wokinginashearerwonderland

I don’t think we should offer them more than about a couple of million for them to take him off our hands

That sounds awfully simplistic Rico to suggest the reason we made Greece look like Brazil was down to Hanley playing as a left sided centre half and it would have been a totally different game with McKenna in there instead. If you watch Liverpool, Robertson plays next to Van Dijk all the time, who is right footed but their whole team approach is just totally different. There are hundreds of examples of successful sides with two right sided centre halves, I really don’t see that as too big a deal. The ability (or lack of it) in our players to keep the ball and string more than two passes together was much more to blame on Wednesday. Our best keeper of the ball in Gilmour being on the bench did not help.

It's more square pegs in round holes though. Robertson is a full back rather than a wing back and used to playing in a back four. McKenna has played most of his football in a back four. Doak definitely ain't a wing back. I think Robertson's demise is very exaggerated by everyone. He is only 31 and played 45 times for Liverpool last season and another 9 for his country. He has plenty left in the tank. He bombs forward for Liverpool and has world class players to cover him but I suppose it is a different story for Scotland where you are relying on the likes of Hanley and Souttar to be filling in the gaps you leave.

It is starting to look like another case of Robertson and Tierney all over again. Clarke seems intent on trying to fit all of his best players in the same side and to fuck with the formation and tactical game plan. We started with four central midfielders last night and it became five for a while once Gilmour came on, which is ridiculous. He needs to have the balls to just leave a couple of his big name players on the bench and stop putting square pegs in round holes. John McGinn is no more a wide player than Keiran Tierney is a centre half. I'd far rather we played our best wingers regardless of who they play for. It must be a better option to play a winger that plays there week in, week out for St Mirren or Motherwell than persist with a stupid formation which gives us little width or crosses into the box. McTominay, Ferguson and Gilmour for me would be the certain starters in our best side if everyone is fit. No need to be shoehorning McGinn and Christie in there too. We are masters of turning what looks like a good group of players on paper into less than the sum of their parts. We made Greece look like Brazil last night, I would have hated to have paid for a ticket to watch that. If we persist with that kind of approach, there is no way were are beating either Denmark at home or Greece away and unlikely to get past a similar standard of opposition in the plays off either. Clarke has to be braver.

Very early to judge any player. If you look back this forum to some of the early comments posted about guys like Nilsen, Duk, Besuijen and Rubezic I'm sure it would make interesting reading.

The title is maybe a bit far fetched at this stage but they are 11 points clear of the hunnery which makes things interesting. The nack of scoring last minute goals is certainly more of a positive than a negative and something that most good sides do consistently.

Have they really figured that out from one decent game against the mighty Dundee?

I think we have to be a bit more positive in the approach in this match and go for the win if we want to qualify. The Greeks are decent so the away fixture will be very tough. Lob Dykes and Adams up front and push for the win.

Decent side. If half of those had been in our first team of late maybe we would be off the bottom of the league.

The idea of going from Martin to Dyche is mental, polar opposites. That is going from new age tippy tappy goalies playing fitba shite to old school get in aboot them and fire it forward to the big man stuff. That really is the prime example of ripping up the game plan if that happens.

That's good..........and also quite shite at the same time. Assuming I am right, that means based on chances created, you would have expected us to score 2-3 goals in the first half? That is the first time ANY side in the SPL has created 3 really good goal scoring chances in the last 11 years . Mental. xG is a funny stat. Who decides what is a chance that someone should score? If you are four yards out and you are Lewandowski, that is an expected goal, if the same chance falls to Keskinen it ain't really an expected goal. Would be awfully surprised if that happened. Even a diehard hun would be mad to swap Hearts for Rangers right now. If all the Tony Bloom hype is to be believed, Tynecastle would be a far better option.

Got to disagree. As someone who cannot remember anyone bar Celtic or Rangers ever winning our league I would cheer on any other side who could possibly make a challenge.

This is the glamour match of the tournament and the reason that you strive to qualify for Europe. Therefore, for me, it ranks above Dundee in importance. I would be pretty cheesed off as a punter, paying £32 for a ticket for this one,to see us write it off or be saving any players for the weekend. Just have a proper go and see what happens. It would be a tough ask to expect us to be beating this lot however I don’t think we should just be accepting of a thrashing either. We are on our own patch with home backing and no reason to think that we cannot compete. The away fixtures are likely to be extremely tough to take anything from and therefore it is important to try to get anything from the home matches to stand a chance of going through. It might be one of those nights where a more traditional Scottish approach could be the way to go. Play with a high tempo, be a bit more direct, get the ball into the box and see what transpires.

No, I am just using the eye test to make judgement on where we are at. You are harping back to a draw with Celtic almost a year ago as one of the reasons to be keeping this bloke in a job which is clutching at straws. The last 40 games have been garbage. We have a massive financial advantage over about 7 of the other teams in this league. After 60 games in charge Thelin has us in a worse predicament than we were in before he arrived. I just think he has had a fair crack of the whip and it is not working and at some point the club has to have the balls to admit that.