Will Parkhead finally warm to Strachan?

WHILE few can be surprised or critical of Martin O'Neill's intention to step away from Celtic - his reasons, after all, are grounded in sense and stem from family loyalty - eyebrows have been raised at the identity of his successor, Gordon Strachan.

The Scot might have become a popular guest on Match of the Day 2, but he has not worked in football for 15 months and in that time was turned down for the one post he applied for - that of Scotland coach. It grieves one to say it, but on the international football scene this could be seen as the equivalent of being passed over for a job flipping burgers.

While a dab hand in concocting entertaining one-liners, he has yet to win anything in management, although his playing career was spent amassing honours on both sides of the border.

These aren't credentials which will fill a Celtic supporter with optimism, especially given the Parkhead club's need for a manager to hit the ground running. Due to Sunday's heart-breaking defeat by Motherwell, a result which robbed them of a title they were minutes away from retaining, Celtic are obliged to play an extra Champions League preliminary round tie. Such an engagement would not necessarily be classed as a valuable run-out for the new manager: it could also prove potentially disastrous.

Champions League football has, under O'Neill, been taken as a given right for Celtic, and any early slip-up would place his successor under immediate pressure.

Strachan's wit and affability remain without question, but Celtic fans may wonder about his credentials to take a team into the Champions League, a competition which has come to define the Parkhead side in recent times. His time in charge of Coventry ended unhappily, a hate mob helping to drive him out in September 2001 after five years in charge, and with the club deposited outside the top league in England for the first time in 34 years. They remain there.

Ten weeks later, though, Strachan joined Southampton, with Rupert Lowe, the club's chairman, remarking that everyone deserves a second chance even after a perceived failure.

At Southampton, an FA Cup final appearance in 2003 was a reasonable legacy, coupled with an eighth place finish in the Premiership. It is, however, damaged by further scrutiny. The enduring feeling after the cup final defeat by Arsenal was one of disappointment, since the performance was characterised by what seemed shrunken ambition. Their subsequent performance in Europe was a let-down too: beaten by Steaua Bucharest in the first round of the UEFA Cup.

But Strachan had led them there, and his days in charge must seem like a time of milk and honey compared to now.

For the Scot's own part, the Celtic job fits the bill exactly. It is the type of post he has been waiting for since announcing his decision to quit Southampton due, among other thing, to a desire to be fitted with a new hip. This never happened - "Ach, the muscle has built up and I think I can get away with it for another year and a half, two years maybe," he revealed recently - and the right job offers never came.

But Strachan has not been idle. He went to Spain to study the methods of Real Madrid, and spent five weeks in Australia in a bid to learn why team sport is so strong in the country.

Now seems a ripe time for Strachan's return, but whether Celtic are the right club remains to be seen. "I just want to come back," he said earlier this year.

No-one can say for certain whether Strachan is a failed or successful manager. He exists probably somewhere in between. Better, without question, than John Barnes but a long way from being able to rely on the experience which Martin O'Neill brought with him to when signing on for duty at Parkhead five years ago.

Strachan is without doubt a risk, and although high-profile in a media sense, has been publicly courted only by Portsmouth in recent months. He could, though, be the one to convince Craig Bellamy his future remains at Parkhead, having used one of his Guardian columns to reveal that he never had any trouble with the striker when they were together at Coventry: "I think I might have had him in my office once and it was over and done with in 30 seconds," he pointed out in the wake of the player's fall-out with Graeme Souness at Newcastle. The Celtic fans can only yearn he can be so persuasive with regard to Bellamy again, this time in an office inside Celtic Park.

Strachan's talent for communication and his undoubted eloquence should prove useful. He must convince the fans he is the man to follow a legend, but first of all he must apply some soothing balm to his relationship with the Celtic support, particularly those with a longer memory.

In 1980 he helped Aberdeen beat Celtic 3-1, and at the final whistle ran towards the Jungle area of the ground with fists clenched. On a later visit he reaped the harvest of actions so bold, hauled to the ground as play raged on by an enraged pitch invader. Willie Miller remembered the details of the incident in a recently published Strachan biography, written by Leo Moynihan: "[When] Gordon was attacked he was on the ground and curled up like a porcupine, wondering what the hell was going on, while his minders [Doug] Rougvie and [Alex] McLeish sorted the imposter out."

McLeish, of course, is now set to be Strachan's adversary as that classic Aberdeen side from the Eighties make inroads on the Old Firm once again.