kancutlawns wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:43 pm
Watched Micky Mellon play for West Brom in the 1990s, Kev.
I don't recall him as a player, Lawnso. I think he went down to England very young - think he was at Hearts as a youth? Still got a fairly strong Paisley twang as well.
Looking forward to tomorrow's game and seeing the two in-form sides.
Beltin' game and Hibs unfortunate not to grab a winner. Rangers could argue the same, but a fair result.
Hibs have done some good business and wee Kevin Nisbet looks good (he's looked good at Dunfy and Raith) but he's shed about a stone. Scotland squad surely soon.
Porteous cheeky wee arm around Morelos was terrific too. A proper wee windup merchant.
All three Scottish teams through in the EL last Thursday.
Motherwell making hard work of Coleraine and fortunate to get through on penalties.
Easy peasie for Rangers who beat Red Imps of Gibraltar (famously beat Brendan in his first Celtic game).
And the Dons winning in Norway, the result of the night.
All three are in action on Thursday along with two Faroese teams (take a bow, nae bad for a population of 44k, having two teams in the third round).
Sporting v Aberdeen
Willam of Orange/Nederland V Rangers ( .D)
Hapoel Beer Sheva v Motherwell
Plus
Celtic v Riga
Three tricky ties and all of them could go out, and I might be wrong but I think one team progressing guarantees a group stage representative in the new Europa League 2 for a Scottish team next season.
Plenty to be optimistic about now watch them all bow out in typical style.
kevin04 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 20, 2020 3:35 pm
Beltin' game and Hibs unfortunate not to grab a winner. Rangers could argue the same, but a fair result.
Hibs have done some good business and wee Kevin Nisbet looks good (he's looked good at Dunfy and Raith) but he's shed about a stone. Scotland squad surely soon.
Porteous cheeky wee arm around Morelos was terrific too. A proper wee windup merchant.
All three Scottish teams through in the EL last Thursday.
Motherwell making hard work of Coleraine and fortunate to get through on penalties.
Easy peasie for Rangers who beat Red Imps of Gibraltar (famously beat Brendan in his first Celtic game).
And the Dons winning in Norway, the result of the night.
All three are in action on Thursday along with two Faroese teams (take a bow, nae bad for a population of 44k, having two teams in the third round).
Sporting v Aberdeen
Willam of Orange/Nederland V Rangers ( .D)
Hapoel Beer Sheva v Motherwell
Plus
Celtic v Riga
Three tricky ties and all of them could go out, and I might be wrong but I think one team progressing guarantees a group stage representative in the new Europa League 2 for a Scottish team next season.
Plenty to be optimistic about now watch them all bow out in typical style.
Putting my Coronavirus hat on for one second, would the Aberdeen players not have to "quarantine" when they get back to the UK? Portugal is on that list right?
mentioning other members is not allowed in signatures
kevin04 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 20, 2020 3:35 pm
Beltin' game and Hibs unfortunate not to grab a winner. Rangers could argue the same, but a fair result.
Hibs have done some good business and wee Kevin Nisbet looks good (he's looked good at Dunfy and Raith) but he's shed about a stone. Scotland squad surely soon.
Porteous cheeky wee arm around Morelos was terrific too. A proper wee windup merchant.
All three Scottish teams through in the EL last Thursday.
Motherwell making hard work of Coleraine and fortunate to get through on penalties.
Easy peasie for Rangers who beat Red Imps of Gibraltar (famously beat Brendan in his first Celtic game).
And the Dons winning in Norway, the result of the night.
All three are in action on Thursday along with two Faroese teams (take a bow, nae bad for a population of 44k, having two teams in the third round).
Sporting v Aberdeen
Willam of Orange/Nederland V Rangers ( .D)
Hapoel Beer Sheva v Motherwell
Plus
Celtic v Riga
Three tricky ties and all of them could go out, and I might be wrong but I think one team progressing guarantees a group stage representative in the new Europa League 2 for a Scottish team next season.
Plenty to be optimistic about now watch them all bow out in typical style.
Putting my Coronavirus hat on for one second, would the Aberdeen players not have to "quarantine" when they get back to the UK? Portugal is on that list right?
Saints11/ wrote: Putting my Coronavirus hat on for one second, would the Aberdeen players not have to "quarantine" when they get back to the UK? Portugal is on that list right?
A fair result and only one team in the game yesterday. Celtic were shocking. Lenny isn't a great coach as we seen when he tried his luck at Bolton - although did alright at Hibs. His tactical nous is zilch, often playing players in odd positions or having his favourites - love Broony, but why play a 36 year old every single game, and Turnbull should be starting! His signings more often than not are shite - could say the same aboot Stevie G though. I really think we should have went for John Kennedy and promoted within when the vacancy came out two years ago. Barkas was at fault for the first goal.
A bit of a difficult run in for Celtic :
Milan (h) Aberdeen (a) Lille (a) Aberdeen (cup) Sparta (a) Motherwell (a) Hibs (a)
My pal at Arbroath got off to a stinker as well, gubbed 3-0 by Raith Rovers. Watched it on their stream - fair dues to the SPFL - for setting up broadband and streaming for all the games, the Raith game was £12 and the commentator said there was around 3000 watching. For the wee teams in the lower leagues, this is exactly what they should be doing - charge a £10-15 for access to their live stream as they need their gates to survive. Next up is Hertz at Gayfield on Friday, which will no doubt be a convincing win for the Jambos. Still, there's Alloa in the league so the Lichties might well stay up ; but fearing the drop already after Day One.
