Premier League 2025-26

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Not sure where to put this

Gordon Strachan interview

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2026/01/04/gordon-strachan-everyone-excuses-bad-behaviour-leeds

Gordon Strachan interview: Everyone has excuses for their bad behaviour nowadays
The man who calls himself 'the last of the little s---s' won trophies with Aberdeen, Man Utd and Leeds in one of the great post-war careers


126

Gift this article free

Gordon Strachan feels young players need more exposure to character-building experiences Credit: Matthew Lewis
Jeremy Wilson
Chief Sports Reporter

04 January 2026 6:00am GMT
An audience with Gordon Strachan can veer into some unexpected places. And so, having gone from Ron Atkinson's aftershave, Sir Alex Ferguson's hairdryer and Howard Wilkinson's life-changing wisdom, to why he admired team-mates like Vinnie Jones and Chris Kamara just as much as Kenny Dalglish and Bryan Robson, we find ourselves discussing "cheeky little s---s".

Advertisement

Strachan is the first to concede that it takes one to know one but there is also a serious point. "Everyone has an excuse for their bad behaviour now," he says. "If you say, 'Oh he's a cheeky little s---', it's, 'No, he's from a broken home, he's got this, he's got that'.

"There's all sorts of excuses for being a cheeky little s---. Well I come from a good home, everybody was all right, I wasn't on the spectrum, and I was just a cheeky little s---. People would say, 'You're a cheeky little s---' and I'd be, 'Aye'.

"I got attacked by a fan once playing for Aberdeen against Celtic. I said to Tommy Burns, 'You didn't come in quickly enough'. He was, 'No, you deserved it. You were a cheeky little s---'. Looking back I'm quite proud. I was one of the last, original, cheeky little s---s. It was nothing to do with my mum and dad, a lack of money, or a deprived area – even though I came from all of that."


Strachan was a ferocious competitor during a playing career which spanned 23 years Credit: Getty Images/Nick Potts
The wider context has been a discussion on resilience and character-building, a subject that fascinates Strachan to the extent that he began writing an academic paper in conjunction with the University of Northampton.

Advertisement

"Today's modern youngsters can think life goes like that," he says, leaning into the chair in his home office and drawing a perfectly straight uphill curve. "It's not. It goes like that – up and down. Don't be scared of sadness and being depressed. That's not a mental health issue. It's just that you are being told that it's a mental health issue.

"That's been happening forever in the world: 'My girlfriend has left me, someone's died, I've no money, I've no job'. It's called situational depression. Clinical depression is a completely different thing and I hate people jumping on clinical depression. That's a horrendous thing."

Strachan still loves coaching young footballers, an involvement that continues with his work as Dundee's technical director, but he has noticed something else. "When you say 'no' to them, you can see them go 'no one has ever said 'no' to me before'. They are looking it up in the dictionary."

Advertisement

The key, says Strachan, is exposure to character-building experience. From growing up in Muirhouse – the area in Edinburgh on which Irvine Welsh based Trainspotting – and then achieving miracles at Aberdeen under Ferguson, he certainly had plenty of those.

The Ferguson relationship famously became fractured over Strachan's departures from Aberdeen and Manchester United but they are happily now reconciled and in regular touch, even if some things can never completely change.


Alex Ferguson and Strachan occasionally found themselves in opposing dugouts Credit: Getty Images/John Peters
"He smacked me in the back of the head and told me to get a haircut," he says, recalling their interaction at Lady Cathy Ferguson's funeral. Strachan was by then 66, but he duly did go out and find a barber.

"It's the area where you have been brought up, your family, those around you," says Strachan of what forms a person's character, before quoting the lyrics written by his Leeds United-supporting friend Tim Booth in the band James's Sit Down classic.

Advertisement

"If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor: I thought everybody lived like it – and I loved it. But all that – someone telling you're not very good, you're too small – built your resistance. I was one of those kids, a five-year-old, who had a [house] key around my neck. My mum and dad had to go out to work. By the end of Friday they'd be literally nothing to eat."


Strachan was part of the Manchester United team who won the 1985 FA Cup Credit: Getty Images/David Cannon
Saturdays were spent delivering milk from 5.30am to 8am (Strachan would run to complete the round as quickly as possible) before playing for the school team at 10am, eating a mince pie, and then a youth team match in the afternoon. He would play for around six hours on a Sunday – "you could just imagine whoever you wanted to be" – and, by 15, was sharing a room with three other young hopefuls in Dundee.

