Too clever for his own good and too stubborn – the recurring themes when it comes to the case against Gordon Strachan.
Sadly, both are sticks which can be wielded when picking apart a Scotland performance that was woefully short of the required standard in Slovenia.
Too clever?
Going with two up front on the most important night in goodness knows how many years for the national team when a five-man midfield has won four of the last five games and drawn the other against the side that won the group.
Too stubborn?
Your team is getting over-run in midfield and the two players who are the most energetic (and they happen to be in the form of their lives) don’t even get on as substitutes.
The downplaying of the assets John McGinn and Callum McGregor bring to a team (particularly one which looked drained) is Strachan-max and has you thinking back to the start of the campaign when Leigh Griffiths and Stuart Armstrong were bench-warmers.
Of course the players have to take responsibility for allowing a side with effectively nothing to play for but pride, and coming off the crushing disappointment of their injury-time defeat at Wembley, to emerge for the second half with more ambition than one which had glorious opportunity staring them in the face.
But so too does the manager.
Tactical tinkering, in-built caution and a reluctance to trust young, in-form Scottish Premiership players has cost Scotland. And there are plenty who believe it should cost Strachan his job.
