THAT football management can seriously damage your health was never more apparent than 
the sight of Gordon Strachan returning to our TV screens last night.

Three months after stepping down as Celtic manager – and following a summer spent golfing, travelling and simply enjoying the Spanish 
sun on his back – the one-time tetchiest man in Scottish football cut a relaxed and rejuvenated figure as he took a seat in the Sky Sports studios to offer expert analysis on Celtic’s Champions League qualifying tie against Arsenal.

We heard him before we saw him. A montage of the life he used to lead, jumping about and barking instructions like a maddie on the touchline, elicited a quiet chuckle from a man who had found little to laugh about in the closing days of his four-year stint at Celtic Park.

Perched between Sky regulars Jamie Redknapp and Glenn Hoddle to his right and anchorman Richard Keys to his left, Strachan looked a bit stiff at first but gradually warmed to his task.

There was regular eye contact, something not afforded those who had the awkward task of trying to interview him not so long ago, and a return to the sort of mischievous banter that became a regular trait of his appearances on Match of the Day 2 in his pre-Celtic days.

What did he think of those comments from Davie Provan, Keys asked? “I wasn’t listening,” Strachan replied with a glint in his eye. “I was chatting to these two.”

If he felt any awkwardness about having to pass comment on the choices made by the man who followed him into the manager’s hotseat, then he covered it expertly by taking the diplomatic route.

Was he surprised that 
Tony Mowbray had elected to leave out Scott McDonald? “I wasn’t surprised when 
I saw Scott’s face,” Strachan replied, deploying a neat sidestep to avoid having to comment directly on his successor’s starting line-up.

Mention was made of Mowbray’s “cunning plan” of playing with one striker supported by three in midfield. Quietly, but firmly, Strachan disabused Keys of the notion that this was something radical. “We used that system at Villarreal,” he reminded those watching, lest his achievements during four largely successful years start to slip from the memory.

Not even a shot of 
Aiden McGeady, his 
former nemesis, warming up could ruffle this new, serene Strachan, although he did, intentionally or otherwise, avoid talking too much 
about the winger by opening up his reply to also include Shaun Maloney.

If Keys was aware of the history between McGeady and his former manager, 
then he wisely elected not to probe further. The cosy, chatty ambience of the Sky studio was not the place to bring up past feuds.

A summer of recuperation and relaxation has also offered Strachan a chance for reinvention. As Celtic manager he had condemned the phenomenon of the radio phone-in – “the curse of everybody in football” – 
but seemed to have changed his mind by appearing on Radio 5 Live not so long ago, taking supporters’ calls.

He had been similarly scathing of Sky’s policy of conducting banal vox pops with fans, but he was happy to put those feelings to one side behind him to take Rupert Murdoch’s shilling last night.

People are allowed to change, after all. In Strachan’s case, though, it is clearly not as good as a rest.