FUCK OFF CRAIG LEVEIN

FUCK OFF CRAIG LEVEIN

CRAIG LEVEIN FUCK OFF

state desired manager and xi please

Best thread ever.

Believe he has indeed fucked off. Or been told to, anyway.

BBC describes him as "the former Hearts, Leicester City, Hearts and Dundee United manager."

Bring Back Berti.

Now now (though we did get to a play-off under the bold Berti, never knew when we had it so good, etc)

bye bye avril

grats brethren

celtic spring starts here

Given rate of movement relative to fan feeling, expect to be felling yr Trap statues sometime around 2020. Unless we fucking poach him off you :(

Ireland will get Arry Redknapp we will get Judas McLeish though

Unless the press run a campaign for Walter

steve clarke

SFA cant afford compensation to clubs so its available managers only , cheap too since Avril is to be paid until the end of his contract as he wont resign.

trap for scotland, ailsa otm, good call

The Walter campaign has been running for a while and is a backwards step the SFA can't afford to take. See also Eck.

Dalglish, Strachan, Jordan, Coyle are the obvious unemployed candidates. Hearing some comedy calls for Rafa and, even more amusingly, Pep Guardiola! My theoretical money's on Billy Stark after Strachan tells them to get tae.

a fanny speaks

Scotland midfielder Charlie Adam has blamed the press for the departure of Craig Levein as national coach.

Levein lost his job because of a competitive record of three wins from 12 matches.

But Stoke midfielder Adam showed his support for his former boss on Twitter following training with his club.

"On my way back to hear Craig Levein has gone. Unbelievable. Can't believe the Scottish papers got what they wanted," he said.

I missed this thread.

"On my way back to hear Craig Levein has gone. Unbelievable. Can't believe the Scottish papers got what they wanted," he said.

From a man who won one competitive game in nearly three years under Levein, against Liechtenstein - a game in which he was subbed off.

state desired manager and xi please

v good question, not surprised no-one has tackled it. I don't think many people would tinker too much with Levein's team, it's just that he wasn't getting the best out of them. "Anyone but Levein" is a fair answer to the first part imo. His inability to positively change a game is maybe his biggest failing - being behind in a game against a counter-attacking team and subbing on Kenny Miller p much sums him up.

Anyway, gimme five minutes and I'll see if I can knock together my best XI with everyone fit and available (something Levein never had, to be fair - he had horrendous luck with call-offs).

I'm already stuck at "full backs who aren't shite" and find myself contemplating Danny Fox :(

going for a 4-2-3-1

McGregor in goal, Gordon second choice if he ever gets fit and gets a job.

Caldwell and Mulgrew at centre hoff. Berra or Webster on the bench. I'm not convinced Mulgrew's a centre hoff but I'm more comfortable with him there than at LB or in midfield.

Whittaker at RB. LB TBA (Bardsley's right-footed, isn't he?)

Sitting MF: D Fletcher & McArthur

Commons, Brown, Mackay-Steven (Maloney or Forrest on the bench - wee James has pissed me off lately so he's not making the XI)

S Fletcher up front, Rhodes and Tony Watt on bench

David Templeton also maybe worthy of promotion from the U21s.

I forgot about James Morrison.

this thread title ain't too nice

Algerian goalkeepers have never liked Scotland managers, it's very much in character.

"Jim Leighton kept me from believing that all was well under the sun."

hey markers welcome to i love football

I permanently forget about James Morrison even when he's playing. I don't actually believe he exists.

That boy Dixon from Dundee United looked ok at LB.

Along with Leicester City's Steve Howard and Aston Villa's Gabriel Agbonlahor, Morrison was one of a number of English Premier League players identified in June 2007 as being eligible to play for Scotland.

Did not know that. Gabby could have done a job for us in the last few years instead of wasting his career not being picked for England.

I never heard that before either (probably ignored by the press in favour of Scottishising Nacho Novo).

he is pretty much the (half) scottish nacho novo

That boy Dixon from Dundee United looked ok at LB.

I looked up former future star left back Steven Smith - getting regular games for Portland but they've got a -22 goal difference so I'm guessing that's partly his fault.

sorry, meant to agree with you on Dixon there as well as quote you

Has Barry Bannan just gone shit (see also Craig McKail-Smith, who always looks quite useful whenever I see him, but that's usually just on the round-up bits on Soccer AM)? Jamie Mackie also 100000x better than Kenny Miller. I think consigning Miller to the scrapheap or not will determine my thoughts of the new manager (not looking promising if we get Strachan).

I think consigning Miller to the scrapheap or not will determine my thoughts of the new manager

I was thinking the same thing (see also: Alan Hutton). I deliberately left both out in my job application above. I think Gogs has a soft spot for Kenny Miller and he might make a couple of squads but won't be a first pick and will hang up his international boots.

What did you think of my inclusion of Mackay-Steven? I think he's got bags of potential. Rumour hazzit the scout who watched Tony Watt at Airdrie took some stick for not spotting Mackay-Steven in the same games.

Johnny Russell's another I might make room for in my squad.

no expert clearly but i am really struggling to imagine mulgrew as a cb, how long's that been going on?

james morrison the easily forgotten should probably be one of the first names on the teamsheet, fine player on his day

Mulgrew is 6'3" and good in the air but slightly suspect positionally. He was shifted infield last season through necessity and did better than he had been doing at left back. Aberdeen occasionally played him there too.

