GORDON STRACHAN was disappointed with the antics of matchwinner Odsonne Edouard and Ismaila Soro at full-time following the 1-0 win over Aberdeen.
With the clock ticking down and the Hoops under pressure during a lively Dons second-half response, the French striker was left with a superb opportunity to kill the match as the team broke forward.
Soro, a second-half substitute for David Turnbull, made an excellent run to offer Edouard the opportunity to slip him in.
Instead, this season 20-goal marksman botched the opportunity as the defence converge on him and an ideal chance was squandered.
The former Parkhead gaffer, who was on match analyst duties with Celtic TV, was fuming as the players appeared to share a joke about the squandered opportunity as they came off the field.
THE JOKERS…Ismaila Soro and Odsonne Edouard share a joke in training.
Strachan said: “I wouldn’t have been happy if I was a manager and had seen those two laughing at something like that.
“I would be saying to them: ‘I’ve made a 50-yard run, put me in, we win 2-0 and then we celebrate’. Then the guy who has made a mistake can take it. That’s more together than saying: ‘Oh here, that was unlucky, that was fine, big smiles’.
“No. A manager has resigned this week. How can you smile after that, an opportunity to lay somebody in, pass and score, 2-0, rather than go yourself? That would be my concern.”
He added: “That’s all to do with personalities. And what you are trying to get out of life. Do you want to go to the top, do you want to make the team go to the top? Do you want to make this group of players better?
“Can you demand from each other to be better rather than accepting things to be not good enough?”
THE MATCHWINNER…Odsonne Edouard watches his deflected shot beat Joe Lewis.
CHEERS…Ryan Christie congratulates Odsonne Edouard.
Strachan stressed players must step up to replace the likes of Scott Brown and Callum McGregor as dressing-room leaders and added: “There is a lack of confidence now, a lack of whatever, battling away for three, four years to get you all the trophies and the quadruple treble and some of them might be tired and getting on.
“You’re looking for other people to take over and say: ‘You have rest and I’ll be the leader’ – and that’s not happened. It might be the youths, you might be saying to the youths: ‘Where are you guys? We need you no’.
“There are five or six guys who have been through all these trophy things, but they can’t keep doing it, it’s impossible.
“What you need is players stepping in with the same determination as the Browns, the McGregors and all these guys. You need them to take over.”
SHOT-SHY HOOPS PRESENT KENNEDY WITH DEBUT WIN
