The Strachan Years

That was one season though, O'Neill gave us 4 great seasons and then an average season. Strachan gave us a good season then 3 average seasons.

The football under Strachan wasnt poor.

But it was boring, it was predictable and I spent many a game sitting at Celtic Park wishing I was in the house, actually left 2 times from home games at half time when he managed us.

It wasnt totally * football it was just painful to watch the same style of team grinding away every game for 2/3 years getting worse in front of your eyes.

McManus and Caldwell "to me to you, to me to you, to me to you" until one of them punted it long. There was no ideas or variety in the team every match was like a re-run of the game before.

 

Some of the greatest memorys in my life because of that wee man if it hadn't been for Strachan just think of all the players we would have never had Boruc being a standout and then he left and the fannys got there way with a "celtic minded" manager who turned us into a laughing stock and destoryed the team and made Barnes tactics look like that of Mourinho's we have Lennon now and the future is looking bright our team is not as good as what we had in the past but it could well go on to be but i have always said it the day WGS left i knew there was a disaster waiting to happen and it did.

In wgs era.. 3-0 Benfica 1-0 Manure 2-1 Milan

All stick out as some of the greatest European nights of my lifetime.

 

Always liked Strachan. Gave me some of my best memories as a Celtic fan.

 

Gordon was quite simply treated appallingly. Any other fans would have made him an absolute hero, however our supporters were luke warm at best. I did not get it at the time and still don't understand. The only reason he left in my opinion was he was undervalued by the Club.

 

Agreed!

Loved the wee man, he loved it here. His interviews are some of the best in fOOtball. Calmed down a wee bit at Celtic but still had a few games.

Journalist 'Gordon can you give me a quick word?'

WGS 'Velocity'

 

Need to look forward not back. WGS did a job for us and had a great record, but this is just the beginning under Lenny.

Onwards and upwards.

The Celtic family united behind Lenny

 

Strachan was a great manager for us, he led us far in Europe. We also had an amazing team back then. I think Lennon will do the same over the next few years.

 

WGS is one of the most successful celtic managers in modern times. he produced a winning team when having to cut back the wage budget. he achieved amazing results in Europe. but was treated with contempt by some fans. they should apologize and hang their heads in shame.

 

very technical in his approach to games ,got the best out of a bunch of average players bar a few ,dealt very well with the media and the fans trying to get who they wanted on the field ,in other words played it his way ,and so deserves all the praise going for the success he brought loved him ,found out how most felt about him after we won the title at tanadice ,i was in the pub at the time watching one of the best comebacks of my time ,i tryed to get a "theres only one gordon strachan "going but it was very muted response ,then again maybe it was jus my singing :icon_mrgreen:

 

only got 3 in a row due to a great deal of good fortune-signed brown, samaras, virgo,sno,camara,telfer,gravesen,jarosik,donati,caldwell,loovens-all pish imo;had us playing dreadful football that killed the atmosphere at cp;couldnt get the better of walter smith in of games;i think lenny is shaping up to be a better manager tbh,certainly this season was better than strachans last

 

Strachan brought great success to this club, and some great European nights to treasure!

 

aye but under MON we beat barca i would say that matched it and over took it in my book

WGS done well, but that rangers team was on it's last legs and finished they did not back that * eck aswell,

can't knock WGS, but under o'neil i never seen us play so well and was the best time under a manager for me

 

Try telling that to the 000's he drove away.

 

Oh great another mon v wgs thread......maybe not at the start but it will turn into one.

IMO wgs and mon were great for celtic......end off.

 

the strachen era was excellant,the way he was treated by some of the celtic support was a disgrace,at the games hearing "strachen gtf" after how succesful he had been,one thing i'm sure those people regreted after the shambles that was tony mowbray.

 

Regardless of the Mowbray disaster, Strachan's time was up.

 

I'm 50/50 over Gordon Strachan's period at the helm, 3IAR and 2 quarter finals of the Champions League are major plus points, but his last 2 and half seasons at the club featured a lot of poor quality football and his refusal to blood youngsters when we were running away with the title in his first 2 years are things that cloud my judgement on him, also on the negative side is the large amount of players he had fallings out with or refused to involve in the team for long periods.

 

WGS philosophy of football is that the result is all that mattered. Playing with style or pananche was very much a secondary concern. Whilst we were winning this philosophy and brand of football would be tolerated, but not embraced and enjoyed.

