Gary Caldwell has been named as a starter in Bertie Vogt's first Scotland team to play France tonight.

Fantastic news for the lad, and news that makes it even more important that we don't allow him to walk out of the door. Imo we are already looking less than clever when, at a time our defence is in utter disarray, a 19 yr-old defender we have allowed to go out on loan as his contract is running out is capped by his country.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

Answers

er, clarky,

playing central defense for scotland (a historically dubious distinction)is like getting a degree from one of those pretend universities on the internet.

i'm not saying he's not going to be a good player but an internatinal call up for scotland (or paraguay or even greece) doesn't guarantee that he's a top six premiership player. not any more.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

er, george. Have you seen our defence recently?

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

In the past, Sotland have produced some great central defenders. One was Frankie Brennan -- the greatest Newcastle centre half in my time. At set pieces, he would tell would be helpers to f... off and let him get on with his job. I look at Dabs and just sigh for another Frankie Brennan

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

I was actually quite surprised when he was picked to start, he must have been playing pretty well for Hobs.

I've never seen him play before, so I'm relying on reports off here and websites etc.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

That should be Hibs, not Hobs :)

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

it would be better to have a defender to tell opposition strikers to f..k off :-)

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

Not such a great debut for our young lad, of course he was playing against some of the best in the world. I'll give berti five games in charge before they throw him out.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

watched the whole game. France in the first half were untouchable. They scored every 10 minutes as they got bored with passing it around. Neil Sullivan made his first save in the 91st minute not even having got close to any of the goals, some of which were just sublime.

As for Caldwell, well despite being on the end of this he looked quite good. You have to bear in mind that first half the French had Peit, Vieira, Zidane, Wiltord, Henry and Trezeguet as their attacking players, with Lazarasu and Candela as overlapping full backs. Gary was beaten by clever play for the 4th, butt he whole defence was, and he wasn't noticably worse.

Second half the French brought on the likes of Marlet, Makelele, Djourkeff, Carambeau, Scotland brought on Steve Thompson of Dundee United to replace the tiring Stevie Crwaford of Dunfermline. Caldwell got into nice little tiff with Trezeguet, who should have been booked for a foul on him, and was instantly subbed by the French manager. Of the young Scottish players the general tv pundit opinion (Craig Broon and McAllister) was that Caldwell had done the best. He looked no worse against Henry and Trezeguet that our other defenders did v Arsenal (or Ipswich). A good performance from someone who has 4 starts for Darlington, and 8 for Hibs before tonights game.

Zidane is a player from heaven

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

The reports I've read seem to mirror what MacBeth has said, great news for GC, I hope he doesn't slip away to another club and come back to haunt us.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2002

I watched the match as well, Macbeth, and thought he did pretty well. None of the goals were his fault, Scotland were just outplayed in midfield and the French scored when they felt like it. I've seen all of Zidane's games for France in the last two years, but he never ceases to amaze me. His technique is sublime, and he's a real team player. After France beat Portugal 4-0 last year they had an analysis of his game in the paper the next day. He had an average of 1.4 touches of the ball each possession. Class!

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2002

i wonder what speeds rate would be?

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2002