His delivery from wide positions is exceptional, as are his free kicks, so I'd be determined to fit him in somewhere if I was manager.

He's looked a more competent centre half than some of the previous encumbents of that role, agree I'd find a room for him somewhere, and probably at ch despite lack of decent left backs, which he's nominally meant to be. Whatever happened to Stephen McManus anyway?

I like Gary Mackay-Steven a lot.

Lack of ridiculous blind spot re Charlie Adam's uselessness also a priority.

james morrison the easily forgotten should probably be one of the first names on the teamsheet, fine player on his day

scored today, as did my first pick Gary Caldwell with a trademark og.

Surprised there's no place for the SPL's top scorer, even on the bench. Or the next highest scoring Scotsman, who also has the most assists.

Granted I don't see the games and just watch the highlights on the BBC site or even just the goals on 101GG but Griffiths and Shinnie seem like poor omissions.

Feel free to pick your own XI.

Scoring charts don't tell the whole story imo. Always worth bearing in mind how pish the SPL is in relative terms. Fletcher and Morrison are the only Scots scoring at a high (i.e. not SPL) level. I don't think Shinnie rattling them in against Killie means as much as scoring in TBLITW.

I've seen very little of Shinnie but his record is ok and he's been a big part of ICT's success so far this season.

Griffiths looked great when I watched him against Motherwell the other week - seems to have a real knack for finding space. That's the only time I've paid much attention to Hibs apart from the draw at our place (when I was more concerned with moaning at Lustig than evaluating Scotland candidates). I get the feeling he's a bit of a dick but that hasn't stopped any other player I suppose.

Wouldn't be a Hibs forward if he wasn't a dick tbh. And as I type he's scored another.

I couldn't pick the XI because I don't see enough games to judge - especially at the back, where if Gary Caldwell is seriously still an option, never mind a first team choice, then Scottish football is in direr straits than I thought.

I don't know, I always associate not picking form players with Craig Brown not picking Phil O'Donnell because "he's not exactly setting the heather on fire". When he was the best player in league, but was at Motherwell. His entire Scotland career was 15 minutes on as a sub.

There's a long and proud tradition of Scotland not picking their best players

I thought Griffiths was English!

so is ally mccoist the obv candidate here or what?

As a striker?

Would that be any worse than Miller?

Leigh Griffiths called up to the squad.

And Andrew Shinnie. Billy Stark must be reading this thread.

Billy Stark's been picking them for years.

I always associate not picking form players with Craig Brown not picking Phil O'Donnell

Fletcher is top Scottish goal scorer in the Premier League and is the one player pretty much everyone in the country was going nuts over the manager stubbornly ignoring (at his own cost, in the end). He's gone off the boil a bit in the last couple of weeks but carrying an entire shite team will do that.

Rhodes is top Scottish goal scorer in the Championship with a phenomenal record in League One before that.

Tony Watt is bang in form, just scored a winner against Barcelona, and came off the bench to score again today. He's making an impact for Celtic every time he comes off the bench.

I'm not ignoring form players to pick the same old faces as Brown did. I'm just choosing different players to those in the SPL scoring chart.

That said, I was trying to pick an ideal "best" from my limited perspective (watching Celtic and the odd highlights show) but given that this campaign is effectively already over and given how detrimental being the new saviour of Scottish football has been to James Forrest's game, I'm quite happy to see Tony Watt kept with the kids for another wee while if Stark/Strachan/whoever would rather go with the more experienced Griffiths.

if Gary Caldwell is seriously still an option, never mind a first team choice, then Scottish football is in direr straits than I thought.

Scotland are ranked 70th in the world. The highest ranked team we beat in a competitive match under Levein was 75th. If that's not dire I don't know what is.

Caldwell has his fair share of clangers and ogs but he's a mostly competent defender who can pass a football. He's getting picked every week and captaining a half decent Premier League team so maybe he's not quite as bad as people think.

He isn't, he's not Christophe Berra for a start.

Or Andy Webster. Note: I genuinely quite like Gary Caldwell.

I didn't realise this thing was on telly tomorrow, such is my apathy. I have my folks down for a visit, so I'll settle in with my dad for a good old moan about how rubbish everything is and not like it was in his day, blah blah.

Strachan then. ¯\(°_o)/¯

Makes sense.

I mean, he's a decent turd-polisher at the required level. It'll not be fun to watch, but at least we might win stuff.

Still, I do fear the continuation of selecting Kenny Miller and playing Gary Caldwell in midfield. He'll be a loss to telly punditry though if he's knocking that on the head.

It's a part time job. I think the punditry will mostly continue.

Not a surprising appointment but I thought he always saw himself as more of a training ground coach who could improve players. National team management doesn't offer many of those coaching opportunities.

"How do you feel to be the Scotland manager?"

"How you doing, usually see you standing outside Ibrox complaining."

Up for this, about time we had a chirpy positive sorta guy as Scotland manager, fed up with this succession of sad sacks, misery guts and niminy piminy twerps afraid of their own shadow

Mark McGhee appointed as assistant. Hmmmm.