Dundee United manager Mixu Paatelainen slammed his players after their 5-0 loss to Celtic, calling their display “Rubbish with a capital R.”
The Tangerines were on the end of yet another heavy beating from the Hoops, who scored through Leigh Griffiths, Dedryck Boyata, a Kris Commons double one from the penalty spot – and an Aaron Kuhl own goal in the final minute.
As expected, the visitors had set up to defend but they wilted under pressure from the Hoops.
The rot set in on 23 minutes when horrible hesitation inside their own box allowed Griffiths to nip in and open the scoring and it was downhill from there.
Asked to describe the performance, the furious Finn replied: “Rubbish with a capital R.
“You can set out your tactics and you can prepare for the match and do everything on the training ground, talk to the players about certain situations and try to make sure that some things don’t happen.
“If it doesn’t then happen out on the pitch and you don’t get your basic fundamentals right then everything goes out of the window, everything goes in the rubbish bin.
“That is what happened today.
“We did not do, at all, the things that we had to in order to eliminate the quality and movement of the Celtic players.
“If you don’t do that they hurt you.
“I am not surprised that Dundee United are bottom of the league at the moment.
“The players don’t do those things right it’s as simple as that.”
Paatelainen feels that some of the team are just not taking on board what they are being told.
He added: “The worrying thing is that, for some of our players, the message doesn’t go in, no matter how clearly you put it across.
“That is not something we will fix in the next two or three weeks. It is going to be a long autumn and winter for us.
“The boys are great on the training ground but maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we have too nice players and we need some dig in there.
“We will improve but it going to take a long time. It’s going to be about taking small steps.”
Asked if there were some home truths said in the dressing room by him after the game, Paatelainen said: “I told them exactly what I thought.
“I don’t go around things I go straight to the point.
“There is no point fooling anybody.
“What happened today was the opposite of what we had talked about on the training ground.
“You have a plan and you must execute it.”