Strachan knows Celtic will have regrets
Defeat will play on the minds of Strachan's men
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Wednesday, 13, Sep 2006 10:40
Celtic manager Gordon Strachan was feeling regretful after his side's narrow 3-2 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford - and said that some of his players will be, too, after individual errors blighted a good team performance by the Scottish champions.
The former Coventry and Southampton manager focused on the bad passing - notably by Thomas Gravesen - which led to two of United's goals, saying that his side had effectively shot themselves in the foot during its opening Champions League encounter.
He said: "We thought we could get them on the counter-attack but the biggest problem of the night was, we gave ourselves the problem with unnecessary bad passing.
"We're going to wake up tomorrow and think, 'Well, if we had only.' And that's a horrible thing, regrets, and individual players are going to have to deal with that.
"Our passing wasn't good and no matter what system you've got, if you don't pass the ball well, no system is going to work."
His counterpart - and former mentor - Sir Alex Ferguson was generous in his praise of the Glaswegian side but pointed at the role of his own defence in giving Celtic the impetus to take the lead early on and pose his side some tough questions.
"Celtic had a go all night which is typical of the history of that club but in fairness to our lads, some of our attacking play was really good and we could have had more goals," he stated.
"If the concentration is not good at the back, then you're going to lose goals and you saw that with the first goal and that gave Celtic a lift."
An error by Rio Ferdinand had helped Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink give Celtic an early lead before two goals by Louis Saha, either side of a goal by Celtic's Shunsuke Nakamura, and an Ole Gunnar Solskjaer winner saw United home.
The Red Devils received a blow, though, with Ferguson confirming that Ryan Giggs - in sparkling form during United's 100 per cent start to the Premiership season - will be out of action for around three weeks with a hamstring injury sustained while winning the penalty from which Saha equalised.