He did not do much when he came on. He does not track back. He does not have a great record at Ibrox. He maybe had an injury.

Let us consign the rubbish to the bin before tackling the central question over Aiden McGeady's extraordinary absence for the Celtic team at Ibrox on Saturday.

The matter of what McGeady did when he came on is incidental to the main argument. The question is: why did he not start? In passing, when he came on, he had one of Celtic's few shots at goal, hitting the side netting. He also beat Christian Dailly to produce a chance for Georgios Samaras and then Marc Crosas.

The tracking back question? Shaun Maloney lost the runner at Rangers' goal. And tracking back against Dailly may not have been McGeady's most arduous task of the season.

His record at Ibrox? No better or worse than the rest of the team.

A little leg strain or niggle perhaps? McGeady was ready and able to play on Saturday. Do not believe sly innuendo to the contrary.

So can Gordon Strachan explain his masterstroke?

"If I explained that I would have to explain why I left out Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink in the League Cup final, why I left out Shunsuke Nakamura against Hearts, why I left out Scott McDonald at the beginning of the season. I'm not here to explain every decision I make.

"What you see in the references I have given you is that it is has been done before with every player. Lee Naylor is left out today and Darren O'Dea plays. So I do not have to explain every decision I make, because I do not think it is right to do that."

How about this, Mr Strachan . . .

Vennegoor of Hesselink's absence from the team may have had something to do with the fact that he was enduring a goal drought the severity of which was interesting aid agencies. McDonald was omitted because Samaras was in free-scoring form. Nakamura was benched for Willo Flood. And nobody understands that one. Naylor has been dropped. And everybody understands that one.

The next question the Celtic manager faced was this: There is a subtle difference in that Shaun has not started a league match for six months?

"Subtle differences. Willo Flood did not play for a while and played at Tynecastle.

I do not want to go into the subtle differences." Flood was hooked at Tynecastle after an abject performance.

The Celtic manager has made a series of bewildering selections in away games this season and consistently at Ibrox. There is evidence that he finds his best team only when circumstance makes the decision. Last season, suspension to Scott Brown saw Paul Hartley and Barry Robson paired to form a midfield partnership that drove Celtic to the title.

Strachan's statement on Saturday said that being omitted from a match by his decision "had been done to every player". Not quite.

Artur Boruc suffered both a calamitous run of form and a series of disciplinary issues but stayed in goal. So even if Strachan had a fallout with McGeady, and there is no evidence for this, then there is the precedent that disciplinary matters are not a bar to playing in the first team.

The case of the captain also undermines the manager's assertion that "every player" has been left out. Stephen McManus has been in poor form all season. The manager retained him until injury made his exclusion unavoidable. The Celtic manager on Saturday went on to talk about "calculated risks". How is this for a calculated risk?

The last time McGeady played against Rangers he was man of the match, drawing the penalty which he subsequently converted to seal the Co-operative Insurance Cup final. Last week against Aberdeen he was named by Sunday newspapers as man of the match. The reasonable assumption is that the Celtic wide man is in good form and would relish a tilt at Rangers.

But no, he was considered a poorer option to Maloney on the day. The latter is a fine player, but he last played for the first team on December 13 and has recently had just 45 minutes of reserve team football. So, to recap, his first game in six months is an Old Firm match with Celtic leading the league by just one point while an international player in good form and fancying his chances against a makeshift full-back is left on the bench.

If Strachan believes this constitutes a "calculated risk", he may consider it is also a "calculated risk" that if one jumps from the Niagara Falls one might, just might, get wet.

The decision has no rational explanation in footballing terms. There will be those who will suggest that McGeady's absence had no bearing on the final result. They could very well be right. After all, no-one will ever know.

But the Celtic fans deserve some sort of explanation from their manager.

After just 26 minutes, they were chanting McGeady's name. It sounded like a statement of bewilderment as Maloney had faced Dailly on several occasions with no discernible impact.

Would McGeady have fared better? It is a matter of conjecture. But I will take a calculated risk and suggest that Celtic's most important attacking weapon would have helped Celtic to achieve some penetration. He did so twice in 30 minutes. Once, just once, in the previous hour could have been enough to bring a goal and a precious point. This, of course, is all in the Land of Who Knows.

But one thing is certain: Dailly and Walter Smith would both have been relieved when they saw a Celtic team sheet without McGeady's name on it.

So what are we to make of Strachan's selection?

There are two possible conclusions. The Celtic manager made a decision on purely football reasons. If so, he was guilty of a gross error of judgment.

But there is another theory. It centres on the manager's relationship, or lack of it, with McGeady. Ron Atkinson, Strachan's managerial mentor and a long-time friend, suggested recently that Strachan in the past could be "spiteful" when "he got down on a player". If that trait were true, and if it played any part in Saturday's deliberations, then Strachan would be guilty of something much worse than simply getting a team selection badly wrong.