Agree with this. Although he has missed some sitters but that could be lack of confidence. Hardly any goals in that squad--Ryan Fraser too, how much has he played recently?
I'm absolutely gutted for Lawrence Shankland missing out on the Scotland squad. As Ian McCall said last night he is one of the most natural finishers in Scottish football, when he gets the proper service!!
Two things
Clarke says he only had to make two phone calls to Considine and Palmer - what a disgrace that he never phoned Shankland, who was a mainstay of quite a number of squads and scored a crucial penalty in play off against Israel, so Clarke has gone down hugely in my estimation for this real public slap in the face for Shankland
If I was Lawrence, I would be raging with Micky Mellon, the reason he is missing out on possibly his only chance of playing at a national tournament with Scotland is simply down to Mellon and the non-football we played for large chunks of the season. If I was Shanks I would be making this clear to Mellon and slapping in a transfer request and getting out of the club as soon as possible. It will be sad to see him go, but is now inevitable.
As I said gutted for Shanks and especially as well when players like Fleck are ahead of him and Nathan Patterson is picked because he plays for Rangers!!
Agree with this. Although he has missed some sitters but that could be lack of confidence. Hardly any goals in that squad--Ryan Fraser too, how much has he played recently?
Must be gutting for Shanks, but I don't think there's a need to be getting angry about it. Better players than Shanks have missed out on tournaments and it's not like he was a regular starter.
Yeah the football this season from Mellon hasn't been great, but he achieved the clubs objective and the club is bigger then 1 player.
If he's raging at Mellon, which I doubt, then he can leave the club. Did a good job getting us out of the Championship, but he's not exactly set the Premiership alight. Don't get me wrong I'd want him to stay because he's a good goalscorer and could do better. But like others have said, he's missed his fair share of sitters which he doesn't get pulled up on because of the Championship season. It just gets brushed off with excuses like, low on confidence due to lack of chances.
We've only selected 3 strikers for the tournament so I think that shows what style of football Clarke is planning. Must be the lowest number of strikers in any squad!
100%. McNulty and Clark have been given pelters this season but Shankland has been let off the hook time and time again. He's been poor and on current form doesn't deserve to be going to the Euros. He's missed plenty of chances that he should've taken. If he wants to spit the dummy and slap in a transfer request (which I very much doubt), then it's see you later. We wouldn't miss the Shankland of this season if he does.
As a striker you have to feel that the team is going to be set up to create chances for you.
I suspect, and I'm only going on the body language here, what has happened is that the player has got extremely frustrated (bordering on angry?) and his mindset hasn't been completely right which has caused him to be a bit less clinical when the chances have come.
A simple chance slotted home v Alloa is not really different from a simple chance then missed v Aberdeen.
I agree no one player is bigger than the club and I agree raging anger should have nothing to do with anything. But the bottom line is that we have turned a £2m rated player into a fraction of that value in the way the team is coached and the eye bleeding style we play.
Don't worry though, we're going to get 500k for some young lad, it's all fine.
Spot on. A guy who was a huge asset, both financial and on the field has been ruined by a stubborn limited manager. Never let his head go down, gave 100% every game, did what was asked of him, and has now paid the price for it.
Hopefully a new manager will play to his strengths next season, and he can show all the doubters that he can do it at this level.
Not sure what greg Taylor did to deserve a call up, same amount of strikers as left backs in squad.