NEIL ASHTON'S EURO BLOG: Celtic boss Strachan plays dumb but the silly season has really yet to start

Not if his pre-match performance in Basle last night was anything to go by.

The Celtic chief is out here for the Beeb, but in between commentaries he is clearly keeping tabs on The Tabs back home.

Cheeky chap: Celtic manager Gordon Strachan

Lee Naylor is off to Portsmouth, screamed one story.

"Is he?" replied Strachan incredulously. Stelios Giannakopolis is joining Celtic.

"Who is he?" Strachan enquired. Er, the Bolton midfielder, Strach. "Never heard of him." Course not.

Who? Strachan claims never to have heard of Bolton's Greek midfielder Stelios (above)

Kenny Miller is going to Rangers. "Is he?" Come off it, Gordon, pull the other one, it's got bells on.

Managers love to tell us 'It's that time of year' when they are asked about the seemingly endless list of transfer targets.

Well, bearing in mind that we are currently in a transfer window, isn't it a pretty good time of year to be buying players?

Deals are rarely done in June or early July, partly because clubs can avoid paying their new superstar's salary for a month.

Imagine, if you can, that someone agreed to take on Andriy Shevchenko's £130,000 a week.

Paying that dud for the next six weeks will cost your club £780,000 and you won't get anything out of him.

Then again, that won't change once the season starts.