Celtic manager Gordon Strachan has expressed sympathy for former Rangers manager Paul Le Guen and claimed that if a you can survive being an Old Firm boss you can achieve anything in football.

Since arriving at Parkhead in the summer of 2005, the former Coventry and Southampton manager has seen off two of his Ibrox counterparts.

The Frenchman left after meeting chairman David Murray on Thursday only seven months after taking over from Alex McLeish.

Beleaguered Rangers, currently 17 points behind the Hoops in the Bank of Scotland Premier League, will try to pick up the pieces of a disastrous season with Scotland manager and former Light Blues' boss Walter Smith hot favourite to return to the helm.

Strachan was keen to stress the peculiar pressures under which he thinks Celtic and Rangers managers operate.

He said: "If you can manage either half of the Old Firm without losing your sanity then you can go anywhere in the world.

"The physical and psychological toll that's taken of you by the time you leave depends on what kind of state the club's in at the time.

"So I can sympathise with Paul or any other manager when they lose their jobs because it's a hard business.

"Graeme Souness told me that when he was at Ibrox he knew the fight was on to keep hold of his sanity and he was right."

Celtic take on Dumbarton at home in their Tennent's Scottish Cup third round tie today.

However, with the match not being part of the Celtic Park season-ticket book, the Hoops are likely to be playing in front of their lowest home crowd of the campaign.