Jim Goodwin has urged Dundee United fans to relax over Charlie Mulgrew's decision to appear at a Celtic charity event.
The former Hoops defender is set to appear alongside his former teammates Scott Brown and Mikael Lustig at the Hydro in Glasgow tonight, with the show aiming to raise funds for the Celtic FC Foundation.
Some United fans were critical of Mulgrew signing up for the event with his current employers in a relegation scrap in the Scottish Premiership.
But Tannadice manager Goodwin has backed his defender insisting the event is for a good cause.
He said: "I'm a little bit disappointed with the negative reaction to that. Charlie is going there to support an ex-teammate. It's a charitable foundation and it's a Thursday night.
"It's different if it's tomorrow night and he's going to be out to all hours of the morning. Charlie is going to go there, do a little bit of a Q&A along with Scott Brown and he's not going to hang about too long.
"He's going to drive to the event and drive back, there will be no alcohol involved. You know, people just need to relax a little bit and understand that it's for a good cause what Charlie's doing."
Meanwhile, Celtic captain Callum McGregor has been encouraged by the reaction of his team-mates to the pain of last weekend’s defeat by Rangers.
A 3-0 loss at Ibrox came after Celtic had already retained the cinch Premiership title and beaten their Glasgow rivals in both cup competitions.
Only Inverness can now stop Celtic winning the treble by clinching the Scottish Cup too, but the overall picture did not stop the derby defeat from hurting.
Speaking ahead of Saturday’s visit of St Mirren, McGregor said: “Training has been good the last few days, there has been a bit of a reaction, and back in front of our home supporters, we want to go out and show them that reaction from last weekend and put in a good performance and get maximum points.
“In professional sport, if you don’t take defeats badly, or bad performances badly, then I don’t think you are in the right sport.
“It always has to hurt you, no matter how much success you have had, or how well you have been going.
“Once you get a slap round the face, you have to show a reaction, you have to show personal pride, you have to show pride in the club and the group.
“So that’s been positive. Of course that’s not always the case but I think with this group of players, you can see how much it means to them to represent this football club and we try and do it to the best standard we possibly can every week.
“I didn’t expect anything other than this reaction. It’s been really positive and the boys have been at it this week in training.”
