Frasergillie

Could this perhaps be linked to the talk of Rangers and the other lot having B teams entered into the Highland/Lowland Leagues, this would be an alternative venue to be used for home games for the B team.

This exactly, Spain were exactly the same 10-15 years ago when they realised their national team, like England’s now, were full of individual superstars constantly underperforming at the highest stage. Unlike the incompetent SFA they realised that it wasn’t working and completely ripped up the Spanish footballing blueprint. They put in place a framework to recruit technically gifted players above physically gifted players and made every professional club academy do this. They realised that this implementation wouldn’t happen over night and gave a timeframe of 10-15 years to produce technically gifted players. From a young age players were developed technically as physicality comes with age and maturity, they wanted players who could fit into multiple systems without having to learn new skills. Low and behold they won three major international trophies on the spin, Barcelona dominated European football for almost five years with Real Madrid not far behind and Athletico Madrid competing. They won countless Europa League trophies over the past few years with mid to upper table teams technically dominated other so called too European teams. Scottish football is in a dire dire state, probably the worst it has ever been in, due to it not evolving with time. Compared to the early 2000s I honestly think Scottish football has gotten even more physical rather than technical. There’s a reason why European mangers can’t get there tactics/training across to British players in Scotland, the sad fact of the matter is, the British players are just not technically minded enough. There’s talk about the British players calling the foreign players shit, perhaps that is the case as they are just not suited to the physical/non-technical Scottish game but put any of this British players in the foreign leagues and the players there would be saying the exact same thing. Scottish football needs ripping up and a top quality director of football needs putting in place to dictate the direction in which football clubs, specifically academies, need to go in. It’s worked in Holland, it evolved and worked in Spain, it is now working in Germany and to an extent Belgium, even Iceland ripped up and started again and its showing through their national team results.

I don’t post much on here but keep up with the talk, I agree Denya, if true, it’s a bit rich for British players to call any foreign player shit. Scottish football is in a dire state at the moment the physicality has over taken the technical aspect of the game with a lot of referees allowing this week in week out. You only have to look at the signings most of the other SPFL teams make, average league one and two hammer throwers who actually at times thrive in our game. It’s disappointing to see and it shows when Scottish sides come up against bang average European sides and get beat by technically better players from the likes of Cyprus, Slovenia and Lithuanian.

It's as if we put so much energy in to the first half, especially in the middle of the park with Jack and Dorrans battering it out against three man midfields every week. We come out in the second half and the two midfielders sit so deep, maybe due to tired legs, but it allows the oppositions three man midfield to dominate the middle third for periods in the game. Miller, and last night Morelos, were dropping back to compensate but were getting caught on the ball too much as it isn't their game. I think he needs to change to a 4-2-3-1 sooner rather than later in a game, get someone on who can sit or actually play the number 10 position to help out the midfield and link up with the lone striker. Especially as lately we usually go in at half time leading and the last 20 minutes against Dundee last week with that formation we actually looked pretty decent and controlled the game more easily.

I think one of the problems was the fact that he was constantly being played out of position when he got the chance plus he never had a run in the team, it was always off the bench. When he was at Leicester in the development squad he was playing as a centre forward and not as a right or left winger, he does most of his damage in the box as he is too lazy to chase back as a winger. I do think he has a nice first touch and finish but he doesn't add too much to the team, he won't chase back or fill in if need be but I suppose if he gets a few goals then it won't be such a bad piece of business after all.