[El Car]

It has to be said, Ally learned his approach from Walter who had a fair bit of success in Scotland over the years. It's why they exhibited similar traits like freezing flair players out of the side in favour of those who had a good basic knowledge of the fundamentals and a certain physicality but no real creativity. It would also explain the countless failures against European opposition if neither of them ever tried to construct a real tactical plan to win those games beyond 'hope to hit them on the counter'.

[TheWorthinGer]

I think you're being a tad unfair on Walter there. We had some superb flair players in the mid 90s who played constantly. I think the problem was the absolute domination of the domestic game meant that the team had trouble stepping up to the plate on the European scene.

Rangers and Celtic had their best European runs in recent years when they were neck and neck on the domestic scene. Whether that be reaching last 16 of CL or getting to final of UEFA cup - competition at home assisted their efforts abroad.

In Walter's later years he attempted - and succeeded - to bring the level of success expected of the Club without the transfer activity of his previous reign. Not that we spent nothing at all, but that we relied on free experience and a lot of that was as you describe: physical, capable etc.

I think McLeish tried to sign talented players via the free market and it didn't work. Walter took note of that. He also came back with a soft spot for Scotland internationals that had taken well to his methodology with the national side.

Success with Walter's methods (during his second term) is a lot different from failure with them. This last season Ally seemed lost at sea. Almost frightened to try something new. He has us on a scary trajectory. Standing on the gouchlj e with his arms folded as the team folded on the pitch. Just compare that mental picture to Walter on the touch line of a cup final, down to nine men and directing everyone of his players. Driving them to victory with his will to win.

Ally will always be a great, but he just appeared to have given in.

[El Car]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there was much wrong with Smith's approach. He had an acute awareness of what was necessary to win matches, certainly domestically. We had the odd flair player in his sides but I always felt we tended to rely on them a lot as individuals and in some ways we got lucky that they were good enough and fit often enough to produce. But it was how the game worked at that time, and British games were often a war of attrition. He also knew when things weren't working and how the balance needed to change. Not always successfully of course - he tried the shift to 3-5-2 in his first spell specifically for Europe as a larger tactical shift, but it ended up not being the right one. Then he tried to Continentalise our squad and it arguably cost us 10 in a row.

in his second spell he withdrew to an even more solid formation with less creativity at least partly as a result of what had gone wrong in his last season with us but at the end of the day the experience and strength of character our players produced a lot of goals and a lot of results. Over a couple of years that model got weaker so he supplemented it with some more skill, but only when he thought it looked necessary to bring something extra to a match.

Overall though I think he knew his players, gave them a role and let them do what they knew already. He could trust his players to deliver so he picked the team and let it do its thing. He was also a great motivator and the players responded to his trust.

McCoist on the other hand only seemed to learn half the lesson. He tried to play the style of Smith's more conservative teams while populating the team with luxury players like Templeton and Shiels. Guys like Black never had the character or genuine toughness to make us solid in midfield, and when pushed into too strict a structure a Templeton will never flourish. It always felt to me like he had the broad outline of what he wanted the team to be, but didn't know how to turn the players he had into that team. If he'd brought in the right players they'd have made it work, but he generally didn't. And if they're not naturally the right players for the system you have to micro manage them to teach them the system, and be prepared to spell out how it'll work in every match as it comes. Evidently McCoist didn't do these things.

I'd say Aluko was a great example of where he got it right though. The perfect player for his system when he was just let loose to do what he knew. Wallace too for that matter, and probably Macleod as well. I think that's what Templeton meant when he said he's not a bad coach, he just wasn't doing the things with the players they needed to do, especially when their heads had gone down.