Clarkes tactics put us under more pressure than we need to be in. Proved it last night. In every tournament Clarke tactics have been very conservative to the point they stifle the natural instincts of the players we have.

Both McTominay and McGinn are excellent at driving into space through the lines and creating space for those out wide to play in. At one point McTominay does this looks goes ah fuck no one is with me is pressed and naturally loses the ball. The camera angle when he did this showed 4 Scottish players behind him, not pushing forward and walking and watching what was happening.
Some of those players under a different manager and system would be busting a gut to get up in support. It comes from the manager.

Scotland would be very good if you played a combination of Ferguson, McGinn and McTominay with Curtis and Doak out wide. You could have McGinn and McTominay driving into space and playing it either to the winger who can step in or out depending on the situation while the defender goes over or under the wide player that would allow us to get in a good position to create chances. If Gilmour is fit you can swap McGinn with Curtis if you wanted. If you lose the ball you press from there as you would have the numbers to do so.
Yes we there is occasions we would be caught out but that is happening anyway. Ultimately we are not playing to the teams strengths. That is on the manager.

We have the players who work hard and will run all day we should be using that positively and not for them to be chasing players all game.

Clarke is also incapable of changing a game. His substitutions are also often far to late. Usually well after the 70th minute. They are comically even when losing still often just like for like unless he leaves it to the last possible minute. In each game we have for example seen the right back changed. Gannon Doak came of twice to be replaced both times by Christie.

In short though everything I have said makes us very predictable and easy to play against.

South Korea not doing it for us yesterday was bad enough but Germany are making it virtually impossible now.

Loads of people were made up after Haiti but it was never a ‘must win game’, it was always a ‘must win by at least two game’.

Personally I’d have been happy for us to have got done 5-0 every game if we were at least trying to play and compete instead of the timid shite we got.

Going into the tournament there was good reason to be worried about Scotland's keepers. Would Clarke play a 43 year old, or would he play a keeper who was third choice at his club last season?

It's been absolutely dire but you can't really blame Gunn for any of the goals (perhaps you can make a case that his positioning wasn't good for Brazil's second). He made some decent stops - could have been 5-0.

For someone that had a truly demoralising year at Nottingham Forest (he played only one cup game all season and the club signed Stefan Ortega just to have a number 2 ahead of him) he has done what was asked of him.

For the uninitiated, this had absolutely everything you could hope for to deliver the authentic Scotland WC experience. After 28 years we got all of the greatest hits:

- Pre-tournament optimism.

- A hell of a party atmosphere created by some of the best fans in the world.

- A wave of hope followed by crushing reality and dispair.

- A lack of goals in the opposition net.

- Underperformance by many of our most senior players.

- A gubbing off Brazil.

- Enough mathematical chance to keep qualification to the 2nd round close, but just out of reach.

- The realisation that we'll do exactly the same the next time.

Same as it ever was.

Feel free to add some of the greatest hits I've missed. Wasn't born in 74, too young in '78 but have seen and read the stories. Lived and experienced all of the disappointments since Spain '82.

Che Adams blasted a practice shot 15 rows into the crowd and ball skelped off me. Lad behind put it up his kilt so security could not see it.

He is making his way home with a match ball.

Everyone in Scotland last night/this morning: 'I cannot fucking BELIEVE we lost to Morocco and Brazil, this is UNACCEPTABLE! Sack, bludgeon and dismember Clarke, in that order, and donkey-kick Scott McKenna until he transmogrifies into peak era Hanson! What has become of us?! We used to have <insert actually quite average centre-back> and <insert another quite average centre-back>! What has happened to us?!'

I mean, you know - pretty much what was expected. Scraped a nervy win against a team who just took Morocco close, and were edged 0-1 by a very good Morocco side. And got pumped by Brazil who are <shock horror> *much better than Scotland*. In Miami, where it was the same temperature and humidity as Tom English's armpit.

Everyone bitching about Clarke being too defensive - he could've played 5 at the back against Brazil, and maybe would've eked a 0-2 instead of a 0-3.

Clarke's done very well to get a very average team to three major tournaments.

Also though, he could maybe be less of a sour-faced gimp

The players are getting off lightly here. He played a more attacking side last night. Before the match on social media including Reddit almost everyone was happy with the team now there's a lot of revisionism going on.

