Strachan: Love Him or Loath Him?

My post highlighted many of the reasons given by anti-Strachan supporters as to the reason they won't accept the man. I didn't write it as a personal attack. The piece was written so that everyone can give their opinion on the subject. The question is this: Considering the success he has brought to the club, their are supporters who still think he's not the right man for the job. so I ask that you post your opinion and let us debate the point.
You are obviously too young to remember the days when Celtic played teams off the park with ease. As such you've grown to accept that we will struggle in every game and on most occasions there won't be a goal in it between the two sides. I choose to question why we don't play with that same flair, energy and determination.

and I am a wonderful person...thank you very much! Instead of firing abuse at me for "talking pish"....why not elaborate and give a detailed response as to why Strachan is the right man for the job?

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Thanks weeman perhaps sometime in the future.

A couple of points, what is the style of football strachan is trying to play that frustrates you. Pass and move, ball on the deck(unless it finds its way to captain mick). From the long ball stuff we used to play under MON and particularly in those last 2 years we played dreadful boring stuff.
The players you have mentioned all played in 4 man midfields, occasionally reverting to 5 man, not 3 as you state(with the exception of crosas).
I cannot argue that a reluctance to drop certain players has been frustrating though that seems to have been blown away at the end of last season.
From season to season we see no advancment in the quality of player or performance. From day 1 to now simply not true. Look at the player McGeady has become under strachan. Or Boruc, or McManus, granted not bought players but big improvements nonetheless. In terms of bought players, sure there have been some disappointments, mainly Graveson but who in all honesty wasn't pleased with that signing. I think it's more of a mark of strachan how quickly he was dropped from the team, despite the pedigree and wahes. Brown last year, being younger, and the man our midfied will be built around for several years to come, was given chances. Can't grumble.
In my opinion anybody who does not like strachan does it soley on personality grounds, from this though it makes little sense. MON was revered despite his prickly attitude to the press and media. His little tantrums or refusals to speak. Strachan simply answers stupid questions with the dignity they deserve

Whats wrong with disliking someone on personal grounds?

We all do it every day in real life. Are we supposed to fawn at him because he's Celtic manager?

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Your first sentence you say within this post I highlighted.

Do you have personal experience of a Celtic fan expressing to you directly that they dis-like WGS as he is not "Celtic Minded"?

As for me I have yet to come across one, if you’re talking about a media myth then you should have said so within your article and not stain the name of Celtic fans with using that term. As IMO all that does is give credence to the biased Medias negative remarks and shows the Celtic fans in a distorted negative light.

I Love the wee man.... He treats the media and the arsehole section of the support with the distain they deserve, ok a few dodgy signings but what manager doesnt make them? Tell me one manager that has had 100% perfect record? especially when you are under the financial and glamour constraints attached to Scottish football, it really is about time the arseholes got off his back... either that or fcuk off and support someone else cos if you cant get behind the manager and the bhoys you dont deserve to call yourself one of us! He's delivered 3 titles in a row and the last 16 twice... it truley fcuking beggars belief that there are still a barrell load of fannies doubting him.....who the fcuk else would do a better job????....I'll tell you, fcukin no-one, not even St Martin of O'Neil..... IMO... so geez a fcukin brek from this continual pish!!!!!

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whitshappnin bitches!!!!!!!!

I hear it all the time, not from the majority, but enough supporters to raise the debate and get to the core of the argument. If you haven't overheard, met or know any supporters that are anti-Strachan, you must be from Mars. You know SFA about me or my associations with the club. I see it from both sides as I work in the media. I hear reporters, presenters and former players debating it before they go "live" on a broadcast with their sanitised, suitable for public viewing opinions.

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My apologies for jumping the gun zamasbhoy, after seeing another post bringing this into question I was quick to respond...

I'm certainly not too young that I cant remember the days we would play people of the park with flair and guile. I can also remember tha days when we did and lost, regularly.

