IF GORDON Strachan is feeling the strain of being targeted by a support that appears never to have taken him to their hearts, the Celtic manager shows no outward signs of buckling.

Indeed Strachan claims not to be losing any sleep over Celtic's recent slump which has opened the door for Old Firm rivals Rangers to set-up the prospect of a domestic treble.

"I am sleeping well," Strachan said at his weekly media briefing last Friday. We will just have to take Strachan's word for it that his nocturnal habits are not being disturbed by visions of a Parkhead lynch mob bearing down on him demanding he be dragged off to whatever passes for a modern-day Bastille in preparation for his date with Madame Guillotine.

But it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that Strachan was being truthful, given that he is not prone to telling "porkies".

One suspects that Strachan would probably do himself a favour at times if he was more economical with the truth and resisted the temptation to offer his views on a whole myriad of subjects ranging from football, to films, to the break down of law and order and the growth of "yob" culture.

So when Strachan says he will not allow himself to be pressurised into making wholesale changes, you can bet that Celtic will face Motherwell today and Rangers in midweek with a team full of the usual suspects in 4-4-2 formation.

It was a little unclear what exactly Strachan was inferring when he offered the view that when people are scared or fearful they react in strange ways at times.

"A lot has been happening at the club and things have felt a bit strange recently," he went on. "But you can over-analyse situations at times.

"Our performance level has been adequate. Last season after we went out of the Champions League performances dipped. That has not been the case this time.

"In our last five games the opposition has had only six, maybe seven, shots on target and that is an average of 1.2 per game and I defy even a top Italian coach to match that so I have got to be fairly satisfied.

"The anxiety is there in front of goal but there has not been a problem with the rest of our play and the statistics say that we are doing a lot that is right.

"We have been working on scoring goals in training but sometimes strikers get the equivalent of the yips in golf when you play the ball on to the green and hope it lands 15 yards from the hole. It's the three and four feet putts that are the problem.

"But this is not the time for changes. You analyse what best suits your players come the end of the season."

While conceding that a third successive championship is rapidly disappearing from sight, Strachan added: "If we win our next two matches it will make life a wee bit more bearable and we will also feel better about ourselves."

Defender Andreas Hinkel, who is eagerly awaiting his second taste of Old Firm action, considers that the timing of today's re-arranged fixture is perfect, explaining: "It gives us an opportunity to take quick revenge for them beating us last week.

"The previous game was very strange. I don't recall a situation when I have played in a team that has had so much control and lost. Our possession was so much greater than Motherwell's and we created a lot of opportunities to score. Yet, Motherwell were the ones who scored and won the game.

"There have been four or five other games like that when we haven't scored and it may be that the strikers are thinking about the situation too much although it is human nature to do that.

"Strikers feed off the confidence and sometimes scoring is a simple process when you don't have to think too much about what you are doing when the ball rebounds into your path because you happen to be in the right place at the right time.

"Other times a striker can run all day and give everything for the team and still be unlucky in front of goal. When that happens you have to become calmer and more composed and try to relax."

Hinkel also knows what it takes to win the Uefa Cup, having been a member of the Sevilla side that beat Espanyol following a penalty kick shoot-out in last season's final at Hampden Park.

Interestingly, Hinkel is predicting a final in Manchester in May featuring the favourites, Bayern Munich and Rangers, whom the 26-year-old German international says have impressed him with their defensive qualities.

"It is always the small things that decide the outcome of matches and maybe Rangers have beaten teams who are better than them - Werder Bremen, for example.

"But Bremen's goalkeeper made big mistakes in the first leg in Glasgow. Then in the return, Bremen controlled the game and created a lot of chances to score, including one late in the match when the goalkeeper was able to block the ball.

"Those are the sorts of situations that change games. Look what happened to Bayern Munich the other night against Getafe when they lived up to the reputation they have in Germany of being a lucky team.

"But Bayern also have real quality and I think they will beat Zenit St Petersburg in the semi-final and go on to win the Uefa Cup for that reason and the fact that they carry luck."