Advertisement

He extols the simple value of developing your technique against a wall – "you can get a thousand touches in half-an-hour, I know because I counted" – and draws a sharp contrast with modern youth structures. "The big con in the world of academy football is you've got a chance of being a football player when there's a 99 per cent chance you're going to fail," he says.

The Celtic legend Billy McNeill gave Strachan his debut before moves to Aberdeen, Manchester United, Leeds United and finally Coventry City saw him managed by and playing with a Who's Who of football giants across a 906-game professional career.

At Aberdeen, it was the era when Ferguson inspired an all-Scottish team of players to not just usurp Rangers and Celtic domestically but beat Real Madrid, managed by Alfredo Di Stefano, and then Hamburg to win two European trophies.


Alongside Strachan, Ferguson also signed Jim Leighton (right) from his overachieving Aberdeen side after taking the reins at Old Trafford Credit: Getty Images/Paul Popper
"It was electric, full on," says Strachan of Ferguson, then in his late 30s and early 40s, and desperate to make a success of his first full-time managerial post after combining running pubs with managing St Mirren. "It wasn't so much winning ... just scared of getting beat ... petrified of getting beat. I've been on the receiving end of the hairdryer many a time. When we got beat by Liverpool [in the last 16 of the 1981 European Cup], it was a £10 fine on the bus home if he caught you laughing. We were all just sat there, scared to laugh.

Advertisement

"But we look back and say, 'How many players, fans or anybody, would love to be in that dressing room with Sir Alex Ferguson in that mode?' He pushed us to different levels. I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

And how is Ferguson in retirement? He seems to have mellowed, I suggest.

"He's enjoying every wee bit," Strachan says. "Someone recently said to me, 'Do you want to be a manager any more?' I've not got the anger any more. Neither has he. That was his power. It was a bit of my power, even as a player."


Ferguson has been a guiding light for Strachan Credit: Getty Images/Andy Buchanan
If anger and intense preparation were among Ferguson's great assets, it would be different when Strachan became 'Big' Ron Atkinson's star signing at Manchester United in the summer of 1984. "I got there, and normally there is a lot of running pre-season," Strachan says. "Ron took us out to this public park. He had his top off, flip-flops and shorts on, which he had kind of curled up. He just lay down on the grass with sunglasses and was, 'Right, seven-a-side, let's see what's I've bought this summer'.

Advertisement

"When we were finished, he was, 'Right, see that family having a picnic? Run around them'. Ron was almost a celebrity in the days before celebrities. Sometimes you wouldn't see him all day and he'd turn up at night on Stars In Your Eyes. Or you'd see him on Spitting Image.


Strachan enjoyed his time at Manchester United under Ron Atkinson, even if some of his methods were unorthodox Credit: Matthew Lewis for The Telegraph
"But Ron knew the game... and his sports psychology was wonderful. Sir Alex would have a [tactics] board and go on forever. We played Liverpool and we had three meetings of over an hour before we played them.

"Ron was completely different. My first game, I said to Bryan Robson at about 12.30pm, 'What's going on, I don't know who plays for Watford?' Then, about 1pm, just before we left the Midland Hotel, Ron stood up, got out his briefcase. I thought, 'He'll have his folders there – all the scouting reports'. And then he fiddled about, came out with Kouros [aftershave], a few sprays, put it back in and was then, 'Right, lads – get it to the wide men. You take them on, remember [pointing to Strachan], it's not Raith Rovers you're playing now. Cross it. Hit Frank Stapleton. Robbo, if you can, get in there as well'. And that was it.

Advertisement

"Another time, we were playing Stoke the next day and my ankle was killing me. I was at training watching Robson, McGrath, Whiteside, Stapleton, all these world-class players. Ron was, 'What's up with you?' I said, 'I'm really struggling. I need to train – find out'. Ron was, 'Have a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. You don't need to train. Doesn't matter about all these boys [pointing to Robson and co], the way you're playing, you're the man they're worried about'. I played. We won 4-0.

