After conceding four goals to dead-ball routines in their 4-2 defeat at Aberdeen last week, Strachan had his players working at training this week to address his defensive concerns.

However, against Hibs, his side were once again found wanting from a set-piece delivery.

Scott McDonald slammed the home side into a third-minute lead and when skipper Stephen McManus grabbed a second from close range six minutes later, it looked all over for the visitors.

But Hibees' skipper Rob Jones pulled a goal back with a header in the 17th minute from Derek Riordan's free-kick and the champions were not assured of the three points until McDonald grabbed his second in the 75th minute.

Strachan, who played down the extent of McManus's knee injury which caused his skipper to come off in the second half, confessed defensive frailties remain a cause for concern.

"It doesn't make me happy," he said. "We thought we did a fair amount of work on it and talked about it but we have to come up with answers.

"In saying that, sometimes there are some fantastic deliveries; Charlie (Mulgrew's) deliveries last week and Derek Riordan's in this game were excellent.

"But we have to come up with something to deal with excellent deliveries."

Rangers' draw at Pittodrie earlier in the day handed Celtic the initiative and Strachan was glad at the way his side accepted the challenge.

He said: "I told them not to worry too much about last week.

"They did enough at Pittodrie to win a game of football.

"I couldn't ask them to train any harder and they tried their best again today and that's all I can ask for.

"They did very well in a pressurised situation."

Strachan revealed he had still to make up his mind on Sacha Kljestan, the USA midfielder who was on trial from Chivas USA last week.

He said: "I am going to speak to Peter Lawwell (chief executive) about him just now; we didn't have time on Friday."

McDonald played down the significance of the Rangers result on the Hoops' whirlwind start.

"We knew that Rangers had dropped points but the last couple of times they had dropped points, we had done the same," the former Motherwell striker said.

"So it was important to come out of the blocks quickly, especially after the disappointment of losing last week.

"But it didn't matter if Rangers had won, lost or drawn; we would have wanted to go out there the same way we did.

"It was a great start for us and we could have had a few more.

"We let them back into the game again but we stuck at it and we knew if we got the next goal then that would get us the three points and we got it.

"I was glad to get among the goals again and hopefully there is more to come."

Hibs boss Mixu Paatelainen bemoaned his own side's inability to deal with set pieces, the visitors finding themselves two goals down in less than 10 minutes from two Shunsuke Nakamura corners.

"To be 2-0 down after 10 minutes from corner kicks wasn't the start we wanted," he said.

"We practise all the time how to defend and attack set pieces and we have to do more work because we were a little sloppy.

"That gave us a mountain to climb and it wasn't good enough.

"In fairness, the boys kept their heads after that; we passed the ball and got it back to 2-1.

"In the second half, we might have got the equaliser but it wasn't to be."