The Strachan Years

Same as me.

You were bored out your * sitting watching Strachans team for 3 seasons, even though we won the League in 2 of them and a Couple of Cups and beat teams like Man Utd, AC Milan and Benfica it was like going to work unpaid going to the games.

I didnt even enjoy the "Big European Nights" as we struggled in those games and were lucky to get the wins.

Martin O'Neill's team in Europe were excellent, the big games we won Barcelona, Valencia, Liverpool, Juventus, Lyon, Anderlecht, Porto, Stuttgart we fully deserved to win them and put on great displays.

We were even desperatley unlucky in a lot of games like AC Milan away, Juventus away, Lyon away, Bayern away and could easily have won them. That was great European nights.

Winning is hollow if its not exciting enough. I could beat my sister at any computer game but it doesnt mean id enjoy it or think im good. Thats the kind of feeling I had under Strachan, it was ok but it wasnt good.

Rangers won the Leeague the last 2 year but if we had the option of keeping Strachan the last 2 and winning the League in one of them I would stilll rather he went.

 

Think he stayed a season too many, 3 in a row would have been the perfect time for him to leave.

I think the accusations of poor style of football are over-exagggerated. Who can ever forget us passing Benfica off the park at Parkhead and humping the huns 3-0?

He knew when to change the style and stop the opposition but he brought in some flair as well with guys like Naka and brought the best out of people like Maloney.

His record can't be argued with and he resided over some of the greatest nights of all of our lives at Parkhead.

Will always be fond memories for me.

 

Its a big myth about the football style being bad. WGS introduced a possession based passing game, reintroduced true flair ball players to the MF for the first times since Lubo. We threatened at times to be a very good fast passing team for a while although it never came together regularly enough. The style was certainly better than the post-Seville MON side.

Generally speaking I dont like 3-5-2 formation as wingbacks never give real true width. I thought WGS was closer to Celtic's traditions than MON in the way he set us up, his wee flair players out wide etc. WGS somehow made us able to win while playing two wee wingers. Noone has managed that since. I think the team needs a lot of marshalling to get away with an old fashioned two-winger system without the defense being a sieve. I think that was why our CMs had to be first and foremost good defenders or battlers rather than creative. Every time WGS tried to slot a more attacking CM into the 4-4-2 like JJ, Donati or Graveson who were not so defensively disciplined it made our shape go to *. I dont think its normally possible to have a more soft creative CM AND two wide creative guys too unless you have amazing players. WGS knew what he was doing when he showed preference to guys like Hartley, Robson and Broony over the years.

What I dont think people realise is how much WGS is influenced by early Alex Ferguson before he became a cheque book manager. Fergie played his team like chess with everyone having and exact role and went mental at players who didnt carry out the roles to the letter. Ir was manager-driven football with the players just pawns. It worked.

 

2003-2004 was the greatest Celtic side of my lifetime. Don't forget we won the title whilst still unbeaten, beat rangers 6 times and but for Bobo's stupidity in Lyon, we would have made the last 16 of the CL and who knows what could have happened, bearing in mind the final that season was Porto V Monaco? Even then, we turfed Barcelona out the UEFA Cup on their own patch.

2004-05 however was terrible, MON changed to a baffling system and played our whole midfield out of position, handing the title to a rotten huns team.

Like WGS, he hung around a season too many.

 

I wasn't targeting that at you mate.

I think it was clear by some of the voices heard from the Celtic crowd, that there were people who didn't like Strachan. People were throwing things up like his interviews and other things to attempt to bring him down, personally - that's not very important to me.

To be honest, I think a lot of people had a problem with the football but it's definitely exaggerated at times and there was a lack of respect shown to a successful manager. Fairly recent fans have been spoiled in terms of success and I think that's another factor that comes in when his time is reviewed.

I can't thank Strachan enough for some of the great times he brought us, especially in Europe.

 

I agree with that. I think too in both cases their final season saw the team become one-paced and lose all zip. In WGS's case I think it was down to the strikers just totally losing it and in MON's case the loss of Lubo then Lambo then Henke over a few seasons just took away all our subtlety and we ended up playing narrow one-paced battering ram football by his final season. it actually kind of showed bow much MON's wingerless formations relied on Henke to give it mobility.

 

I'll be honest and say I found Strachan's handling of the media and attitude towards the Celtic support irritating too. That was never the central issue though. If the football had been good to watch but Strachan had handled the media the same way he did then I probably could have lived with that. It was the entertainment value of the football that was always the big problem for me.

 

I appreciate what Strachan did but he could have made it so much better for himself,I preferred MON

 

I was happy with strachan because at the end of the day, we had the title! I dont think rangers have improved at all, we had mogga which is like le guen for them, we lost the league as players never turned up on the one game we needed! I feel that people were waiting and hoping for celtic to drop points under strachan, the amount of threads on getting him out on this after dropping points was unreal! Even after getting us 3iar, last 16 twice, some people couldnt and wouldnt give him a chance. The future i believe is bright, we have a great,young, dynamic squad with a young,passionate manager who haa turned us from a laughing stock and all time low attendances to the sort of atmosphere's at CP i had,nt expeirienced in a while, the 3-0 game was by far the best atmosphere i have had hands down, we lost the league but we still partied to the death!! We are celtic!!