"I had great managers and great captains: I mean Willie Miller [Aberdeen], Bryan Robson [United] and Graeme Souness [Scotland]. Wow."


Strachan looked up to Bryan Robson (centre, sitting), on and off the pitch Credit: Getty Images/Bob Thomas
In a recent interview with Telegraph Sport, Robson suggested that United's infamous drinking culture at the time was exaggerated. Strachan, who arrived home in a car boot following his first night out with his new team-mates, disagrees. "It's underplayed actually," he says, laughing. "We compare stories, Kenny [Dalglish] and myself, and Man Utd were way ahead. But they never got into any bother. They just sat and drank."

Advertisement

And how good a player was Robson? "No disrespect to Kenny, I only played with Kenny in the Scotland side, and he's Scotland's best-ever player in my opinion, but when people ask me the best I played with, I just go: 'Bryan Robson'. He could play anywhere, any position, at any time, in any conditions. He could do anything. And he's a great person – looked after the players, made sure the families were alright – the perfect captain."

Upon leaving Manchester United aged 32 in 1989, Strachan himself wondered if he was finished as a leading player. What happened next was an achievement to rank alongside Aberdeen.

"You say, 'Where do I go in life now?' Three days later you sign for Leeds and it's probably the best decision you ever made. Meeting Alex Ferguson changed my life. Meeting Howard Wilkinson changed my life."

Advertisement

In a brilliant stroke of man-management, Wilkinson asked Strachan to be his captain and told him that the club needed him to be the on-field inspiration behind their return to the top flight. They duly won the old Second Division [now the Championship] in Strachan's first season.


Strachan showed his class and longevity into his mid-thirties with a resurgent Leeds United Credit: Getty Images/Shaun Botterill
By the third season, they had pipped Ferguson's Manchester United for the league title. Some 34 years later and Wilkinson remains the last English manager to win the top flight. Strachan was voted Footballer of the Year and, just as at Aberdeen, is a guaranteed pick in any all-time Leeds team. Much of that group, including Wilkinson, staged a reunion last month where Strachan was to be reminded of a common thread in special teams.

Advertisement

"It's good people you can trust and rely upon in horrible times," he says. "It doesn't have to be your star players, it's your Imre Varadis, your Chris Kamaras, your Vinnie Jones, your Paul Telfers.

"And, when you meet, they might be balder, they might be fatter, but their character never changes. Same with the Aberdeen lads. It's a wonderful thing – like you've never been away from them."

Strachan would again play under Atkinson at Coventry City, becoming one of the Premier League's oldest ever players aged 40. "There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch," Big Ron observed.

A successful managerial career spanning some 21 years would then peak with Celtic's first hat-trick of league titles since Jock Stein and progress to the Champions League knockout phase, even if it was easy to sense the all-consuming emotional toll. Strachan actually happened to be the Southampton manager during my first sports reporting job at the Southern Daily Echo and, while unfailingly funny, genuine and perceptive, there was also fire. Never bothering with press officers if he wished to convey his irritation at any story, it was a wonderful grounding that coincided with Southampton's march to the 2003 FA Cup final, and a top-10 Premier League finish.


Strachan says that he's "not fighting the world now" and, while more knowledgeable and experienced, wonders if he lost a certain required energy after leaving Celtic in 2009. International management with Scotland, he says, required a different skill set and he has strong views about the man-management of players outside a paid club environment. It is why he sympathises with Jude Bellingham following the public criticism by England manager Thomas Tuchel and parts of the media.

Advertisement

"The poor guy is turning up and he knows that if he plays a wee bit badly, he's gonna get battered," Strachan says. "At a club you can demand anything of a player – you are paying them a good wage. Bellingham is not coming for the money, he's not coming for publicity, he's coming to help the country do well, help his mates, his friends, his family.

"As a manager you have to protect them. If he throws his arms about – if that's what everyone is complaining about – that's nothing. I feel sorry for the kid."


Strachan was manager of the Scotland national team from 2013-17 Credit: Reuters/Lee Smith
After appearing in two World Cups as a player, Strachan hopes to be in the United States next summer as a fan when Scotland return to football's biggest stage for the first time since 1998. As well as his work with Dundee, he is also sought after on the after-dinner circuit, and determined to maximise family life. Strachan and his wife Lesley, who met at a Dundee disco when they were both 17, now have a little squad of grandchildren as well as their three children.

