Strachan accepts responsibility for defeat

Celtic manager Gordon Strachan has accepted responsibility for the shock home defeat by Dunfermline.

The Bank of Scotland Premier League leaders saw their 13-match unbeaten run come to an end as Greg Ross scored the only goal of the game for the Pars.

But Strachan admits the coaching staff were to blame and has vowed that lessons will be learned.

He said: “Maybe we (the coaching staff) took too much for granted that the players would be able to grasp things quite easily and didn’t give them enough reminders beforehand.

“The responsibility lies with us to make it simpler for them to read the signs and I accept responsibility for failing to do that.

“I know from my own experience that, when you’re on the pitch, it can often be more difficult to see the whole picture than when you’re looking on from the side.

“It was just unfortunate that our instructions didn’t seem to seep through the whole team until half-time.”

Strachan has also pinpointed a lack of width as oneCeltic’s principal failings in Saturday’s defeat.

He told the club’s official website, www.celticfc.net: “Usually we get that width from our full-backs, but there was a point when Dunfermline were playing a 5-5-0 with their strikers out wide and no-one through the middle, which made it difficult for Mo Camara and Paul Telfer.

“But, again, that’s a system we have to learn how to deal with and I did feel our wide players might have helped things by staying a bit wider than they did for periods on Saturday.

“They were coming into areas where there was no room to play and that was made clear to them at half-time.

“There are a lot of things we could have done that we didn’t, to be honest, and I suppose the main one was putting pressure on Dunfermline’s defence, even if that meant by-passing the midfield.”