The Cameroon international ended his six-month loan spell at Parkhead last season by scoring a late winner against Dunfermline at Hampden.

The 28-year-old became a free agent immediately after that game and had a trial with Sheffield United in the summer.

However, the full-back is set to return to Celtic Park after talks with Strachan today.

The Parkhead boss said: "We are still speaking to 'Joe'.

"I've kept in touch with him over the last couple of months."

Strachan also revealed that there has been interest in defender Scott Cuthbert and utility player Adam Virgo. But he claims former Brighton player Virgo is not set to be reunited with his former boss Mark McGhee at Motherwell.

He said: "There was an enquiry last week about Scott Cuthbert and there has been an enquiry about Adam Virgo - but it wasn't from Motherwell. We are looking into it."

Strachan takes charge of the champions for the 100th time in their Clydesdale Bank of Scotland Premier League clash at Falkirk tomorrow.

However, the Hoops boss admitted at being less than overwhelmed by the milestone.

When asked what he felt about reaching the 100 mark, the former Southampton and Coventry boss said: "Nothing really. I would love to say it is exciting and really good but nothing really.

"It's a good game of football coming up."

It was an answer in keeping with a tetchy press conference in which the Celtic boss seemed to take particular exception to questions about Spartak Moscow's artificial pitch.

The champions travel to Moscow next week to play in the Luzhniki Stadium in the first leg of their Champions League third qualifier.

Strachan insisted Spartak's pitch would not affect John Kennedy, out for three years with serious knee damage, despite the defender being refused a loan move to Toronto FC in the summer because they had a plastic pitch.

Asked if the pitch would affect any part of his team selection Strachan replied: "No."

Then asked if he would treat the pitch as if it was grass, he replied: "Yes."

He gave the same answer to a question of whether he had played on plastic pitches when they first emerged, and insisted they had improved.

Asked how he found the experience, Strachan replied: "Horrible. Officially horrible. It's night and day.

"It's different altogether from the first stuff. It's far better."

A series of missed chances led to Celtic drawing their SPL opener against Kilmarnock last week, but Strachan played down the suggestion that his side would be especially fired up against the Bairns.

He said: "We are always on the rebound. We have to win every week.

"We have to rebound from wins that weren't great wins by playing better the next week.

"So we always seem to be on the rebound.

"If I get the same from my players that I got last week then there will be no complaints from me.

"You ask players to do their best, be good team-mates, be enthusiastic and to have a determination about them and that's what the players did.

"If you get a lot of chances and miss them then there is nothing you can do. It's human error.

"There's no way I can come in at the end of the game and stick bamboo shoots up the fingernails for missing chances."