DantheDon

Its worth mentioning that McGinn had his best goalscoring form when he was playing up front for us. He chips in a reasonable amount of goals from midfield but goalscoring hasn't really been his main role since McInnes came in and he started playing on the wing. Legend is over-used these days but as there is no fixed criteria I think its up to individual to decide who qualifies for it themselves. I think McGinn will always be a memorable player. Perhaps if we had won a couple more trophies and had some good european runs this team might have some players we could class as legends.

I imagine it is also just difficult to break into celtics first team at the moment. They have a very established central midfield. But I could say the same about us.

Just watched the highlights can't believe we didn't score with the opportunities we created. That said I'm not surprised there goalkeeper was motm, he pulled off a couple of great saves.

I agree, definitely feeling a bit more positive about this now. Serbia are bottom of there nations league group, (even though you could argue its a harder group) so they won't be feeling as confident as we are at the moment.

I think probably most youth systems do have a high degree of waste. I mean you have so many youngsters in these systems nowadays the amount that will actually break through is always going to be a small percentage. If you go back we lost some good youngsters, how good exactly we will never know as they went to places where they suffered the same fate as our current crop, which seems to be no route into the first team. I accept that people might debate how best to develop young players. The opinion Ive formed from my observations are that the one's who do best are the one's who get the opportunity to kick on and have a manager that inspires confidence in them. I think it has some relevance to how we have fared as a nation as well. For too long good Scottish youngsters and players in general have been a cheap option for championship clubs benches. Hopefully this is beginning to change with our clubs generally not in the dire financial positions they used to be in early 2000's. Point being is it not a case of not having decent youngsters coming through, its the inability to integrate them into the first team that I believe is our undoing. I'm generally in the pro McInnes camp overall but i feel this is one of his failings. Anyway I don't want to derail the thread completely as this could have a thread of its own. So good on Consi, hope he gets a decent run and a chance to add to his haul of caps. Fingers crossed he will score a hatrick against the Czechs.

Is it Maligned though? I always think its done ok over the years. Often our problem seems to be keeping our top talents (Which we have got better at recently) or giving them game time needed to make the step up to first team level (Which I feel still needs some improvement).

I agree, I did say winnable by which I was trying to imply its probably not right now. To be fair I suppose I was being quite vague, in the 90s we would have been favorites, 00s I would have fancied our chances, now not so much.

Didn't expect to them to tuck away all 5 pens but first one aside (which was very fortunate to go in) they were all well taken. I only tuned in for the last 20 mins and pens so Ive not really got any insights to offer but it sounded like we really lacked creativity from what Ive read. Serbia should be a winnable game in the past but I don't have much faith in the way we are playing at the moment. Still got to keep some hope.

It looks like dundalk got a really lucky draw. However I think the Lask result shows what happens when you have a go. I know lask are probably considered a better team than us, but if we had made the playoff round I would have given us a good chance against them. They put 4 past sporting where as we barely troubled them.

Its all changing from next season with the introduction of the Europa League 2. I believe this is meant to cut down on qualifying ties. I havent looked at the format yet, but I presume if we didn't make the Europa league 1 we would cascade into the second one.

I think if we were ever going to qualify from the current setup it would take us beating one of these teams at some point and tonight seems a bit of an opportunity missed. I'm not denying they have quality though and I don't think its a disgrace or anything but I would have liked to see us having a bit more of a go. Ref didnt make it any easier for us though as limiting any physicality was always going to favour them. I presume it will be a bit easier to qualify from next season with the setup changing. Whether we end up in Europa league 1 or 2 it would be nice to have a European run.

Its a real pain when you get a ref like this reminds me of Maribor. But unlike that match we weren't good enough tonight, went out without really threatening them.

Well we have had at least two shots on target so thats rubbish.

I think if we push them we have a good chance of getting something, They are bound to tire as the match goes on. Hook Mcgeough and get wright on.

We should get wright signed up for another couple of years at least, we can always look to extend his contract if he keeps up the good performances. Always leaves a bit to chance if we let it get to December/January and hes playing well then gets approached by other clubs. Speaking about Hedges when is his deal up? Did he sign on for 3 years or was it just 2?

If Sporting are ravaged by coronavirus then as said above this could be our best opportunity to make the group stages. As you have to beat the a big team somewhere along the way and that tie is definitely winnable.

On another slightly related subject with Motherwell going to extra time and penalties they should be tired come Sunday. Which will hopefully make things easier for us.

I think we were reasonably good against Kairat at Pittodrie. If I remember we had a good go and just lacked that bit of composure in the final third. Think it was winnable, but like a few here I wouldn't call this team bottlers.

Bit gutted if the Viking game isn't on Premier as I subscribed for a month just before the runavik game and I wouldn't have bothered if it was just for one match. It says Redtv is audio only for the UK, does this mean its not on anywhere?

I still don't understand why nobody was willing to stump up the cash for him last season when he had I think second most assists in the league, if he was English he would have gone for 50+ million. I don't know if we were just unlucky with this one, but it would have been a real boost. I also see that Sheffield Utd are away to sign Max Lowe

I don't think it necessarily does, It depends how much he wants to continue. He's been a great servant to the club over the years but I think his best days are behind him and unless Hernandez is a complete flop he wont be a starter most weeks. Might still get a couple of rolling year contracts as a back-up.

Anything other then 1 would be incredibly difficult. Even Malmo are no mugs, although I know little about Honved. That said in a one off game anything is possible.

Going back a bit to the Michael Hector situation, I read an article previously where he said that Chelsea was his club, so I'm sure that had a large bearing on him joining them. Obviously for his career it probably wasn't the best move in the end but its easy to say in hindsight.

Have to say I'm pretty astonished at how sensible an approach this is from the SFA. Was expecting them to throw the book at us. They even took into account the more serious nature of Bolingoli's offence and punished accordingly.

Anyone have a link to Considine's comments?