Scotland v Belgium

Like some on here I'm old enough to remember when we drew Belgium in a tournament it was almost like getting a bye.
Wot went Wong?

I think you are being a bit harsh on Belgium of old, they were never a walk in the park but we were as good as them & probably a bit better. I think we knocked them out of two consecutive qualifying campaigns.

They had a better record than us at tournaments though. Which is not difficult mind you.

Anyway, I’m going tonight & looking forward to seeing the top ranked side in the world at the moment.

Well, it was a strange selection by Clarke & a stranger still MotM selection for the sponsors - I honestly wish we would have a genuine MotM award to the best player on the pitch, not just to the home team.
Ryan Christie was a spectator for most of the game but got the award.

Belgium were quite clearly streets ahead of us & that was without Hazard playing. They didn’t have to try very hard at all & in the first half seemed to score whenever they wanted. A lot of that was due to our inability to close down effectively & our inability to play an incisive ball.

We had some moments when we looked like we might get in about them but they didn’t last long & Belgium picked their passes & us apart with consummate ease.

Clarke now needs to use the remaining games to get some wins & build some momentum going into the play offs courtesy of the Nations League.

Acht, they were jist better than us. They are going through a golden age of truly great footballers with the likes of de Bruyne, Lukaku, Hazard and Company. I can't think of any current Scottish footballer at that level. Any national team would have struggled against them last night.
For whatever reason we are just not bringing through talent. I am sure it exists as in past times but the system is either putting them off or stifling natural ability. I haven't got the answer but I wish someone did.

Robertson is the only decent calibre player we have, playing at a high level winning Champions League medal, but he isn't a Gareth Bale that can almost single handedly win games for his National team.

Clarke needs to have us hard to play against, and obv hard to score against, but to do that he needs the right players selected. We just haven't the players to go out and gub teams, we aren't even good enough to grind out the odd win.

Frankly a defensive line that play like they've played together before would be a start. Even pulling Halkett; Lithgow and Gallagher in as a backbone of the defence would be a start. Its hard to believe that pretty much any Scottish championship side would have put up such a poor display over the past couple of games.

We had some reasonable passages of play but were too ponderous, playing in front of them & rarely getting in behind, when we did get in behind, the final ball was poor.

As Orco says the long & short of it was they were a better team, by some margin, what annoyed me was that we didn’t make them work hard enough for their win.