Celtic manager Gordon Strachan says his predecessor Martin O'Neill has approached him about a possible move for Stilian Petrov.

Speculation had been rife that the new Aston Villa boss was preparing to raid his former club for the Bulgarian international midfielder.

The want-away star has expressed a desire to quit the club despite signing a new contract last winter, while Celtic insist he is going nowhere.

But O'Neill has been given very little encouragement by the man who replaced him at the helm in the East End of Glasgow.

Strachan said: "I spoke to Martin this week but the conversation is finished and Stan is still our player."

"I would like to keep everybody that I have got here," he continued.

"But Bayern Munich look set to sell Owen Hargreaves (who Manchester United are interested in) after saying he is definitely not going and AC Milan also sold Andriy Shevchenko to Chelsea so you never know for certain.

"Everybody has got a price in football but I would rather everybody stayed and we could bring people in.

"We all know if someone says, 'there's £100million for Stan Petrov', and we say, 'he's not for sale', that is silly. The dialogue is finished now and things have not changed one iota."

Strachan is desperate for the transfer window to close and stop the constant speculation regarding his star man. The situation has not affected the player having scored twice in the last two weeks.

Strachan hopes that continues for quite some time but he is not prepared to put too much pressure on Petrov.

He concluded: "Stan has showed he is 100 per cent committed in the last couple of weeks on the football field.

"The best thing for a lot of us would be when the transfer window comes everything will be put to bed for a while.

"Hopefully he will play for a long time here and continue to score goals as he has done in the last couple of weeks. I couldn't tell you if he will have a change of heart. I just get on with training.

"If you were a footballer here and you saw me speaking to Stan Petrov every day, asking how he felt and what he wanted to do, you would be a bit aggrieved.

"They would say, 'I'm here playing for the club as well, so why am I not getting the same time and attention?'. It wouldn't be right on the rest of the players."  PA