Strachan - Come the summer, stick or twist ?

I agree with Boruc - we have no adequate cover but that has now been addressed with Zaluska coming in.

We have cover for McManus, Loovens or O'Dea, but for what ever reason Strachan sticks with an off forum/injured McManus.

Brown - I don't think we have adequate cover for as Hartley's legs are gone and Robson isn't fit.

Strikers - Sammy was doing alright until he got injured, he's not been the same since but yes we need another striker (preferably one that can actually run, hold the ball up, create space for teammates and score)

So you could say it's the boards fault for the goalkeeper, Strachans fault for playing McManus despite there being cover and a combiniation of the board, Strachan and bad luck with regards to the striker situation/cover for Brown.

 

It has been said that the only way to get things changed in life is to continually put pressure on the powers be. if you don't, the same * will keep on happening.

I would like to think i'm not a ned who just has a go at the manager because he is an easy target. I have looked at the full picture and have IMO taking The common denominator to our problems and come up with WGS. You have to now have a think about why there are threads started every week about WGS. More often than not it is because of something people don't like about him, but you have to ask yourself 'are they all wrong '.
If this is a serious debate, then you have to at least see that there is a split in the camp and you can't just paper over the cracks because people don't all follow your opinion. and it looks like it will continue as long as he is manager.

 

Yea your right, dont get me wrong i have constant doubts about strachan and yes theres times i back him and times ive slated him. I respect what your saying above but people have to realize if strachan is going to be a success and going to be at the club for a few more years, is it not better to back the man? than fiting over his tactics, substitutions, signings and general easy going nature? no,yes?

 

Mate asking staff to punish people who want to talk about the manager is garbage.

No I don't agree. We are at a critical juncture after Saturday's result, I think it is natural to discuss this topic. So far there has been no 'I hate the ginger *' or any other useless posting. So far people are discussing it constructively, and in some depth. I would suggest that your boredom with this topic puts you in a minority. Please allow other folk to discuss what they want to discuss.

 

Fair point here Murdi. My concern though is that we are not getting the best we can out of what we can get (in terms of playing staff) and perhaps a new manager could make the whole greater than the sum of the parts ?

 

Agreed, but i also think that we could be pleasantly surprised come COB THIS Saturday...perhaps some of the doubters may have been swayed if that is the case (a big if, i'm just trying to remain hopeful after the big let-down of Saturday).

Overall thoughts on the starting 11 at the weekend Martin? Thoughts on substitution use as well? I actually thought that we performed quite well in all honesty....just looked unlikely to score, despite the lion's share of possession. The mobile tree (Vennegoor) i thought held the ball up quite well and was a decent threat - Mcdonald was not at the races in comparison to the Aberdeen performance.

My overall point being - i suppose - that we will play worse at Ibrox in the future and get a better result. Missed the cutting edge, that was all.

 

lol im not preventing people saying what they want to say. Listen i was just raising a point, no point being uptight about it, just leave it lol its all good

 

I feel WGS screwed up big time on Saturday. I posted last week that I wanted to play 4-5-1 (or 4-4-1-1) and leave out JVOH, allowing us to play through them.

Instead I felt our main tactic seemed to be launching it in to the box for Big Jan and that was meat and drink for Weir, Bougherra and Dailly. I felt we played right in to Rangers hands when we should have been looking at our skillful players running at - and turning - their aging defence.

Leaving out McGeady was a joke imo (I sometimes feel Strachan's vanity gets the better of him and he likes to throw a curveball to look clever).

I don't understand subbing O'Dea for Naylor - surely O'Dea was injured ?

JVOH was useless, Crosas was dire, Hartley's booking almost put him out of the game for me and overall I felt we could have played all night and not scored.

 

Cool brother.

 

I agree we played into their hands, and didn't take advantage of the fact that Papac missed out...that was really disappointing, and i agree entirely that the Maloney / McGeady choice backfired terribly.

Your 4-5-1 (or 4-4-1-1 with McGeady just behind Skippy if i remember right) was a good shout.....you said you had thought maybe calling Vennegoor as captain so early was a double bluff. I had hoped you were right about that....in fact, the "curveball" he DID use proved to be incorrect. Fair play with that.

Nevertheless, i can forgive an element of the above, as Vennegoor was our most effective threat (you * Davis for clearing off the line)....but O'Dea i confess i did not understand in the slightest. As for the Hartley booking, i agree - that basically eliminated him from much of proceedings and allowed them to control the midfield for much of the first half....that was a poor refereeing decision though, as opposed to anything under Strachan's control.

