Avanti!

What is it with football managers? You're cheering on your team. They score a goal or few. Then your manager takes off your strikers and replaces them with defenders. Your midfield has no one up front to pass to. So they go sideways. then backwards. Then your whole team is defending deep. Defenders all getting in each others way as they are still settling into their roles. There's only 10 mins to go and there's more Gremlins on the pitch than players, so it seems. And we, the fans, just know that we're about to concede. 

Give a team of professional footballers 10 minutes or more to charge at you while our players all cower in our penalty box, tripping over each other and of course they will score! 2-0 against Celtic becomes 2-1, 4-1 against st Johnstone becomes 4-3. And we've stopped doing the very thing that put us into commanding leads in both games - attacking. Our momentum goes. And we get stuffed by Caley. 7 goals in three games conceded. You know what? Let's keep the ball away from our defenders as much as possible!

How come fans can always see this and yet the team we support doesn't? We feel  like kids watching a horror movie, shouting at the screen, "don't go in there! Its clearly haunted!"

I talked to a former player who said, "I know what you mean, but that's the manager's way of saying to the opposition, 'ok, we've got the game, show us what you've got."

And that was meant to reasure us? Imagine saying to Celtic, "show us what you've got." We know what they've got - a superb attack, and a shite defence. Best way to keep the ball away from their star player Griffiths and his forward team mates is to keep these donkeys in defence under pressure for the whole 90 mins.

The same applies to whoever we're playing. Don't stop doing what we did to get into the lead. Keep doing it! We're not Juventus, or some world beating defensive outfit. We're just a bunch of talented laddies, each and everyone fighting for the jersey. Avanti! Avanti