Head man and Heid insist the critics are wrong

Last updated : 21 February 2009 By Mikbhoy

The Celtic boss cannot understand the reaction to the stale 0-0 draw at Celtic Park and he has accused the media of stoking fan discontent by exaggerating the awfulness of the match.

Celtic remain two points clear at the top of the SPL table following last week's stalemate but by the time they travel to Motherwell on Sunday they will probably find themselves behind Rangers in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League if the Huns, as expected, beat Kilmarnock on Saturday. But before concentrating on the upcoming game at the pre-match press conference yesterday the Celtic boss had a few bones to pick with the assembled journos regarding their coverage of last week's match.

"There's a food for the media after the game and usually the food is the losing team or manager," said Strachan."Last week, there was no losing food for you all so you decided to take the game then. And the game at Ibrox (in December) was actually worse than that game in terms of passing and movement, without a doubt. It was a million times worse but there was a loser and a winner, and a terrific goal was the difference."

"I'm sure you guys know that in the two games, because I know you study the game well, that there were only six chances." continued the Celtic boss, "There were three in the first game and three in last week's game. So it wasn't any different but, because there wasn't a loser, the game had to be the loser. When you are winning with a lot of points then people are bored with it, when it is neck and neck, it is the standard of football. I can't deal with what anybody thinks. I just know it is a good championship at the moment."

Gary Caldwell
ignores critics
The Celtic manager is not worried about the state of the Fir Park pitch affecting the quality of tomorrow's game and he pointed to recent matches as an example of the unpredictability of footballing equations based on pitch conditions. "Hampden wasn't conducive and you saw a classic between Dundee United and Celtic." said Strachan "The pitch was perfect last Sunday and the pitch was perfect at St Mirren on Thursday when they played Motherwell, and they weren't two classic games. You never know when a good game is coming up. We can't tell you how it's going to go but what you will have is two teams trying to win the game."

Gary Caldwell spoke on behalf of the players again this week and he explained that the Celtic squad don't tend to take any notice of what the critics have to say because to do so would lead to them feeling down. And the Heid, contrary to popular opinion, also insists that the Scottish game is, in fact, getting better. "If you read the criticism, you would get depressed so we tend not to do that," he said. "There are lots of bad games all over the world every week and it can be difficult at times to produce exciting football that everyone wants to see and Sunday was one of those games. Both teams cancelled each other out and sometimes it can be a disappointing spectacle for the fans. But, overall, the game is going forward in Scotland there are some good players here."