Gordon Strachan has reassured Celtic fans that Artur Boruc will be at the club next season and likened his attempts to keep the eccentric Pole under his control to a scene from The Great Escape.
The manager was emphatic Boruc will stay on for another season, despite a recent spate of uncharacteristic errors and tabloid stories about his private life.
On the day Celtic confirmed Lukasz Zaluska, the Dundee United goalkeeper, had signed a pre-contract agreement to join in the summer, Strachan stressed Boruc will be at the head of the welcoming party.
"He'll stay here," Strachan insisted. When asked for how long, he added: "Beyond the summer. Yip."
Strachan offered a novel insight into his considerable efforts to keep Boruc away from temptation as well as the clutches of his numerous suitors, most recently Bayern Munich. The Celtic manager compared himself to Colonel von Luger, commandant of the supposedly escape-proof POW camp in the perennial Christmas favourite.
"Sometimes I feel like the commandant in The Great Escape and he is the Steve McQueen character: you will try to break free but I will keep bringing you back," he laughed during an exclusive interview with Clyde 1 Superscoreboard.
Strachan regards Boruc as the greatest goalkeeper he has ever worked with, high praise having performed in front of Jim Leighton, John Lukic, Nigel Martyn and Steve Ogrizovic.
"I have played with some good ones and some are my friends but, yeah, he's the best I have encountered," he said.
Boruc is also one of the most charismatic and controversial of the species, has achieved both cult status and villainy for his on-field behaviour and become a rich source of salacious tabloid headlines for his extra-curricular activities.
Strachan has embraced his personality rather than wearied of it and recounted a tale from his recent meeting to inform the players they would no longer be permitted to socialise in Glasgow's city centre to reinforce his point.
"If Artur is a character you like to see, both in terms of his performances and his antics, then you cannot suddenly ask someone like that to stop and be a normal Joe on the football field," he said. "He has a great sense of humour. We were talking about our guidelines in terms of pubs and clubs and Artur was at the front. The first thing he says is, Where is Falkirk?' because he wanted to know if that was within the Glasgow boundary."
Strachan was not so forgiving of Aiden McGeady's brand of individualism. The winger is serving the second week of his suspension from first-team duties for making insulting remarks to the manager after the recent 1-1 draw with Hearts.
McGeady has appealed a £30,000 fine and is expected to leave in January. Strachan rejected the suggestion the Celtic fans are fearful of losing the player - "Not really; the Celtic fans want to see a championship-winning side, that's it," - but will not expand on the issue until it is resolved.
"I would like to speak in a couple of weeks about this," he added. "The problem as a manager is you have to take these decisions at times. I take them for the good of the club, not for me or for anybody else but it is not the right time to speak about it. The time to do it is when everybody is calm about it."
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