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[Stichman]

Originally Posted by Shaki

All players are granted club/dickhead amnesty from me when they don the Scotland jersey. I love the national team more than the Dons by an emotional mile. My fear about Burley is solely based on "something about him" so I hope RossP is right. If we win in Macedonia and Iceland I'll be absolutely delighted. Mon the Scotland. Hope we spank Northern Ireland at Hampden too.

Aye, I think realistically we need 4 points at the very least against Macedonai and Iceland. Everyone seems to be forgetting Macedonia are a decent side and are hard to beat at home - England couldn't do it, and I think they beat Croatia there too.

Burley has done a good job so far, trying out Championship players in friendlies isn't a bad idea, the bigger the squad we have to choose from the better. My only worry is that our probable competitive starting XI haven't played together recently. Still, bring on the qualifiers, I think there's something far wrong if you're not bothered about your own national team.

[RossP]

Originally Posted by Shaki

I love the national team more than the Dons by an emotional mile. If we win in Macedonia and Iceland I'll be absolutely delighted. Mon the Scotland. Hope we spank Northern Ireland at Hampden too.

Well said, fully agree.

[idol_wild]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mac

I have a nasty feeling about the forthcoming qualifiers.........

And really... Callum Davidson......... christ.

I'm sort of with you, but apparently he played very well for Preston at the tail end of last season. I always thought Davidson was a pretty decent performer.

[cap'n euan]

I'm not sure why, but I'm not won over by George Burley yet. A good result against Northern Ireland should do enough to get my backing, i'm fickle and easily-convinced like that.

[Johnny Mac]

Originally Posted by Chris

Yeah but you have a nasty feeling about everything football related.

A lifetime of supporting the dons will do that to you.....

[Cloud]

2nd in the group should be easily obtained, and thankfully, there's a lot of weak teams that we could potentially end up against - Russia is really the only team that I can see being a serious threat amongst the second seeds. I actually quite fancy the chances of Burley in pulling off a shock and beating Holland at home, but I dare say they'll crush us on goal difference alone in the grorup.

It has to be said, I don't like the format of these qualifiers - the system used for Euro 2008 was far preferable, as it was a straightforward race to qualify. I don't see why they couldn't have done the same again - 53 teams, 13 places...so you could have 7 groups, top two qualify from each group, except the two worst performing 2nd place teams who would playoff for that final spot. As it stands, the current system places far, far too much weight on obtaining a result against minnows and (I think) ruins the qualifying race as it lessens the competition.