No need for sleeping pills, says Strachan despite draw

Celtic manager Gordon Strachan said he wouldn't lose any sleep after his side drew their second consecutive game at Parkhead in their match against Dundee United on Saturday.

The home side threw away a two-goal lead against United to share the points in a thrilling 2-2 draw just a week after defeating rivals Rangers 1-0 at Ibrox in the second Old Firm derby of the season.

In their previous game at Parkhead Celtic were forced to work hard for a 1-1 draw against Hearts.

But with his side eight points clear of Rangers, who take on Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Sunday, in the Scottish Premier League Strachan said he was focussing on the positives of back-to-back away victories rather than dwelling on dropped points at home.

“I would be more concerned if we were eight points behind in the league and drawing,” Strachan said.

“We understand that can happen in football and we deal with it. I am concerned about the back-to-back draws at home but I can also take the positives from winning two games away from home back-to-back.

“You can always take the positives and negatives from everything.

“We do feel at 2-0 that should have been enough but we gave Dundee United a goal and that brought them back into the game.”

And the Hoops boss also explained his reasons for leaving Irish international Aiden McGeady out of his squad.

Last season's player of the year had missed the previous two matches after he was given a suspension from the club following a dressing room bust-up with Strachan.

But despite the fact he returned to training with the first-team this week McGeady didn't even make the bench for the match against United and Strachan said the fact SPL teams have to include three under-21 players in the match day squad was a factor.

“The reason Aiden was missing is I stayed faithful to the squad who have played so well over the past few games and the fact that we have the under-21 rule,” Strachan added.

“That rule is something we have complained about consistently since I have come here and other managers complain consistently about it but there's been no change.”

A Georgios Samaras double was not enough for Celtic to get 2009 off to a winning start as they shared the points.

With Rangers not playing until Sunday Strachan's men knew they had a chance to pile the pressure on their rivals and Samaras put them two ahead with goals either side of half-time.

But an excellent Paul Dixon free-kick followed by substitute Warren Feeney's equaliser gave United a deserved share of the points for their superb second-half showing.

Samaras opened the scoring in the 13th minute after a mistake from defender Lee Wilkie.

The United captain was bundled off the ball in the box by Brown who cut the ball back for Samaras to sidefoot home past the helpless Lukasz Zaluska.

Celtic increased their lead in the 58th minute when Samaras got his second of the game. The giant Greek striker jumped highest to connect with a curling Nakamura free-kick from the right and head it into the net.

United struck back two minutes later with a stunning effort from Dixon. The full-back curled a superb effort past the flapping Artur Boruc from 25 yards into the top corner of the net.

The Arabs piled forward and got back on level terms in the 77th minute through substitute Feeney.

A long ball up the park was headed on by Jon Daly into the path of Feeney who stretched to toe poke it past Boruc under pressure from Caldwell.