Strachan: I'm not frustrated. But if only..........
Last updated : 11 December 2008 By Mikbhoy
Celtic exited the European scene last night following a comprehensive victory over the Spaniards from Villarreal. In front of a great crowd they proved once more that, especially at home, they could compete with the best in this group and with a little bit of luck they could have gone further - albeit Villarreal had already qualified for the last sixteen of the tourney.
But manager Strachan says that he has already moved on from the frustration of the what-if's. "There was some good stuff but if you analyse the performances such as Villarreal away and Aalborg, both home and away, where I thought we should have won both games, we could have picked up a lot more points." he said "The frustration is gone, though, as we have got on with it and that match tonight was there to give people a game, let us feel better about ourselves and prepare for Saturday really. So it all works out right."
Aiden McGeady returned to the starting eleven last night and the manager was delighted to have the Irish international fit again "We gave Aiden 25 minutes or so on Sunday and that worked out alright, Naka's got another game as did Shaun also" said Strachan "it was a game in which he played well and Scott Brown was just outstanding. I don't need to motivate these players as our form in the last eight months or so has shown that we are quite self-motivated."
"The midfield were very good and it was good to see that. They moved the ball about and it was nice to watch at times as were Villarreal as they are a good side." he continued "I would have liked to have seen us play 11 men right until the end, as I didn't want to see their player sent off. I wasn't happy at that and I wanted to see it finish 11v11 but we did alright and continued to make chances."
It's a fine line between success and failure in this competition and the Celtic boss knows that luck can also play a huge part in deciding your fate "If we had scored that penalty against Aalborg then that would have been three points and we also did enough away against Aalborg to win three points." he said "We had a smashing performance at Villarreal away and we were six minutes away from beating Manchester United, even though we obviously had our backs to the wall. If you look at that and count it up, there's a few points went missing there."
"In previous years we've been lucky with Artur saving a penalty to get us through and Benfica got a result against Shakhtar to get us through. So a lot went for us and this time a couple of things went against us." added the boss.
Strachan has a vision of the nucleus of this group of players staying together and growing into a great side " The longer we stay as a group the better it is for everybody as the more experience we are all getting together is great, if we stay together and don't have to sell anybody, then that will be smashing."
