Celtic: Potential treble-winners to treble-busters in a week?

Strachan: Disappointed

Celtic manager Gordon Strachan struggled to describe how disappointed he was at being knocked out of the Scottish Cup by a St Mirren team who lost 7-0 at Celtic Park last week. At one point in his post-match debrief the Celtic boss incited mock outrage when using a clumsy analogy involving football managers and childbirth.

The Real Radio reporter went off to catch her offended bus and boss Strachan gave his take on the game. "We are out and we didn't deserve to be anything else. We just didn't play well enough." he said. ""It wasn't a tactical game and the weather meant you couldn't move the ball around that much, but we are not going to complain about that. The fact is they played well and we didn't do enough."

Strachan knows that he needs to sort out the inconsistent form which has saw his side win only three SPL matches since the turn of the year. The manager had been hoping that the seven-goal gubbing of St Mirren and the midweek victory away to Kilmarnock, which saw them regain pole position in the title race, were a sign that they were regaining the type of form which saw them go on a 12 match winning run earlier in the season.

"We have had three good performances on the trot and that wasn't a good one." he said. "That's the kind of inconsistency we've been showing this year. I would love to get a consistency where we pick the same team every week. But we don't have a consistent 11 or 12 that stay in the team all the time."

A second-half penalty conceded by Stephen McManus and converted by Billy Mehmet was enough to seal St Mirren's progression to their first semi-final since they won the cup back in 1987 and enough to leave our dreams of a Celtic treble in tatters. Now the manager's thoughts must turn from treble-winning to treble-busting as he looks towards the Co-operative Insurance Cup final next week. He'll be looking for the double-whammy of winning the trophy and nipping their treble ambitions in the bud at the same time.

"Being the manager, I start thinking the minute we get back on the bus to go home about the game next week," Strachan said. "It's my job to get them back on a winning run. There's not a secret to it. If you went along to a coaching course they don't say 'Listen if you want to go back on a long winning run this is what you do' - you don't get that on a coaching course. You're out there on a limb as a manager and I have to find ways of getting that consistency back."