'Watch yourself son, that hand of yours is a bit too low for my liking.'

The final part the magnificant Strachan interview is finally here. Ok, need to go and start preparing that Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech...

After a rather guarded beginning, Strachan’s mood seems to have lifted and I seize the opportunity to steer the conversation back to his days at Celtic. During his time in Scotland, he was often critical of the ‘product’ of the Scottish Premier League, bemoaning the lack of quality. Does he think this a real problem facing the game in Scotland?

 “When I said that I wasn’t saying that there was a lack of quality in players, people took my comments the wrong way. What I was trying to say was we should try to improve the way other people view our game. For example, I have seen a lot of games over the last few years when Man Utd play away from home and don’t play well but sneak a win. But when you see them on TV at Old Trafford, it’s totally different, they are usually fantastic. When I was in charge of Celtic, we were never on TV at Celtic Park, it was always when we played away. So there were a lot of games when we were playing in a windy, wet stadium, on a tight pitch and we would just sneak a win and maybe not play well. And people see this game and think, ‘the standard up there is terrible!’

But they don’t see Celtic at home, where we will play some great games, as good as you will see anywhere, and some great football. But people don’t see that, they only see us on a Saturday, at 12pm in somewhere like Falkirk. The difference between our home games and our away games was night and day.” It’s obviously a topic that Strachan is passionate about and he thinks he may have came up with a solution. “I said to Peter Lawell, the Chief Exec of Celtic, ‘look, why don’t we show our games at home on TV, even if we don’t make any money from it?’ The way I see it, the likes of Kilmarnock and St Mirren can keep the TV money, it is such a small amount that it doesn’t really mean much to Celtic. If we showed all our home games, people would see that the standard is good and in turn it might help attract even better players to the club. It’s all about selling the product. That’s what has made the English Premiership so popular.” It’s hard not to get swept along by Strachan’s impassioned view and as a Celtic fan I find it hard to argue his point. It’s obviously an issue he has given a great deal of thought to.

Despite his earlier protestations to the contrary, Strachan is now opening up a little more about his time at Celtic. I can’t help but notice that although he left Parkhead some months ago, he still refers to the club as ‘we’. It seems he hasn’t quite let his feelings for the club evaporate as quickly as he had earlier indicated. When questioned as to the reasons why he hasn’t taken another job in football, his answer is revealing. “The problem I have now, without doubt, is that there may be bigger clubs than Celtic, like Real Madrid or Man Utd, but there is no other club like Celtic in world football. I try to explain to people in England that Celtic is a special club, it’s a way of life, it’s a history, and to the fans it’s more than just a football club. They are special fans too, 80,000 can go to an away game and there is not a bit of trouble, it’s amazing. And as manager I can get Champions league football and Championship deciding games and Old Firm games, it’s fantastic. And now my problem is, where can I go now that is going to offer me all that? What can replace all that? Celtic are a special club. Anything else would be a step down.”

Strachan’s words seem to be heartfelt and he looks genuinely misty-eyed when recalling his time at the club. So does this mean that he will never get back into football? “No, but I just need to wait till something else comes along that will offer me something else. It doesn’t have to be a big club like Celtic, I am just looking for a job that might be well, a little bit special.”

On that rather poignant note, the interview ends as Strachan has other affairs to attend too. He is after all, a man in demand. Despite his reputation, I found him to be an engaging man. Hell, I even managed to extract some information about Celtic from him. As for finding out more about his rather strained relationship with the Celtic fans or even some of his former players in Glasgow, I suspect I could have sat there for two weeks and he would have remained tight-lipped.  After all, if Gordon Strachan can deal with anything, it’s probing questions from a Scottish journalist.

Since this article was written Gordon Strachan has secured a job managing Middlesbrough FC, a club that is indeed a little bit special. And if Gordon cries himself to sleep at night, it's only due to the Teesider's specialness. Probably.