Advertisement

"You do hear your family as a manager but you're not listening because your mind is on something else," he says, recalling how, after a defeat at Coventry, he once walked 12 miles in his suit and shoes, lost in his thoughts, before being collected near a village called Wellsborough by Lesley.

"It gets you like that but I wouldn't change anything," he says. "People say about winning things, but it's really all about laughing. I love speaking about football, telling people how great a life I've had. Football gets a bad name at times but it's a great place, full of great people."

Two of his former clubs, Leeds United and Manchester United, will play each other on Sunday in the Premier League. When you then consider all the other football communities Strachan has touched, it surely adds up to one of the great careers in post-war British football. Not bad for one of the last original cheeky little s---s.

[ONeill]

We live in a Soccer world of expectation and entitlement.

Fueled by a media exploiting knee jerk reactions to results.

Exactly it. The influencers know these type of opinions means views means money. Now papers have cottoned on to it. And now it has spread to everyone. A team can go from 'bottlers' to 'champions' to 'bottlers' in the space of 5 days. That's the world we're in.

And when things go wrong, the board needs to be sacked. I'd never heard of that til the early 00s.

What happens if the board and manager are sacked? Who sacks them and what's left? I'd love to see that vacuum.

[J70]

Not sure where to put this

Gordon Strachan interview

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2026/01/04/gordon-strachan-everyone-excuses-bad-behaviour-leeds

Gordon Strachan interview: Everyone has excuses for their bad behaviour nowadays
The man who calls himself 'the last of the little s---s' won trophies with Aberdeen, Man Utd and Leeds in one of the great post-war careers


126

Gift this article free

Gordon Strachan feels young players need more exposure to character-building experiences Credit: Matthew Lewis
Jeremy Wilson
Chief Sports Reporter

04 January 2026 6:00am GMT
An audience with Gordon Strachan can veer into some unexpected places. And so, having gone from Ron Atkinson's aftershave, Sir Alex Ferguson's hairdryer and Howard Wilkinson's life-changing wisdom, to why he admired team-mates like Vinnie Jones and Chris Kamara just as much as Kenny Dalglish and Bryan Robson, we find ourselves discussing "cheeky little s---s".

Advertisement

Strachan is the first to concede that it takes one to know one but there is also a serious point. "Everyone has an excuse for their bad behaviour now," he says. "If you say, 'Oh he's a cheeky little s---', it's, 'No, he's from a broken home, he's got this, he's got that'.

"There's all sorts of excuses for being a cheeky little s---. Well I come from a good home, everybody was all right, I wasn't on the spectrum, and I was just a cheeky little s---. People would say, 'You're a cheeky little s---' and I'd be, 'Aye'.

"I got attacked by a fan once playing for Aberdeen against Celtic. I said to Tommy Burns, 'You didn't come in quickly enough'. He was, 'No, you deserved it. You were a cheeky little s---'. Looking back I'm quite proud. I was one of the last, original, cheeky little s---s. It was nothing to do with my mum and dad, a lack of money, or a deprived area – even though I came from all of that."


Strachan was a ferocious competitor during a playing career which spanned 23 years Credit: Getty Images/Nick Potts
The wider context has been a discussion on resilience and character-building, a subject that fascinates Strachan to the extent that he began writing an academic paper in conjunction with the University of Northampton.

Advertisement

"Today's modern youngsters can think life goes like that," he says, leaning into the chair in his home office and drawing a perfectly straight uphill curve. "It's not. It goes like that – up and down. Don't be scared of sadness and being depressed. That's not a mental health issue. It's just that you are being told that it's a mental health issue.

"That's been happening forever in the world: 'My girlfriend has left me, someone's died, I've no money, I've no job'. It's called situational depression. Clinical depression is a completely different thing and I hate people jumping on clinical depression. That's a horrendous thing."

Strachan still loves coaching young footballers, an involvement that continues with his work as Dundee's technical director, but he has noticed something else. "When you say 'no' to them, you can see them go 'no one has ever said 'no' to me before'. They are looking it up in the dictionary."

Advertisement

The key, says Strachan, is exposure to character-building experience. From growing up in Muirhouse – the area in Edinburgh on which Irvine Welsh based Trainspotting – and then achieving miracles at Aberdeen under Ferguson, he certainly had plenty of those.