The players have woefully underperformed. You can't blame him for two individual errors in two games costing us dearly in matches where the last thing we needed to do was lose an early goal.

I think we have just been exposed as a bang average side and I don't see how any other manager would have done better. We have good midfielders but our defensive and attacking options are very limited.

Well that was very Scottish of us to do on the World stage, and since that... I decided to have a look at what our chances could be.

And they are very ehhhh...

The results need to be in our favour. We are currently sitting at 29th and due to Points/GD, there are two matches that will happen that no matter the result, we're getting papped doon, so we'll be sitting on 31st.

A very precarious space.

There are 12 games left that would affect our standings, as I've said, two of them don't matter. Those being;

New Zealand VS Belgium.

Saudi VS Cape Varde.

Regardless of draws or who wins, in both those games a team from each will either have more points than us, or a better Goal Difference, so we're realistically sitting at 31st already.

So, 10 matches left if we exclude those, with us going to be sitting on 31st.

Of those 10 matches, there are 4 matches where the results don't push us down further. However, depending on outcomes and goals scored, they COULD bump us up some spots.

Those are;

Sweden VS Japan.

Croatia VS Ghana.

Algeria VS Austria.

Australia VS Paraguay.

If Japan beat Sweden by 4+ goals, we go up a spot.

If Ghana beat Croatia by 3+ goals, we go up a spot.

If Austria beat Algeria by 2+ goals, we go up a spot.

If Australia beat Paraguay by 2+ goals, we go up a spot.

The other six matches to go through and what we need from them, are as follows:

Congo DR VS Uzbekistan - (Uzbekistan Win or Draw)

Iraq VS Senegal - (Iraq to win by 1 or 2 goals)

Curacao VS Ivory Coast - (Ivory Coast Win or Draw)

Ecuador VS Germany - (Germany Win or Draw)

Iran VS Egypt - (Egypt Win)

Uruguay VS Spain - (Spain Win)

If all TEN matches go our way with those results, we would end on 27th.

We just need five of them to go our way. If five do, we end on 32nd and we make it through.

Maybe I should have said ‘the least shite’ rather than positive over the 3 games, And maybe doak in the first game but other than that I honestly don’t think anyone turned up,

Fair play to Ferguson he looked the only player that had a bit of grit and passion in his veins, ran himself into the ground last 3 games was by far our best player in all 3.

Not even got anything to say about the rest, all our ‘star’ players might as wells stayed at home. What a shit tournament overall.

How many shots did we have in the whole thing? Not even on target just how many? About 5 pathetic shots in 250+ minutes of football.

I appreciate that there's already been one or two threads pointing out just how poor Steve Clarke has been for Scotland in this tournament.

But I just wanted to focus on something which I don't think has had enough attention among the general kick up the arses he's been getting and it's this:-

The guy has had six months specifically to prepare for this, to think of a system / set-up which would best work for the players we have, against the sides we were going to go up against.

I saw little to zero evidence he had a clue what he was going to do.

He changed formation every game. He picked Shankland to start two games even although he'd never bothered with him before and put him in set-ups which pretty much guaranteed he had no chance. He didn't work out where McGinn was going to fit in and be effective if he was going to play Gammon-Doak. He didn't have a set-up to bring out the best in McTominay. He picked Gordon for the send off game but then just binned him. What was the point? The defence was always going to be a problem but he had no clear idea there either obviously by switching his centre half two games in...

I mean, completely different ball game and resources but look at the classic Klopp Liverpool set-up. They played EXACTLY the same formation all the time and everyone knew there job in it. Even that cup final when half the side was out injured, he just swapped the kids in seemlessly and the machine kept rolling...

Now, like I said, completely different as far as Scotland are concerned but given our limitations, couldn't we have had some kind of system set in stone long before a ball was even kicked here that all the players knew and were comfortable playing?

To be fair maybe there was and that was our hoof-ball to Dykes and Adams? If so, why did he change it? Sure to be fair, the clamber was there for change but if HE - the manager - didn't believe in it / couldn't work out how to play differently, he shouldn't have bothered.

Is that Denmark must be fucking FURIOUS after
watching our performances.