Celtic Has Demonstrated A Most Important Quality As We Enter This Crucial Month.

I love to watch us play our brand of exciting, attacking brilliant football.

But always, at the back of my mind this season, was a horrible thought; what would happen if we had to grind games out? What would happen on those afternoons when it wasn’t going to happen, or wasn’t going to be possible, to win playing lovely stuff?

The ability to grind, to dig in deep and get the results anyway, is so important and we’ve seen that question answered in recent weeks.

I’ve seen Celtic teams where the longer a game went on the more you could see the belief drain out of them. I’ve walked out of games, and out of bars and living rooms well before full-time seeing the writing on the wall.

I never do that with this team. I never stop believing that they have the grit to dig deep.

The last few weeks, we’ve seen that. We’ve seen this side’s ability to fight.

We needed to know we have that skill-set. We needed to be sure about it, especially as we come to the important part of the season, where that is more necessary than ever.

Every team we face from now until the finish will bite and scrape and claw and dig in against us. Every team now has to give everything, and besides, every team wants to be the one that stops this run, that brings Celtic to a halt.

The difference is, with European places up for grabs after the split and possible battles against relegation they finally feel like they have something at stake.

What have I been saying for months?

Teams in this country are satisfied playing the bit-part role in the title race, that of the cannon fodder because they have no skin in the game.

Now they do, and they are all going to try that little bit harder, give that little bit more, and actually try for once to take points where otherwise they’ve have given them up.

What we’ve shown in the last few weeks is an ability to win even when they are getting in our faces or resorting to the cheapest, nastiest tactics.

It’s good to see, and even if it is not as pleasing on the eye as the way we usually play, but it’s good nonetheless.