Our national team is propping up the table for a competition that will see us fail to qualify for a major tournament in over two decades.  One of the biggest clubs in our domestic league was cheating for years and has now hit the skids.  Another one is failing to pay its players their wages.  Gates are at an all time low.  Pundits and fans moan about the state of the game week in, week out.

 

What will it take for the powers that be to do something about it?

 

Have we already passed the point of no return?

 

Does anyone give a shit?

 

Well that's fucking cheered me right up.

 

What annoyed me was the countless times that I heard either "We're doing really well to be at 0-0 with a side like Belgium" or "We were never going to get anything from this game."

 

Well not with a fucking attitude like that! Aye Belgium are a handy side and better than us but for FFS sake they're not that good. They've got 2 world class players and we've got 3 pretty decent players so a defeat isn't surprising but I feel we treated them with far too much respect. Our mentality is all wrong. And ST is correct in implying it's routed from the very top to the very bottom of the game in this country. Fuck it.

All the players and experts sneering at Al Lamont for asking whether they should've had more of a go sums up a lot for me.

 

"when we attacked macedonia late on we nearly lost, if we attack against teams like belgium we'll get destroyed."

 

Our players expect to lose, have been given absolutely no tactics to beat ANYBODY and no self-belief. Those are directly down to the manager and coaching staff. Remember it's not just Levein, that Houston cunt needs to fuck off too.

 

Smith and McLeish did well making us a counter-attacking side. Levein has taken the worst parts of the tactics and made us probably the worst we've ever been. At least Berti was giving new blood a chance, Levein's usuing the same duffers. Although maybe it's best not to have promising youngsters involved in this car crash.

 

I'd have Billy Stark as caretaker.

Maybe if we attacked Macedonia earlier we would've had the fucking points in the bag, likewise with Croatia.

 

Anyhow, Scottish football never has watersheds. It just lurches from one nightmare to another. If everything else couldn't be a watershed then where we are now certainly won't be.

 

The gravy train of Scottish football will continue, just it will get progressively smaller.

I lost count of the amount of times a simple square pass or a 10-yard pass did not reach its target.  It was not so much to do with the ability of the players because during the course of Levein's tenure as Scotland manager, we have in spells played some pretty good stuff, but it was clear from last night that these players were terrified to try anything risky, Maloney was the only player who looked willing to take a man on or to try something creative.  It is obvious that the mounting speculation over the poor performances of Scotland has reached the players and they have no confidence.

 

Players are never going to come out after a game and say "aye, I think the manager should get the dunt" are they?  What I don't get though is this crap about "effort".  There was plenty of effort from a defensive perspective, but whilst the first half stats showed that Belgium had two-thirds of possession, one stat that may have been interesting is the amount of time Scotland passed the ball straight to a Belgian player or out of play.  I don't accept the argument of the Belgians closing players down either because we're talking about poor composure.  There was the kind of poor passing I wouldn't even expect to see in domestic football.  Effort in an attcking sense was non-existent.

 

Allan McGregor's obnoxious comment to Al Lamont after the game "What would you have done, attacked them?" was utterly preposterous.  The presbyterian negativity of Scottish football managers and hierarchy has seeped into the players - a goalkeeper FFS!  There was no counter attacking.  There was the prospect of one counter attack when Kenny Miller could've crossed into the box from the right wing but instead, in true Kenny Miller fashion, he checked back onto his (weaker!?) left foot and crossed it to the ball boy on the opposite corner flag.

 

The one thing I'll applaud Levein for is his HT removal of the abysmal Commons.  There was more movement in my bowel during those first 45 minutes.

 

If I was Paul Dixon looking at the lazy cunt that is Danny Fox playing in front of me I'd be absolutely raging.

 

Levein's position is untenable.  He has to go, along with Danny Fox (lazy), Alan Hutton (too accustomed to the automatic pick), Gary Caldwell (unless in midfield which I've always thought was his best position), Kenny Miller (no explanation required) & James McArthur (guilty of some very poor play last night and has never convinced me he should even be in the top 20 Scottish midfielders).

Our national team is propping up the table for a competition that will see us fail to qualify for a major tournament in over two decades. 

 

pedantry here but France 98 was only 14 years ago.

We wont reach the 2 decade accolade until we fail to qualify for Russia in 2018