GORDON Strachan has been known to swear and his employers have recently shown they will discipline a manager for effing and blinding.

All things considered, he was put in a bit of a spot during a press conference yesterday when he was asked about the Scottish Football Association censuring his friend, Neil Lennon, for foul language. He defused it with a joke. What did he think of it? "F****** ridiculous!"

The laughter around the room and the belated application of common sense ought to mean compliance officer Vincent Lunny is not as quick off the mark against his SFA colleague as he was against the Celtic manager. Strachan played for Aberdeen, Manchester United and Scotland under Alex Ferguson, a man whose infamous "hairdryer treatment" would have been delivered in silence if all the swear words were removed. Strachan had considerable sympathy for Lennon.

"I think he's just been unfortunate he was standing beside a mic at the time," he said of the incident when Lennon shouted abuse at St Mirren's Jim Goodwin. That prompted two complaints on which Lunny acted, and a suspended three-game touchline ban was activated. "Life can be cruel to you sometimes," said Strachan. "He has been a bit unfortunate, someone has picked up industrial language. If the microphone is another 10 yards away you get away with it. Sometimes in life you're just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Lennon had previously avoided SFA censure this season. "That will happen as you get older, you calm down," said Strachan. "But you can't stop the fight in people, that's what makes people. People ask 'what makes a great manager' and if you look at all the great ones they've all had periods where you look and wonder 'what's he up to'. Even the top man [Ferguson] has had times when you think 'what's he up to'."

Strachan was promoting PFA Scotland's search for the manager of the year. He mentioned Derek Adams, Terry Butcher Stuart McCall and Lennon as contenders without revealing which of them would earn his own vote. "Lenny is hungry and just wants to keep winning. What will keep any manager [at a club] is to see his team keep developing. If that happens, there's no problems. But the thing about leaving Celtic is that sometimes it is hard to take. I think there is a shelf life at the Old Firm. He's had two championship wins but his team is encouraging. He is dealing with good players and there is nothing better as a manager than to walk in every day and work with good players. He knows he's got that at Celtic.

"It was fantastic this season. I think they did well and developed as a team all the way through it. I think they developed physically and are a side that can deal with the physical size of European teams. They have a midfield there who can deal with that. Maybe the side I had wasn't as physical as Neil's team, and I am not talking about kicking people. They developed all the way through the Champions League."

Strachan and Lennon talk regularly, although the Celtic manager ran the risk of intruding on his friend's business by recently claiming that some players in the Scotland squad "need to leave their egos at the door". Strachan provided a gentle rebuttal. "Lenny only really knows four [of them]. It takes you as a wee while to find out a player's personality. It's not right for me to talk about them, I'd need to know the players a bit more.

"But do we have egos? Do we have the right to have an ego, if you look at the squad and what we're doing? I'd be surprised if they did have an ego. If I was dealing with Lionel Messi, I could see why he would have an ego. Or Yaya Toure, I could see why he would have an ego but I'm not sure if we should really have egos. As individuals we're not at the top clubs so we should be thinking 'can we be better as a group', because we don't have an individual like Messi, Xavi, [Andres] Iniesta, [Cristiano] Ronaldo, [Robin] van Persie, to make the game brilliant. We can only be successful as a group, that's for sure."