[Maturin]

0-0 HT.

Maloney has seen a lot of the ball without doing much with it. Morrison, Robson have done ok and Fletcher considering he is wearing the captains armband has been disappointing. Virtually invisible in that first half. The centrebacks are of concern again. Weir and Caldwell against Carew. Carew has threatened a few times. Scotland missing a striker and someone to grab the game in the middle of the park = Ferguson and Miller.

 

[Maturin]

FT 0-0.

Burley went for it with half an hour to go and brought on two forwards Iwelumo and Fletcher for McFadden who was one his own upfront and Morrison. Naismith laid a chance on a plate for Iwelumo right in front of goal and he contrived somehow to miss it. One of the biggest sitters you'll see. This was the first time one of the fullbacks had got in a dangerous position and the other best chance was from a low cross put in by Broadfoot on the other side. Scotland had virtually all the game from the time of the subs but Norway had a few opportunities in the last 10 minutes. Gordon made a good save from Iversen and Carew again had a shot blocked by Caldwell.

Fletcher the skipper again disappointing in the game.

You can question why Burley started the game so cautiously only playing McFadden up front on his own for the first hour. Understandable against top sides but Norway? Then again he obviously didn't trust his back up forwards to be able to produce from the beginning. Iwelumo a case in point with that dreadful miss.

 

[Crackedpleasures]

Fair result IMO, I thought Norway was the better team most of the game and Carew especially should have finished off at least one of his chances. On the other hand I cannot complain with the 0-0 when Iwelumo would have scored that one chance 99x out of 100. I hope Iceland can get something in Holland tonight or we see the Dutch run away from the opposition, in that case this 0-0 was a bad result for both you guys and for Norway. We both need to hope Holland drops points tonight...

 

[A.Johnson]

our qualifying campaign is over, we are screwed!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/7665985.stm

not so much the loss of boyd himself - I would say f*** him, he's got no right taking his club frutrations out on the scotland team. but the worrying thing is - its obvious things are not right in the dressing room, and there's no doubt its affecting other players and their morale, very similar to the days under berti.

about the game itself - we were shocking till the last 30 mins. Not too sure of the point in playing mcfadden up front on his own with lack of support, take him off, then go for the attack. Not sure I want to talk about the open goal miss too much, apart from it was so much more difficult to miss than it was to score.

After the defeat to macedonia, I had little faith in burley, and after this game, I don't see things changing in the near future.