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Being Scottish and a St Mirren supporter all my life (and until my dying day), does anyone else on here share my disappointment at the tactics the national team sometimes deploys when up against so-called superior opposition?

Last night's game against Germany was depressing in the way we approached the match. Right from the kick-off we were standing off and letting them come at us up to our own 18 yard box. It's not that we are particularly gifted at defending and if you invite someone to stick one on your chin, that's exactly what they are going to do. What was surprising last night was that we managed to score 2 goals with these tactics. It was a reminder of the Craig Levein days in charge.

One of the refreshing aspects of the Danny Lennon era was that we tried to play football and often without sacrificing competent defending. I was not always one of Danny's greatest supporters, but at least I appreciated the way he was trying to get us play. You will recall that into Danny's second year at St Mirren we were attracting a lot of favourable comments from neutrals and the media.

We are currently on the cusp of a new era at St Mirren with a vastly different player pool from last season and a new management team . Already this season, we have seen games where we have deployed 'holding tactics', and invariably been left with a disappointing result.

In others we have been more adventurous and we, the fans, were not too disappointed because at least we had a go.

Whilst it can be argued that the best means of defence is attack - the opposite tactic is not rational - ie. 'the best means of attack is defence'.

If you do not try to score goals you will rarely get the right result - without a huge slice of luck.

We want to see our team brighten our day not shutting up shop, and with the present management and playing pool, the future is bright if we get our approach and tactics right.

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Sorry bud but you have to play your opposition. Any team of Scotlands standard that comes out and attacks Germany in the way you describe will ship at least four goals to them. Thomas Muller is possibly the best player in the world at positioning and being in the right place at right time! The performance against Georgia was far more disappointing than last night!

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Georgia game was far more depressing than last night. Germany's third team would cuff Scotland, our only hope was to sit back and try sneak a jammy win. Had we opened up they would have ripped us to shreds, indeed they did at points even with us sitting back.

I'm definitely a club before country man though, and apparently we are going to win the championship and sing this song all night. At least according to the singing section on Saturday anyway.

Edited by TopCat
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I'm definitely a club before country man though, and apparently we are going to win the championship and sing this song all night. At least according to the singing section on Saturday anyway.

Just high spirited lads having a bit of fun, plus the song doesn't state exactly when we will win the Championship.

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Germany were/are on a different planet.

As TC has mentioned, itwas the performance on Friday that was hugely demoralising.

Anyway, to look on the bright side, as St Mirren fans, at least we are hardened to the inevitable boots to the stones that come along more often than we would care to recount.

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Germany were/are on a different planet.

As TC has mentioned, itwas the performance on Friday that was hugely demoralising.

Anyway, to look on the bright side, as St Mirren fans, at least we are hardened to the inevitable boots to the stones that come along more often than we would care to recount.

No they're not.

Other small nations play with more self-belief than Scotland (population 5.3M) - e.g.. Denmark (5.6M), Sweden (9.7M), Norway (5.1M), Iceland (0.3M), Eire (4.8M), Wales (3M), Holland (17M) & Portugal (10.5M).

Self belief is all about the confidence that you can actually win a game as against not lose a game.

Yes, Germany are miles better than us at present, but the disappointment for me last night was that we were not trying to play possession football let alone have a try at goal.

There has been plenty of criticism on here in recent weeks about Saints' "holding" tactics which I think have contributed to our poor start to the season.

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No they're not.

Other small nations play with more self-belief than Scotland (population 5.3M) - e.g.. Denmark (5.6M), Sweden (9.7M), Norway (5.1M), Iceland (0.3M), Eire (4.8M), Wales (3M), Holland (17M) & Portugal (10.5M).

Self belief is all about the confidence that you can actually win a game as against not lose a game.

Yes, Germany are miles better than us at present, but the disappointment for me last night was that we were not trying to play possession football let alone have a try at goal.

There has been plenty of criticism on here in recent weeks about Saints' "holding" tactics which I think have contributed to our poor start to the season.

Hmm, crucially imo you missed out Croatia. Pop circa 4.5m. They play or played fairly recently , great football. It was high tempo, failry relentless and pressed high. Always plenty of belief about them. They had pace and some good technical ability that saw off many many teams. I'd love us to play the game that way. It seems we cannot , or will not.

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Georgia game was far more depressing than last night. Germany's third team would cuff Scotland, our only hope was to sit back and try sneak a jammy win. Had we opened up they would have ripped us to shreds, indeed they did at points even with us sitting back.

I'm definitely a club before country man though, and apparently we are going to win the championship and sing this song all night. At least according to the singing section on Saturday anyway.

You have a better chance of scoring in your opponents' half than you do from your own 18 yard line.

Playing higher up the park does not necessarily leave your defence more vulnerable than staying in your own penalty box.

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Fact is whilst it was class opposition we were playing our passing was awful.As international footballers I lost count of our misplaced passes.Hanley was a prime culprit for just hitting the ball straight to the opposition.Oh and why is Whittaker not our right back playing everyone week for Norwich with Martin.Hutton continues to play only the odd time for Villa.

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No they're not.

Other small nations play with more self-belief than Scotland (population 5.3M) - e.g.. Denmark (5.6M), Sweden (9.7M), Norway (5.1M), Iceland (0.3M), Eire (4.8M), Wales (3M), Holland (17M) & Portugal (10.5M).

Self belief is all about the confidence that you can actually win a game as against not lose a game.

