It was Strachans tactics that lost us 2 points

I have criticised Strachan many times but I think sometimes he gets too much criticism tbh the blame has to be shared by the manager and the players, not one or the other.

 

Simple question. Why change a winnig formation? And not just winning but wininnig convincingly.

Our strongest first 11 can play any team in the spl and win, and some cases strongly. Things got better when naka and crosas came on. So my point is my question if you're winning don't change it coz there is no need. Celtic's consistency, or lack of, is due to the the tactics being changed and wrongly changed imo.

 

Sometimes changes are necessary. Different players for different games.

 

Strachan has made a point of building a pretty big squad of decent to good players for the very reason you've pointed out, incase of injuries. Saying injuries have played a big part in us not being anywhere near the standard we should be is like saying GS has FAILED in his attempts to build a squad big enough to cope.

And yes that 12 game streak was brilliant, we didn't have anything to worry about back then. Now that we are dropping points at will there is plenty to worry about.

 

Listening to Strachan too much? I can't remember the last time I listened to one of his interviews and I haven't read anything he's said in a newspaper for at least a month. The fact that we are unbeaten in 10 is worth mentioning. It would much worse if that wasn't true.

As for the point in bold, I don't think I'm saying Strachan has failed at all in building a big squad. I'm saying that the squad he's been building has managed to win us a league cup and keep us top of the league even with those injuries. What I am saying is that I think we would have the league pretty much wrapped up by now if we hadn't had as many injuries to key players.


Edit: We're going to have to agree to disagree about Boruc. I think he should have and could have saved that free kick.

 

Sorry I have to disagree with you when it comes to an SPL team.
Are you saying hearts are as good as us? , Do we really need to change our winning team to a more defensive one because of a fear of being out played and pushed of the ball
lets face it Flood is no more physical that Naka . and McManus would never have came off for Crosas if he was fit to stay on.
We looked more like a team after the changes, you know, the team we look like when we play at home

 

No, but they matched us a lot of the time on Saturday.

 

If they raise their game then almost, and they did.

 

We can't expect to just win games we have to earn those wins.

If we never changed our team we would become even more predictable there are times when changes are necessary.

 

you have to ask yourself why.

did we sit back because we where winning and let them come on to us? yes I think we did, why? because our team was set up in a more defensive minded role.

If our team was was more attacking minded we would have put the game to bed, just like we have been doing in our home games.

There is only one person to blame for setting the team up in that way and it's not me

 

No, Hearts are a strong physical side and would have easeily outmuscled our flair players. We didn't go defensive, we went for height and strength and the team that the manager put out was capable of winning the match, its the players that didn't perform.

 

You could argue that, if we had attacked a lot more, we ran the risk of conceding a lot of goals and therefore losing the game along with damaging our GD.

 

yes thats why hearts are sitting top of the league.

 

So what you are saying then is that hearts who have spent not even a tenth of what we have spent are as good as us if they raise there game because we can't raise our game.

Either way , we have a problem. either we can't raise our game or we are waisting money on players of the quality of hearts.

or is it what i said in a post last week regarding away results in Europe.

Tactics will lose you games you should win no matter who you play

 

Can't believe Strachan is getting stick for playing Flood, after his very average OF debut he was getting hailed as the next best thing. Now when he plays, he shouldn't have? Make up your minds.

Agree about Caldwell though, I would keep him in CH unless we have no other choice at all. Which will be easier to do with Robson back.

 

Gotta agree that I would keep Caldwell in defence.

 

To be honest, I would expect the players to be showing alot more fight and passion at this stage of the season. It took till the 80th minute for us to get about the park and go for it. From how we played, a draw was a fair result, but we should have went out to win it.

The thing that concerns me most is we have played about 31 league games this season, and we still cannot settle into our best starting 11! The team has played well in their last 2 games, and looked to be gelling. Look at Barca, Man U, Liverpool etc, they all play pretty much the same team week in, week out (maybe a slight change here and there) but thats why they get results. They are used to a formation, line up and style. * it, no point dwelling on it now, just need to look to next week and get it sorted!

 

Players can lose you games no matter what the tactics are.

We manage to get great results at home in Europe because we raise our game so why is it so hard to think that Scottish teams can't get results against us by raising their game.

We win as a team, we lose as a team as simple as that, no one person is responsible for dropped points it's usually a combination of factors including, but not exclusively, the managers tactics.

 

tinkering with the team does no one any favours , when we play with a settled team for a couple of matches we start to playwell and knock in goals , yes we get injuries but this is the only time someone should be replaced if they doing the job , you get used to other players strengths and weeknesses and everyone has them , but if you change all the time there is no understanding , end of rant

 

Calmest rant I've ever read.