How many times did you walk out of a pub after a win feeling that 'yeah, we won, but it was still pretty laboured and dire TBH'? How many times when the results were not going in our favour would the crowd be howling? Case in point, just before the Hoops went on the late surge of winning the 8 on the trot to win the 3IAR, we were at home on a midweek game to Dundee United in a match that finished in a stalemate and with 20 min to play, virtually the entire crowd was chanting 'Strachan, Strachan, Get ti F*ck'.

I didn't like that nor participated in it, because I support Celtic and as Strachan was the Celtic manager I wanted him to do well. Just as when Mowbray was the manager I wanted him to succeed for no other reason than because he was the Celtic manager. What it boils down to, is if the manager was being successful, it meant my team were being successful.

WGS's teams were generally very disciplined, drilled and regimented. Defenders defend, CM's sit, spoil the opposition's play & give the ball to the widemen, who were the creaters and the strikers did the scoring.

Now, while this sounds good in theory, it also meant that there was a degree of inflexibility in the team, and that oppositions were able to find effective ways of nullifying our attacking threats. As for the defence, how many of the goals came from silly one man mistakes from the likes of Caldwell & McManus?

Why after Petrov left did we suddenly become incapable of our CM's providing any kind of goal threat, despite the likes of Hartley and Robson having demonstrated how effective they could be at doing this for their previous clubs? Because they were given a different roie by Strachan. When Maloney & McGeady were on song, Celtic were on song. If they were having a bad day, that effectively meant that Naka was the only real playmaker that was creating anything.

Although the strikers did score some memorable goals, how often were they being limited by supply because of the way that Strachan had the team marshalled? For example, in WGS last season JVOH & Sammy scored a grand total of 1 goal between them in over 4 months of play, which left virtually the entire burden of scoring on Skippy. When the opposition has so effectively nullified your attacking threat, perhaps a plan B would be good to have.

WGS's Plan B was not tactical, it was physical - literally. It was fitness. One thing I will say about Strachan is that generally his teams were exceptionally fit. How many late goals did we score under Strachan? Why? Not because of any tactical change or effective substitution, but rather because whilst whoever we were playing could keep up with us for most of the match, but when they began to run out of juice, our Bhoys still has some in the tank and were able to push on and create those late opportunities, when the other team was knackered. Fitness was Strachan's only 'Plan B'.

Yes, it was great to have those European nights, and here his disciplined & regimented approach was well suited, as the Champions League is all about minimizing mistakes and is generally played at a lower tempo, meaning that both the structure and the fitness would work in our favour against teams with more ability. Yes, there were nights when we would be blown out of the water, such as by a Barca team, featuring Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Xavi & Iniesta etc & there is no disgrace in that, but it also meant that there would be nights like when we could hold our own against Man U and win it on the back of an individual slice of skill & a outstanding keeper in Boruc keeping the opposition at bay.

You would think these same ingrediants would work well in our favour, but our away record in Europe is dreadful and there is no escaping that fact. Nights where brain explosions happen, where misplaced backpasses went astray, or defenders losing their man would cost us dearly. On this count, for example, we can point the finger directly at Caldwell, for Benfica away, Milan away, Copenhagen away to name but a few. The 3-2 loss at Old Trafford was another case in point. 2 of Man U's goals came from Gravesen mistakes & the other came from a soft penalty that Giggs was awarded.

Tommy Burn's teams may not have won the silverware that WGS's did, but they played with a panache, and with a style that fans wanted to see. Yes, they were up against a very good Huns team (thanks to Murray massively overextending himself, which has put them in the hole they are off the pitch now), but even though the titles were not coming, fans wanted to see the likes of PVH, Di Canio, Cadete, Lambert, O'Donnell and McStay play football as they did.

If asked to sit and watch every game that Celtic played back to back of, say for example, Strachan's 2nd season (when we did win the double), or this year's games back to back under Lennon, I'd pick to watch this years, hands down.

 

Football might have not been pretty sometimes but those last minute goals and title deciders and those famous wins in Europe were great. I love Strachan at the club but even he admitted in an interview a few weeks ago that it was time to move on.

You have to give thanks and praise to the man, the achievements he made at Celtic were brilliant and after he left, I think we Celtic supporters took for granted the stuff that he managed to achieved, especially while Mowbray was the manager which was a disaster.

 

No offence but it really gets on my nerves when people come out with this.

I know the reasons why I never warmed to Gordon Strachan and they are all centred around the fact that the football under Strachan was crap to watch.

I have no deep rooted secret agenda against the man and I certainly do not care that he wasn't 'Celtic Minded'.