we'd stuck away one of the early chances. When you plug away at a gameplan but can't convert when it works you start to lose faith on the field. It's not the primary reason for our struggles but it hasn't helped. When Robinson hit his little streak we looked dangerous. That said we've struggled in every area of the pitch at times....it's just hard to win football games when your strikers can't score.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The experienced players have been a mixed bunch. Hendrick and Duffy have done ok. Doherty has been good. Egan's been solid. Coleman, Stevens and Hourihane are just on a downward trend and shouldn't be around much longer.
It's a shame Omobamidele is out. Would love to see a back 3 with himself and Collins together with Egan maybe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eirambler
A third place finish is still likely to get us qualified for a playoff. Very few 4th, 5th and 6th seeds qualify. You'd expect 1 to qualify - (min 0, max 2) and in that case 2, 3 or 4 of the 3rd place teams will go to a playoff. If we were to beat Armenia, that'd put us in a good position.Quote:
Originally Posted by JR89
We will learn another about the parrott/ obefemi axis on Saturday. Away game if they do the business then we could have something there.
I know some people think ogbene should start i would be surprised at that. He has the heart of a lion and he's as fast as one. But the 2 boys are just better players
Nah, wouldn't be stretching it too much... but definitely getting into the second spot would make it much easierQuote:
Originally Posted by JR89
Scotland leading one nil against Ukraine.
Make that two. Second place could be a tall order at this rate.
Make it 3. All to do for SK.
Makes it simple.. two wins to give ourselves even a squeak of a chance of second
Ukraine look like they have run out of adrenalin, a far cry from their 2 WC play-off games and even their performance in Dublin. Could be interesting should Armenia (perhaps benefitting from the Nancy Pelosi bounce) take something from their game v Ukraine.