NO-ONE has ever articulated clause one of the managerial manifesto more eloquently than Bobby Williamson. The unloved Hibs manager summed up one stodgy performance with the phrase 'if you want entertainment, go to the pictures'. The ends justify the means, in other words. End of story.

Jose Mourinho, another graduate of the SFA's coaching jamboree at Largs, might as well have repeated that mantra yesterday. His fiendish tactics won little in the way of style points but they did allow his Manchester United side to gain one point, courtesy of a goalless draw at the home of their greatest rivals, Liverpool. It didn't do much for the watching millions nor for Sky Sports, who had gone into marketing overdrive to sell the game as Red Monday, but that wasn't his problem.

The match was promptly pounced upon as further evidence of the inevitable impending slow death of the English game, but I wouldn't worry too much about that just yet. With as many as six star-laden sides still in the hunt, and the Middle Eastern millions still pouring in, the Barclays Premier League race will be better than ever this year once the phoney war gets out the way around January.

But it is little wonder football managers generally tend to be circumspect when it comes to the imperative to serve up entertaining fare for the paying customer. It is quite simply irrelevant to whether they get to keep their job.

Football isn't all about winning - but it mainly is. While fans have been known to demand that their heroes play the 'Celtic way' or such like, those lofty principles tend to go out the window when a title is at stake. While Parkhead fans grow misty-eyed now about the Tommy Burns era, Newcastle under Kevin Keegan, and Arsene Wenger's Arsenal are just two examples of supporter groups who would have traded their team's attractive, expansive style of play for some trophies in a heartbeat.

That is where Gordon Strachan comes in with Scotland. It might not seem like it just now, as the national team manager's army of critics line up to lambast him for having the temerity not to field Leigh Griffiths from the start against either Lithuania or Slovakia, a rather eccentric choice as the Celtic striker would surely have offered a better chance of a goal than either Chris Martin or Steven Fletcher.

But a bit like Mourinho, who populated Monday night's Manchester United team with man mountains such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marouane Fellaini and Paul Pogba, Strachan wanted to maximise the height in his team. While his approach could hardly be said to be a success, not least as two of the Slovaks' goals came from high crosses into the box, the aerial route did provide his only goal, a long throw in the last minute against Lithuania.

While discriminating on height grounds is viewed as the cardinal sin, it is part of the game. Strachan himself was occasionally a victim of this thinking during his playing days.

The Scotland manager can be accused of many things, and sometimes doesn't help himself. But decrying him for being too conservative is a strange line of attack. Because in fact, compared to his predecessors, he is perhaps too offensive-minded. Most of Scotland's most successful managers thought nothing of playing three across the back and frustrating the hell out of an opponent.

On the night Jock Stein passed away at Ninian Park, he fielded Willie Miller, Alex McLeish and Richard Gough back there, with Steve Nicol and Maurice Malpas as wing backs and Roy Aitken prowling around in front of them. Five defenders, three midfielders and two strikers was Craig Brown's default setting too, and it certainly didn't do Walter Smith any harm when he fielded five men across the pitch on that fateful night ten years ago when Scotland beat France at Hampden. One of them, Gary Caldwell, even scored the winner from a cross.

Strachan would love to have some of these proven defenders to call upon on for Wembley next month, for a match where he needs up a formula as nifty as Mourinho's to keep chances against him at a minimum. While playing the percentages can leave you looking silly if things don't go your way - like Smith's so-called 'anti-football' tactics with Rangers in the Uefa Cup final - Williamson was right, you know. If Scotland get a positive result in London, no-one will be criticising him the next day for daring to draft another central defender or piling long throw-ins at Chris Martin.

THE rankings industry is a messy business. Fifa's formula in football is rightly treated with derision, while WTA rankings in tennis allowed Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki to reach the summit of the sport without winning a single Grand Slam. There are never any quibbles about the ATP Tour formula, though, which is why it really would be Andy Murray's crowning glory if he could outlast Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal, to supplant the Serb at the top of world tennis. He currently trails Djokovic by 1,415 points, knowing victories in Vienna and Paris (assuming Djokovic doesn't reach the final in the French capital) could see him do it even before the ATP World Tour finals. The Scot already is the world's top player. Now all he needs is the ranking computer to confirm it.