Why is Strachan the right man for the job..
He has the correct attitude about the game. He knows how it should be played and is striving to get his teams to produce that. I can see that in any game and this is including ones where we are percieved to play poorly, that the purpose of the team is to try and play the game properly. We probe and probe at teams trying to break them down and find weaknesses in the(usual)5 man defenses and midfields that set up against us. This obviously doesn't always pay dividends but I for one am happier that we persist rather than revert to lumping it up the park when the going gets tough. This attitude and ethos shines through particularily in the big games, where the bigger teams actually have a go and leave us space to play in..
Signings. Now obviously I can't start to try and say every one has been a success. Far from it. Looking at the main objects of disappointment we can start with Graveson. Sure he has been pish, but I challenge one person to stand up and say they did not do cartwheels when this was announced. Roy keane and Jiri jarosik also fall into this bracket. Donati. Yes he can look lost at times but i genuinely believe he has talent which will show through. Scott Brown will be the best Scottish Player of his generation.
On the downside, Killen, pish but cost feck all so worth a punt at the time. Riordan, the most sought after player in scotland at the time, has talent but also is a wee fanny. Sno, cheap as chips so worth a punt also. But you also have to look at sigings like Mizuno who from what I have seen looks a real find, Naylor was a steal his first season, no complaints then, what has happened though.. But then you can't look away from Hartley, Robson, Boruc, JVoH and McDonald
Youth. Strachan has proved that he is more than willing to bring the fine talent we produce at Celtic through to the first team and then even more willing to work with them to improve them. McGeady, point in case. Caddis, next one up..
His attitude to the media. If you don't read the tabloids, this is never in question. Sure he can give short answers but just look back at some of our beloved MON's press conferences and interviews. He spat the dummy more often than not and was as awkward as hell when not. I'd rather my manager didn't give the boys from the red tops the time and credence they crave.

lastly(for now) is his record. Before he joined he was one of the most sought after managers oin England. Sure it might have been the worst rangers team in living memory he has been up against since, but Big Eck won the league with one of them the season before he started and we got that one back, (from a position of weakness as well it has to be said). Every league since then, plus a couple of cups, and some quite masterly performances in the Champions League. It doesn';t look bad at all from where I'm sitting...

the even bigger question should be though is if you don't like Strachan who would you advocate to take over. All the names I've heard mentioned previously just make me cringe. I'm not even going to give them the credence by listing them..

Nothing wrong with disliking someone on personal grounds but to deny them their job on those grounds is simply discrimanatory. There's plently people I work with who I don't particularily like but they are good at their job..

Style goes to formation our players are not fully productive IMO in a 4-4-2 formation. As we don’t have a natural defensive minded midfielder within that system. We struggle to retain the ball within the midfield through lack of composure and options. No matter who the opposition is they find it easy to bypass our midfield which puts an already shaky backline under added pressure.

WGS wants to play a passing style he has said as much every season. I just don’t see evidence of it improving within his favoured formation. As I said earlier the players we have IMV are more suited to different variations of a 4-3-3 or a 4-5-1.

You may feel differently it is just my opinon.

We are in a different era than MON´s years I don’t think one manager has anything to do with another.

As for the players I mentioned Brown, Donati, Gravesen, Jarosik and Riorden have all played a very different role for Celtic than they have done at previous clubs.

Robson was used wide right at Dundee Utd but mostly with 3 midfield players inside him. Hartley is probably the only one who has been used in a 4 man midfield for the majority of his career, however latterly at Hearts he excelled in variations of a 4-5-1.

Only when Brown was suspended did we see a change in midfield, that suspension was a blessing as if Brown was available we may very well have seen the SPL title at Ipox. I credit WGS though as he kept Brown and Donati on the bench for the whole run in this decision along with the motivation of everyone connected with the Club got us over the line.


I was talking about a collective improvement as a team not just individually. The ins and outs of players (your examples why Grav failed and why Aiden has improved are not clear to me. I am of the opinion that most of our signings under WGS past and present would have been successful if used to their strengths.

Two very different things IMO to dis-like someone personally or to dis-like someone’s job performance.

In fact the word dis-like is to the correct one for me I am sceptical as to his ability to manage.