Gordon Strachan tonight confronts the demons of Celtic�s past and a crisis of the present. The club�s Champions League travels have been pre-occupied by grisly night trips to the ruins of lost hopes.

Gordon Strachan tonight confronts the demons of Celtic's past and a crisis of the present. The club's Champions League travels have been pre-occupied by grisly night trips to the ruins of lost hopes. However, the potential for turmoil tonight is further exacerbated by the coolness that exists between the manager and Aiden McGeady.

Celtic's team selection for the match against Villarreal in the Group E match will light the fuse to what could be an explosive night. Strachan has suggested he will play a 4-5-1 set-up. "There are only two results which will do us, either one point or three. A point wouldn't be a disaster - that's for sure," he added, mindful of Celtic's record in the group stages of the Champions League, where the club has scraped one point from 15 matches.

However, the central question is whether the Celtic manager will pick McGeady, who has been left on the substitutes' bench in recent matches. Strachan has options, and controversy, at his fingertips. His back four is almost certain to be Mark Wilson, Gary Caldwell, Stephen McManus and Lee Naylor. They will play in front of Artur Boruc.

"You can play 4-5-1 with two strikers if one drops back into the hole," he said, appearing to leave open the possibility of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink playing up front with Georgios Samaras complementing him from a wider position. Scott McDonald seems condemned to a place on the subs' bench.

The midfield is the minefield for the manager. There will be five places up for grabs. Samaras is joined in contention for one of these by Paul Hartley, Shunsuke Nakamura, Scott Brown, Marc Crosas, Barry Robson, Shaun Maloney and McGeady.

Strachan cannot accommodate all of them. His preference will be for wide men with pace. That would seem to indicate there is a vacancy for McGeady, but nothing is sure in a Strachan European line-up. He is, after all, a manager who picked Chris Killen for a central striking role in Benfica's Stadium of Light last year. He is, too, a coach who has resisted the temptation to start the Scottish players' player of the year last season.

McGeady, however, came off the bench to create the chances that led to the goals that won the match against Aberdeen on Saturday. He is fit and in form. His exclusion would provide a talking point that would rise to an angry clamour if Celtic were to succumb to an excellent Villarreal side.

If the personnel remains unknown, the plan of attack, or defence, seems certain. Strachan conceded of the pre-season friendlies against Porto and Feyenoord when he introduced his brand of 4-5-1: "We got a bit of luck there, but we need a little bit of that as well away from home."

His side will need a mental and physical strength too but the Celtic manager has faith in his players. He insisted the history of failure did not weigh heavily on them because the team had changed over the years.

Strachan, too, believes his side has particular qualities that may help them survive an onslaught from Villarreal. "We don't have the experience of the Lennons, Thompsons and Suttons but there's a youthfulness about it, a bit of pace about it," he said, adding: "Whether we've got the real ability to go with that we'll soon find out."

His prediction is that Celtic will have to be the beneficiaries of a generous helping of luck if his side are to prosper in El Madrigal. Strachan, too, was realistic when he picked through the rubble of Celtic's previous Champions League encounters.

There has been much talk of lack of fortune in the team and the fragile mentality of some players combining to produce nights that can only be watched through one's fingers. There is an element of truth in both explanations but Celtic have faced a harder reality.

The Scottish champions have simply played teams that are better than them. Defeats to AC Milan, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Manchester United away from home do not constitute an upset. The failure to win against Anderlecht or in Copenhagen may be a different matter. However, Celtic tonight face a team very much in the first category. Villarreal are at the top of La Liga and their point against Manchester United at Old Trafford is another indication of both their quality and their resilience.

Asked if his international players took confidence from winning away for their national teams, Strachan remarked: "You can go away on international duty and play Lichtenstein and teams like that but here you play the top teams in the world."

But Scotland won in Paris? Strachan prayed for the luck of that side managed by his friend, Alex McLeish. "If we get the breaks Scotland got in Paris, I'd be more than happy with that," he said with a grin.

They will need them if they are to leave Spain early tomorrow morning with a result in the bag. "We know they're good," said Strachan simply. Negating this quality is a more difficult matter.

"It's a side who are top of their league and have good variation in their play. They can change their team a bit, Marcos Senna was left out of the Manchester United game and that shows the strength of the team," he said. Strachan was merely succumbing to the obvious when he said: "The key is keeping the ball, then keeping a clean sheet. You only get what you deserve in Europe."

However, there was a fresh note of optimism. "I think we believe we've got the equipment here to get something," he said.

It remains to be seen whether McGeady, the hero of a championship-winning season and of the fans, will be cast as a vital cog or a spare part in that machine.