Is the joker Celtic's trump card?

By Chick Young BBC Scotland football correspondent

The Wee Man strolled into Celtic Park like he was ready to do an hour of stand-up. Sure, Gordon Strachan was sitting down at his first press conference as manager of the club... but you know what I mean.

The thing is, will he still be up for the Bob Hope routine six months down the line when he has been battered from pillar to post by the Scottish press, has swum a thousand lengths of the goldfish bowl and has been quizzed by Celtic fans as to why he hasn't won the Champions' League yet?

Strachan is an imaginative appointment

Strachan is an imaginative, high profile and surprising appointment to succeed Martin O'Neill and to be fair it may not have been entirely his managerial c.v. which won him the appointment.

He did a fantastic job with Southampton.

He took the club to their highest ever Premiership placing before walking out.

The south coast outfit then went into freefall, although gravity may not have had quite a dramatic pull had the chairman, the arrogant Rupert Lowe, had the patience to stick by Paul Sturrock. But that is another story.

Before that wee Gordon succeeded Ron Atkinson at Coventry and became with the supporters of the Midlands club about as popular as the management at MG Rover.

However don't be fooled. Strachan is an intense thinker about the game - a football philosopher who has never been too egotistic to listen to advice, but who has never been too scared to be his own man.

He was a marvellous player - inventive, original and creative. With an engine which, in the end, was fuelled by bananas.

You sense that his appointment might have been made by the plc board who would feel that the Stock Exchange might have been more intrigued by a name which was easily recognised south of the border.

You must never forget that they still nurse the dream of joining the Premiership.

That was the road they took with Martin O'Neill when Gus Hiddink was all but in place.

It was Dermot Desmond who ordered the last minute change of direction and things worked out swimmingly with the esteemed gaffer.

The fact that in the meanwhile Hiddink took South Korea to the semi finals of the World Cup - success beyond the wildest dreams of that country - is neither here nor there. But you could be forgiven for wondering...

Martin O'Neill also worked at unfashionable English clubs

In a way Strachan and Martin O'Neill are hugely different characters. In another, there are stunning similarities.

They both have massive personalities. But are hugely single minded.

Strachan doesn't suffer fools gladly and O'Neill had a wee bit of a short fuse on that issue too.

It was the look over the top of the glasses that always ripped to pieces the nerve of any would-be verbal assailant doubting what he had done.

Wee Gordon has a look, it's true, but if you want to take him on at verbal ping-pong make sure you have been to night classes with, say, Paul Merton.

Will he do well? It would be ridiculous to say that he won't, but it strikes me that it is Rangers who are at the moment in the ascendancy and any genuine judgement of his immediate prospects would have to be put on ice until the confirmation of the close season transfer market activity.

There is a fair bit of bag packing going on in the east end of Glasgow.

But it is good to have him back. He will light up my side of the business with his interviews and I plan to spend the summer learning how to bob and weave.

Just one disappointment so far. I would have loved it had his first words in that presser for his stand up - all right sit down - routine had been: "A funny thing happened to me on the way to Celtic Park..."

It remains to be seen who has the last laugh...