Yes, Germany are miles better than us at present, but the disappointment for me last night was that we were not trying to play possession football let alone have a try at goal.

There has been plenty of criticism on here in recent weeks about Saints' "holding" tactics which I think have contributed to our poor start to the season.

The same Ireland that sat back at Parkhead for a 0-0 draw against Scotland. Some self-belief there.

All these countries have games where they sit back and defend things out. Switzerland beat Spain at World Cup 2010 using that tactic.

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I am not. We beat QOS, we beat Falkirk, Saints are back!!!!!!!

As for Scots, really got nothing to do with population China have 1.5 Billion and they are Rubbish, as are India and most of Africa.

Fact is we balls up one game and it may haunt us, we beat France twice with 25% possession, Turkey beat Dutch 3-0 with 30% possession, our issue is Forrest, Anya, Hutton have no end product, and if we play wide that is what we need to work on

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No they're not.

Other small nations play with more self-belief than Scotland (population 5.3M) - e.g.. Denmark (5.6M), Sweden (9.7M), Norway (5.1M), Iceland (0.3M), Eire (4.8M), Wales (3M), Holland (17M) & Portugal (10.5M).

Self belief is all about the confidence that you can actually win a game as against not lose a game.

Yes, Germany are miles better than us at present, but the disappointment for me last night was that we were not trying to play possession football let alone have a try at goal.

There has been plenty of criticism on here in recent weeks about Saints' "holding" tactics which I think have contributed to our poor start to the season.

I have more issues with the personnel Strachan opted for last night (Forrest and Fletcher in particular).

Had we tried to open up and play a more expansive, attacking game, we would have been hammered. Germany were able to play around the six we had across the back at times, never mind had we tried to push the full backs forward more often. Sometimes it is necessary to sit in a bit and try to shitfest a result. Last night was never going to be about the performance. It was all about the result.

To draw a parallel with Saints sitting deep and inviting the likes of Dumbarton and Livingston onto us is a bit daft. Germany are world champions for a reason. Had we managed to grab an unlikely draw or even a win last night, no-one would be criticising how Strachan set the team out to play. I almost soiled myself when I looked at their line up before KO. We simply don't have the players to compete with Germany in a possession game. Sometimes knowing your limitations is just as important as playing to your strengths.

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Didnae' watch. Was at a far more enjoyable event - Will Hoge live at the 02 ABC. I used to follow the fortunes of the Scottish fitba' team with a passion. These days I hope they do well, but if they lose, disappointment barely registers with me. St Mirren are more than enough of a rollercoaster to be dealing with without allowing Scotland to rip yer' knitting as well.

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Being Scottish and a St Mirren supporter all my life (and until my dying day), does anyone else on here share my disappointment at the tactics the national team sometimes deploys when up against so-called superior opposition?

Last night's game against Germany was depressing in the way we approached the match. Right from the kick-off we were standing off and letting them come at us up to our own 18 yard box. It's not that we are particularly gifted at defending and if you invite someone to stick one on your chin, that's exactly what they are going to do. What was surprising last night was that we managed to score 2 goals with these tactics. It was a reminder of the Craig Levein days in charge.

One of the refreshing aspects of the Danny Lennon era was that we tried to play football and often without sacrificing competent defending. I was not always one of Danny's greatest supporters, but at least I appreciated the way he was trying to get us play. You will recall that into Danny's second year at St Mirren we were attracting a lot of favourable comments from neutrals and the media.

We are currently on the cusp of a new era at St Mirren with a vastly different player pool from last season and a new management team . Already this season, we have seen games where we have deployed 'holding tactics', and invariably been left with a disappointing result.

In others we have been more adventurous and we, the fans, were not too disappointed because at least we had a go.

Whilst it can be argued that the best means of defence is attack - the opposite tactic is not rational - ie. 'the best means of attack is defence'.

If you do not try to score goals you will rarely get the right result - without a huge slice of luck.

We want to see our team brighten our day not shutting up shop, and with the present management and playing pool, the future is bright if we get our approach and tactics right.

I tend to think that , Scotland tend to let most teams come at them and sit back (pretty much like St Mirren) . Last nite was classic wee Anxious tactics - sit back and defend and try and nick something on the break - and nick something they did , twice . .

Hardly depressing , as l didn't for a minute think we were going to cuff the Deutchers 4-zip but in a typical wee Anxious style I was hoping it would be nothing each up until injury time with wee Anya nicking a spangled goal in the final seconds of injury time with the Deutchers having no chance of reply. .wink.png

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...... by having threads that have nothing to do with St Mirren in the St Mirren discussion thread ...... smile.png

You obviously have not fully read my post.

I was comparing the national team's performance and tactics with our own over recent weeks (however unrealistic that might be).

I was challenging the widely-held concept that it makes sense to defend just north of the 18 yard box rather than to actually try and win the game in your opponents half.

Germany showed us how it is done last night by playing a simple, straight forward passing/possession game in our half of the pitch. Is that beyond Scotland or St Mirren? The Germans played as a unit rather than an assembly of particularly gifted individuals.

We used to slate the Italians (in Jock Stein's day) for their negative and defensive tactics. Now, decades later, we aspire to play the old (not the current) Italian style. Even Italy don't play like that any more.

It's not just this forum that has more than its fair share of negativity.

And St Mirren will win more games this season with an attacking attitude rather than adopting the tactics of some recent games where we were standing off too much and inviting the opposition to have a go at us.

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