Inverted

Morata has returned to earth.

There’s something very pleasing about that Gosens goal. Something about the pace at which the Germans spread it out to the right and whipped the ball in. Then the absolute chaos with like 4 runners attacking the same cross.

Scotland win 0-0.

Klinsmann has the most American German accent I've ever heard.

Of course Schick has chosen this game to start missing sitters.

Can't be much worse than O'Donnell. Since we have basically no chance of doing anything in this tournament anyway, why not play the prospect over the guy who is never going to be any use again after this? I agree that McGinn should be bursting ahead of Gilmour in possession but I was trying to show that defensively we would likely need him to fall in next to McTominay.

The only saving grace of playing plodders like Hendry and O'Donnell: we are upping the pressure on England to batter us convincingly. With the gulf in quality, anything less would be an embarrassment. Steve Clarke mind games masterclass. This is futból.

I think Scotland’s squad is ok in terms of overall talent-levels but in terms of where that talent is allocated, it’s just not made for tournament football. At tournaments, when you’ve got a very low level of tactical preparedness and very few games to make an impact, things are pretty much decided in the boxes. Strikers and goalies rule the day, and it just so happens that those are our two biggest weaknesses. The CB situation is also meh. Meanwhile we have two world-class left backs who would walk into any team in the world. But left backs aren’t players who are really in a position to decide games. We’ve also got a pretty nice midfield with McGinn, McTominay, Gilmour, and Armstrong all playing at a really high level for their clubs. But again, midfielders are limited by what’s in front and behind them. The issue with Clarke is that he plays to our weaknesses, and insists on playing a back 3 and 2 up front when we already have very few good options in those positions. If we played Marshall Patterson-Hanley-Tierney-Robertson McTominay-McGinn Christie-Gilmour-Armstrong Adams That would be decent I think, but Clarke would shit himself at the thought of it.

Time for Steve Clarke to show us why he picks all of his old favourite grafters all the time. If there’s ever a game where the experience of the likes of O’Donnell and McGregor should be of any use, you’d think it’s the likes of these.

Even if you want to play him in a back 3, if you at least play him on the left he can go forward more easily than from the middle. That's what Scotland does with Tierney, and it works fairly well.

I think Immobile is a bit of a meme from his time at Dortmund and Sevilla but since then he's quietly been a beast of a striker.

He does get a flick in the head but it's a bit embarrassing from Hernandez.

Lynaldo Dykesaldo.

Kroos-Gundogan seems like an extremely lightweight midfield pair. You need to somehow replace Goretzka's physicality. Schweinsteiger's lineup has the right idea I think. One out of Can or Kimmich should be in midfield.

Definitely, we could have. The problem is that Clarke is the kinda personality that will settle for being able say "we made enough chances to win" in hindsight, rather than doing everything he can during the game to try and create as many chances as possible. Some people will watch a chance being missed and think "ah well" and some will think "ok, where's the next chance coming from?". Clarke is the former.