The Ferguson relationship famously became fractured over Strachan's departures from Aberdeen and Manchester United but they are happily now reconciled and in regular touch, even if some things can never completely change.


Alex Ferguson and Strachan occasionally found themselves in opposing dugouts Credit: Getty Images/John Peters
"He smacked me in the back of the head and told me to get a haircut," he says, recalling their interaction at Lady Cathy Ferguson's funeral. Strachan was by then 66, but he duly did go out and find a barber.

"It's the area where you have been brought up, your family, those around you," says Strachan of what forms a person's character, before quoting the lyrics written by his Leeds United-supporting friend Tim Booth in the band James's Sit Down classic.

Advertisement

"If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor: I thought everybody lived like it – and I loved it. But all that – someone telling you're not very good, you're too small – built your resistance. I was one of those kids, a five-year-old, who had a [house] key around my neck. My mum and dad had to go out to work. By the end of Friday they'd be literally nothing to eat."


Strachan was part of the Manchester United team who won the 1985 FA Cup Credit: Getty Images/David Cannon
Saturdays were spent delivering milk from 5.30am to 8am (Strachan would run to complete the round as quickly as possible) before playing for the school team at 10am, eating a mince pie, and then a youth team match in the afternoon. He would play for around six hours on a Sunday – "you could just imagine whoever you wanted to be" – and, by 15, was sharing a room with three other young hopefuls in Dundee.

Advertisement

He extols the simple value of developing your technique against a wall – "you can get a thousand touches in half-an-hour, I know because I counted" – and draws a sharp contrast with modern youth structures. "The big con in the world of academy football is you've got a chance of being a football player when there's a 99 per cent chance you're going to fail," he says.

The Celtic legend Billy McNeill gave Strachan his debut before moves to Aberdeen, Manchester United, Leeds United and finally Coventry City saw him managed by and playing with a Who's Who of football giants across a 906-game professional career.

At Aberdeen, it was the era when Ferguson inspired an all-Scottish team of players to not just usurp Rangers and Celtic domestically but beat Real Madrid, managed by Alfredo Di Stefano, and then Hamburg to win two European trophies.


Alongside Strachan, Ferguson also signed Jim Leighton (right) from his overachieving Aberdeen side after taking the reins at Old Trafford Credit: Getty Images/Paul Popper
"It was electric, full on," says Strachan of Ferguson, then in his late 30s and early 40s, and desperate to make a success of his first full-time managerial post after combining running pubs with managing St Mirren. "It wasn't so much winning ... just scared of getting beat ... petrified of getting beat. I've been on the receiving end of the hairdryer many a time. When we got beat by Liverpool [in the last 16 of the 1981 European Cup], it was a £10 fine on the bus home if he caught you laughing. We were all just sat there, scared to laugh.

Advertisement

"But we look back and say, 'How many players, fans or anybody, would love to be in that dressing room with Sir Alex Ferguson in that mode?' He pushed us to different levels. I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

And how is Ferguson in retirement? He seems to have mellowed, I suggest.

"He's enjoying every wee bit," Strachan says. "Someone recently said to me, 'Do you want to be a manager any more?' I've not got the anger any more. Neither has he. That was his power. It was a bit of my power, even as a player."


Ferguson has been a guiding light for Strachan Credit: Getty Images/Andy Buchanan
If anger and intense preparation were among Ferguson's great assets, it would be different when Strachan became 'Big' Ron Atkinson's star signing at Manchester United in the summer of 1984. "I got there, and normally there is a lot of running pre-season," Strachan says. "Ron took us out to this public park. He had his top off, flip-flops and shorts on, which he had kind of curled up. He just lay down on the grass with sunglasses and was, 'Right, seven-a-side, let's see what's I've bought this summer'.

Advertisement

"When we were finished, he was, 'Right, see that family having a picnic? Run around them'. Ron was almost a celebrity in the days before celebrities. Sometimes you wouldn't see him all day and he'd turn up at night on Stars In Your Eyes. Or you'd see him on Spitting Image.