I still say that we bossed a lot of the game, but i'll agree that we could have played till the middle of next week without scoring a * goal. Made Dailly look like Puyol, without good reason.

 

I don't think he should go if we win or lose the league.

 

We did the boss the game, the possession stats, especially 2nd half were incredible. BUT I felt Rangers were happy to allow us possession and it's up to us to use what we've got (i.e. what they don't have - really skilled players in McGeady and Naka) to our advantage. As I say I felt the long ball suited them just fine and that disappoints me more than anything. We have the best footballers in the country we've got to play to our strengths.

Strange as it is, we were the better team, Which makes it all the more a kick in the nuts.

 

A change in manager is needed IMO. Why ? I feel we can do a better job with the players we have with a different manager.
I to like Danni would not want any of the top 3 quoted in the papers but that don't mean we stick with what we have.
strike me down if you must but hear are my reasons.
1. we constantly try the same system throughout the game and very rarely have a sub changing tactic when needed. e.g Rangers took there small lads off on Saturday and brought big ones on, knowing we where going for high balls into the box. What did we do. We took our proven goal scorer off for sammy when it was clear that was the time to sacrifice o'dea for the cause. What did it look like with our goaly in there half for the last minute or so. desperation or what.

2, The team selection is not thought out correctly in a lot of occasions e.g having a great player on the bench when he obviously is not fit, taking away room for someone else who could make a difference.
3. Going through transfer window by transfer window and not buying a right back.

4. Conducting yourself in public, no player would get away with what he does. the cheek of him with what he had to say about us supporters when he was picking up his manager of the year award.

note : Points 1 & 2 don't just apply to the Rangers game, this can be said for many of the games we have played in this season.

is having the 4 points above enough, well it is for me.

 

If WGS was to WALK away then there's only one guy who might take on the Celtic job that I'd be satisfied with from that list up there and that's Levien. I really wouldn't want Mark McGhee, Neil Lennon, Paul Lambert, John Collins or Owen Coyle.

 

People are talking about him not having enough money blah, blah, blah.

You dont really need a great deal of money to get a team playing good football. Theres loads of examples of it in World Football.

His tactics are so old-fashioned. He plays so often with McDonald and JVoH, not a lot of top teams play with two penalty box strikers nowadays. The more modern style is to play with one out-and-out striker and a 'second striker'.

It can usually work against lesser sides because we can probably afford to drop a midfielder for an extra forward. But against Rangers the gap between the two forwards and the two midfielders was too big.

Martin said it, and i said it in the lead up to the game - play McDonald up front but play someone tucked in behind him.

But when he does get money, i repeat why should he be trusted with it?

His big signings are as follows - JVoH, Gravesen, Jarosik, Donati. Of these only JVoH has been anywhere near worthwhile, but he is past it now. Buying from abroad is supposed to be where the real quality comes from. Youth players and players from Scotland should be solid squad players at least, and players from Europe should add flair and quality (Larsson, Lubo, Di Canio, Cadete etc).

His better players are ones who were either already here (Petrov, Hartson, Lennon), came through the youths (Maloney, McGeady, McManus) or ones he bought from around Scotland (Caldwell, Robson, Brown, McDonald). The only exceptions are Nakamura and Boruc really.

So he is old-fashioned and stubborn, tactically. And his success ratio in the transfer market (when buying from abroad) is poor.

Do i think someone else can do better tactically? Yes
Do i think somebody would do better in the transfer market? Yes

Those are the two main reasons i think he should be replaced (although he doesnt deserve to be sacked).

Mowbray would be my pick for the job

 

Good post

 

I don't know if they'll drop points. I am not a paranoid Tim but at this stage of the season, with their noses in front, I expect lots of wee things to go their way (like the Hartley booking).

My anger is mainly about the fact that we should not be in this position. We should have had it wrapped it weeks ago and I am not convinced it's going to fall our way again.

 

Hoping they drop points more than confident that they will.

Praying like never before that we get the 3 wins, but we have been so inconsistent this season that I'm nervous - very nervous.

Still hoping we manage it, as there is every possibility we can do it.

If we did manage it would it be fair to sack Strachan, a manager that brought us 4 titles out of 4, no matter what the standard of football - the record books don't record the manner of victory (although our memories do)?

 

JVOH has been decent the last few weeks, and we've been screaming for Crosas to get a game in these type of matches, it's not the managers fault they didn't perform