SCOTTISH football requires a tactical rethink according to Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo and he warns that, without one, European and international success will remain elusive.
The Tynecastle side are in pole position to qualify for a Europa Cup place next season but they have earned criticism this term for the dearth of goals and their predilection for opting to play with a lone striker.
It is a gripe that irritates the
coach, who claims that, while there may only be one recognised striker in his starting line-ups, the formations are still designed to be offensively dangerous.
"Every tactic is different and, tactically, we never play with only with one striker," he stated."It is about the tactical shape. Maybe if you look at the Scottish football everybody uses the 4-4-2 but we don't always use 4-4-2, we have a different shape. Maybe only one striker named on the field, but as we move forward then there are others in attacking positions.
"Look at the Manchester United/Arsenal game the other night, Wayne Rooney played more on the left and then Christiano Ronaldo was there, they swapped and changed, but they didn't play with two strikers just up front waiting for the long ball. I would not like to compare my team with Barcelona, but they also have only one striker and if you go to Bayern Munich and others in the Champions League, they sometimes have one striker and they still create offensive football."
He believes that means his players will be better prepared than most Scottish teams should they qualify for European competition.
"Usually everything is Scotland is in a line, line, line. But you have to teach the youth player so they don't get a surprise at international football. For example, everybody knows that, ten years before so many foreign coaches came to English football, every English team played 4-4-2 and the national team played 4-4-2 and it was easy to prepare the team if you were the opponent, but now, in the last ten years there has been Rafa Benitez and also Mr Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho, and they have changed the shape of English football and English football is better. But still, if you play Celtic or Rangers in the international football, everybody knows they will play 4-4-2 in a line. And that makes it easier for opponents to bring some tactical ideas to try to beat them.
"Rangers and Celtic, in the Scottish league, play against teams playing 4-4-2 so they are suddenly facing something different in Europe and if you saw Celtic's game against Villareal this season, Villareal played 4-3-2-1 and changed the system sometimes in the game and that was the difference. Also against Aalborg, I saw this game and it was not that Aalborg were the better team, it was just that they were tactically more variable than Celtic and that was the key. This is not a criticism, just what I saw watching on television."
The next stage of the race for a Europa Cup placing will be contested at Pittodrie on Tuesday night. And while Laszlo believes all clubs in Scotland could do with a shake-up in tactical terms, he says the clubs outwith the big two also need to overhaul their attitude to youth coaching to reap the benefits.
"You cannot just teach the players in your youth section to play only one system, you must teach them to play against many systems." he said, insisting more investment was required to bring in a better standard of coach for the youth teams.
"In the reserve league and the U-19 league, they have to be more competitive. The coaches have to work with them and that is not easy when they are paid £300 a month; that is not OK. If you want to have good coaches you must pay good money, but if you want good players then it is worth the investment. This makes me very angry because there is a lot of bad thinking. To push all the money into the first team and then down the level there is nothing... this is what you must change in Scottish football if you don't want to stop the development."
Lamenting the fact that player budgets at most Scottish clubs is below even the likes of Cypriot clubs now, he said one or two players with recognised quality could still be bought in the, but the rest must now be nurtured through the ranks.
"Maybe you can get one or two stars, but still the players to play alongside them must be good. I try to do this in my club. This is the first step." But it's a tactic he believes can work.