Strachan enjoyed his time at Manchester United under Ron Atkinson, even if some of his methods were unorthodox Credit: Matthew Lewis for The Telegraph
"But Ron knew the game... and his sports psychology was wonderful. Sir Alex would have a [tactics] board and go on forever. We played Liverpool and we had three meetings of over an hour before we played them.

"Ron was completely different. My first game, I said to Bryan Robson at about 12.30pm, 'What's going on, I don't know who plays for Watford?' Then, about 1pm, just before we left the Midland Hotel, Ron stood up, got out his briefcase. I thought, 'He'll have his folders there – all the scouting reports'. And then he fiddled about, came out with Kouros [aftershave], a few sprays, put it back in and was then, 'Right, lads – get it to the wide men. You take them on, remember [pointing to Strachan], it's not Raith Rovers you're playing now. Cross it. Hit Frank Stapleton. Robbo, if you can, get in there as well'. And that was it.

Advertisement

"Another time, we were playing Stoke the next day and my ankle was killing me. I was at training watching Robson, McGrath, Whiteside, Stapleton, all these world-class players. Ron was, 'What's up with you?' I said, 'I'm really struggling. I need to train – find out'. Ron was, 'Have a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. You don't need to train. Doesn't matter about all these boys [pointing to Robson and co], the way you're playing, you're the man they're worried about'. I played. We won 4-0.

"I had great managers and great captains: I mean Willie Miller [Aberdeen], Bryan Robson [United] and Graeme Souness [Scotland]. Wow."


Strachan looked up to Bryan Robson (centre, sitting), on and off the pitch Credit: Getty Images/Bob Thomas
In a recent interview with Telegraph Sport, Robson suggested that United's infamous drinking culture at the time was exaggerated. Strachan, who arrived home in a car boot following his first night out with his new team-mates, disagrees. "It's underplayed actually," he says, laughing. "We compare stories, Kenny [Dalglish] and myself, and Man Utd were way ahead. But they never got into any bother. They just sat and drank."

Advertisement

And how good a player was Robson? "No disrespect to Kenny, I only played with Kenny in the Scotland side, and he's Scotland's best-ever player in my opinion, but when people ask me the best I played with, I just go: 'Bryan Robson'. He could play anywhere, any position, at any time, in any conditions. He could do anything. And he's a great person – looked after the players, made sure the families were alright – the perfect captain."

Upon leaving Manchester United aged 32 in 1989, Strachan himself wondered if he was finished as a leading player. What happened next was an achievement to rank alongside Aberdeen.

"You say, 'Where do I go in life now?' Three days later you sign for Leeds and it's probably the best decision you ever made. Meeting Alex Ferguson changed my life. Meeting Howard Wilkinson changed my life."

Advertisement

In a brilliant stroke of man-management, Wilkinson asked Strachan to be his captain and told him that the club needed him to be the on-field inspiration behind their return to the top flight. They duly won the old Second Division [now the Championship] in Strachan's first season.


Strachan showed his class and longevity into his mid-thirties with a resurgent Leeds United Credit: Getty Images/Shaun Botterill
By the third season, they had pipped Ferguson's Manchester United for the league title. Some 34 years later and Wilkinson remains the last English manager to win the top flight. Strachan was voted Footballer of the Year and, just as at Aberdeen, is a guaranteed pick in any all-time Leeds team. Much of that group, including Wilkinson, staged a reunion last month where Strachan was to be reminded of a common thread in special teams.

Advertisement

"It's good people you can trust and rely upon in horrible times," he says. "It doesn't have to be your star players, it's your Imre Varadis, your Chris Kamaras, your Vinnie Jones, your Paul Telfers.

"And, when you meet, they might be balder, they might be fatter, but their character never changes. Same with the Aberdeen lads. It's a wonderful thing – like you've never been away from them."

Strachan would again play under Atkinson at Coventry City, becoming one of the Premier League's oldest ever players aged 40. "There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch," Big Ron observed.

A successful managerial career spanning some 21 years would then peak with Celtic's first hat-trick of league titles since Jock Stein and progress to the Champions League knockout phase, even if it was easy to sense the all-consuming emotional toll. Strachan actually happened to be the Southampton manager during my first sports reporting job at the Southern Daily Echo and, while unfailingly funny, genuine and perceptive, there was also fire. Never bothering with press officers if he wished to convey his irritation at any story, it was a wonderful grounding that coincided with Southampton's march to the 2003 FA Cup final, and a top-10 Premier League finish.


