Caldwell

By Graham Barnstaple
September 4 2011

After a night to sleep on things we are now in a better position to look back at things and what was the real cause for the draw.

The initial knee jerk reaction to the draw was to blame the referee and the two late penalty decisions he made, one given against Scotland and one not give for Scotland.

But in reality when you look back at the game with a more dispassionate view of things and look at the reasons we didn’t win and have blown another chance to progress to a major championships.

Ball retention – throughout the game we struggled to keep the ball for any meaningful spells, the ball would all too often be played to Kenny Miller or Steven Naismith only for the ball to return all too quickly.

Holding on to the late lead – it was almost as if we panicked in the closing stages, with players like Gary Caldwell and Darren Fletcher slicing clearances up in the air  and as a result failing to relieve the pressure on the defence and invite the Czechs on to us.

Centre Backs – this is one of the major issues we have at the moment with Caldwell and Berra, despite playing in the self proclaimed best League in the World looked like school boys on occasions. You can see why Levein is looking to push Wilson and Hanley, although in truth they don’t look ready yet either.

Shape and movement – it looked to me as though Levein decided to pick his five best midfield players without really know what to do with them. This saw him move them about at least a couple of times during the game, with Morrison and Naismith being switched from one side to the other, and Brown and Fletcher being moved about.

There was also a distinct lack of movement in front of the defence when they picked the ball up,Caldwellwas allowed space to run out of defence on a number of occasions but each time had no options in front of him.

While Craig Levein feels we have progressed in recent times there is still a long way to go based upon yesterday’s game. The manager felt his side played well, but I am not convinced by that as it seems to be based on hard work and endeavour, but at the top level you need a bit more than that!

Maybe with sober reflection it wasn’t two dubious refereeing decisions that cost us two points yesterday but rather our own inadequacies.