And for the national team ; what a week we had. Clarke is now 8 games undefeated and that's a joint record with Andy Roxburgh from about 1988. That 3-5-2 system he's going for had a lot of WTFs about it last month , but maybe just maybe (say it lightly) it might well work.
The Israel game, we were pretty poor but defensively absolutely sound as a pound. It was two poor sides playing each other who after 70 minutes seemed to have settled for penalties. Israel are better than their ranking (after going out to us, they lost 2-1 to the Czechs with a last min shot off the bar and were 2-0 down at half-time to Slovakia but won 3-2!) but we managed to sneak through by some fantastic penalties.
The Slovakia game, especially the second half, was the best I've seen Scotland play for a while. Absolutely solid at the back, but creating chances albeit against a bit of a weakened Slovak side - who are ranked higher than us. The Czech game, well, we got a fair amount of breaks in that, the stats were mental and on another day we might well have lost 3-1 or 3-2 (McBurnie did hit the bar in the 89th minute) but again, the defence held up very well and it ended up as a Celtic, Hibs, Aberdeen, Motherwell back five. Andy Considine making his debut at 33 and being brilliant too in both games is the stuff of dreams. It's going to be mighty tough to qualify, but if we can, that'll be some story if he goes to the Euros aged 34 after winning his first cap just the year before.
Serbia next month. Norway have been very good under Lagerback, and Haaland is just out of this world at present, so I didn't really fancy playing them in the final, but the again, Serbia will be extremely difficult. A wee bit of luck that if there is a crowd, it'll be only 12k due to Covid. Kolarov looks very aged and slow these days, and whilst they have a lot of good players who are better than ours, they are hardly clicking too well at present and blow hot and cold. 2-2 in Turkey after being 2-0 up and 1-0 home loss to Hungary. They will be huge favourites, but if we can defend like we did in these last three games and somehow grab a goal, I'll be over the moon. Saying that, if the Euros are to go around Europe next year, it'll be Serbia v Croatia at Hampden that'll make Celtic v Rangers look like an auld pal's match!
Having Fraser in the squad has really helped. Switching sides, quick, skillful and has a decent strike on him. Only thing that pisses me off with him is the wee dives - twice in the Slovak and Czech game, he went down too easy when he could have stayed up and been in a better position by beating his man than trying to win a free kick. I'm delighted Stephen O'Donnell did so well in our last two games ; you can tell playing for his country means the world to him and I fear overall against a really, really good side he will (and has been in the past) exposed very easily, but he has a pass on him and seems a top laddie. And Lydon Dykes has been brilliant, excellent at holding up the ball, his wee flicks and touches, and bagged two goals in five games as well - fingers crossed him and Fraser are fit for the Serbia match.
Two Nations League games to look forward to after the playoff. And 3pts is enough to win the group! Away to Israel and Slovakia. If we do manage to win the group, there are many benefits
-Potential Playoff for the World Cup.
-Promoted to A league for the Nations League (although don't fancy 6 pumpings by Belgium, Spain and Croatia). Although, we'll have guaranteed a Euros playoff spot for Euro 2024.
-Second seeds for the Euro qualifying draw.
There's even the slight possibility we make Pot 2 for the WC draw in December. I believe Iceland, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Ireland, Turkey are hoovering between us in the rankings and if things go amazingly well for us and not great for them in November, then we might well tuck in to pot 2 for the WC qualifying. An outside chance, but it would top of a fantastic few months.
Havering a fair bit on the noo, so I'll roger and out.
Brilliantly detailed analysis as always, kev. Good luck in Belgrade. Now’s the time to come to the party and SJM will help get you there. I love that man, his fat arse and all.
McGinn has been our best player throughout this 8 game unbeaten run, Lawnsy. He's fantastic. Fat arse, haha and runs a bit like Quaisimodo too. It'll take it if he plays like he does.
He was OK against Slovakia, as in, he didn't do too much wrong but nothing sensational. And I thought that was the worst he has played in a long time, which wasn't bad at all. If it was someone making their debut, or anyone else, you'd have given them a 7/10 and said very good things about their performances. He's that good, that even a decent/B- performance feels like a bad one.
Absolute legend and a great start for Villa this season too.
kevin04 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:42 pm
McGinn has been our best player throughout this 8 game unbeaten run, Lawnsy. He's fantastic. Fat arse, haha and runs a bit like Quaisimodo too. It'll take it if he plays like he does.
He was OK against Slovakia, as in, he didn't do too much wrong but nothing sensational. And I thought that was the worst he has played in a long time, which wasn't bad at all. If it was someone making their debut, or anyone else, you'd have given them a 7/10 and said very good things about their performances. He's that good, that even a decent/B- performance feels like a bad one.
Absolute legend and a great start for Villa this season too.
He’s getting back to his best after his terrible injury, kev. Bringing in Barkley to link in well with Grealish and allow McGinn to go further forward is paying dividends. Luiz is our DCM but he can also play well as a box to box player.
SuperJohn’s a top, top bloke. Down to earth, mixed with fans in a pub close to Solihull on crutches just after sustaining his injury and always puts in a shift. Great to see him being so influential and captain for Scotland too.