Strachan says that he's "not fighting the world now" and, while more knowledgeable and experienced, wonders if he lost a certain required energy after leaving Celtic in 2009. International management with Scotland, he says, required a different skill set and he has strong views about the man-management of players outside a paid club environment. It is why he sympathises with Jude Bellingham following the public criticism by England manager Thomas Tuchel and parts of the media.

Advertisement

"The poor guy is turning up and he knows that if he plays a wee bit badly, he's gonna get battered," Strachan says. "At a club you can demand anything of a player – you are paying them a good wage. Bellingham is not coming for the money, he's not coming for publicity, he's coming to help the country do well, help his mates, his friends, his family.

"As a manager you have to protect them. If he throws his arms about – if that's what everyone is complaining about – that's nothing. I feel sorry for the kid."


Strachan was manager of the Scotland national team from 2013-17 Credit: Reuters/Lee Smith
After appearing in two World Cups as a player, Strachan hopes to be in the United States next summer as a fan when Scotland return to football's biggest stage for the first time since 1998. As well as his work with Dundee, he is also sought after on the after-dinner circuit, and determined to maximise family life. Strachan and his wife Lesley, who met at a Dundee disco when they were both 17, now have a little squad of grandchildren as well as their three children.

Advertisement

"You do hear your family as a manager but you're not listening because your mind is on something else," he says, recalling how, after a defeat at Coventry, he once walked 12 miles in his suit and shoes, lost in his thoughts, before being collected near a village called Wellsborough by Lesley.

"It gets you like that but I wouldn't change anything," he says. "People say about winning things, but it's really all about laughing. I love speaking about football, telling people how great a life I've had. Football gets a bad name at times but it's a great place, full of great people."

Two of his former clubs, Leeds United and Manchester United, will play each other on Sunday in the Premier League. When you then consider all the other football communities Strachan has touched, it surely adds up to one of the great careers in post-war British football. Not bad for one of the last original cheeky little s---s.

Thanks for posting that. Great article.

[imtommygunn]

There's nobody fitter at his age, except maybe Raquel Welch,

A Ron Atkinson quote if ever there was one 

[Dag Dog]

Brilliant goal from Fulham.

Great finish when it looked like Liverpool had the game won with 94th minute goal.

Bizarre bending of the rule to allow the Wirtz 'goal', with a new and unknown interpretation. If it happened at the other end, 100% it would have been disallowed.

[gallsman]

Amorim gone?

[RedHand88]

Goodnight sweet prince

[gallsman]

Presumably they're looking at the fact they're 3 points off 4th and Liverpool and Chelsea are hardly great shakes either. Better to get someone they trust for the final push

[laoislad]

Amorim gone?

Ah no that would be a shame.

Remember when Moyes was in charge and we were told Man United don't sack managers..   

[laoislad]

Presumably they're looking at the fact they're 3 points off 4th and Liverpool and Chelsea are hardly great shakes either. Better to get someone they trust for the final push

But Moyes,Van Gaal, Jose, Ole, Ragnick, Ten Hag, Amorim were all going to be that manger that gave them that final push to be great again...
Whose next?

[Armagh18]

A likeable likeable f**ker, didn't get the backing from the shitshow of a club, made piles of mistakes of course.

Shows the club up for the shitshow that it is, lose as many games as you like but just don't call out the pricks above you.

Wish him nothing but the best for the future, hopefully he finds his level at a smaller club and does well.

[statto]

Presumably they're looking at the fact they're 3 points off 4th and Liverpool and Chelsea are hardly great shakes either. Better to get someone they trust for the final push

Did they not trust Amorim when they appointed him to the role?

[Walter Cronc]

Arise Sir Gareth!

[Armagh18]

Presumably they're looking at the fact they're 3 points off 4th and Liverpool and Chelsea are hardly great shakes either. Better to get someone they trust for the final push

Sir Alex would struggle in the next 2 games given the missing players, but after that a semi competent manager should be able to get them 5th if he gets players back, the rest of the league are as average as United are.

Edit- forgot about the Burnley game- it's City and Arsenal after that.

[lurganblue]

Knew with that muck he was talking after the game yesterday that he felt the jig was up