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.
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.