Celtic’s performance was excellent today and that’s what feels significant.

Another very difficult game has been navigated. Another three points are in the bag. Although this one was not an away match, it was not Ibrox and it was not a cup tie either. This was fairly standard league business at Celtic Park. Yet it felt like a big day. It felt like an important one.

By the time this article goes out, the Hearts game will have kicked off, but it will not be anywhere near complete. We are not going to know how good a day this has been, or how big a weekend it might become in terms of other results. In terms of our own performance and where we go from here, though, this one feels good.

First, I want to pay tribute to Motherwell. They were excellent today. In times gone by I have given teams who have come to Celtic Park the harshest possible criticism, even when they have got away with a point. Some of them do not come to play football. Some of them come only to be spoilers, to sit back, soak up pressure and refuse to attack. They come to play for a draw.

Motherwell have not done that at any stage of this season, no matter who the opposition has been or where the game has taken place. They have been tremendous to watch.

I am not sold on the idea of Celtic going for their manager because we simply do not know enough about him. We cannot know yet whether he can handle a job of this size. He has never managed anything close to it in his career so far. Before joining Motherwell FC his record looked very underwhelming. We would therefore base our judgement on one good season in Scotland, and I do not think that provides a strong enough reason to hire someone.

Yet, for all that, his team were excellent again today. They are good to go and watch. They are entertaining to see. You always get a game when they are involved. At one stage they were even in front against us.

While I am not sold on the idea of hiring this guy, I wish every manager in Scottish football had the guts to do what he did today. I wish every manager in Scottish football took chances like he did. The product would be much better to watch. Across the board you would get many more goals and many more genuinely good games.

It is to the guy’s credit that he has come from relative obscurity and his name is now the one on everyone’s lips. That is a tremendous achievement. Once again today he fully justified the praise that his team’s style of play is receiving.

In the end, though, we have won.

I will talk about the controversy later on. I will do so with a great deal of pleasure because I always enjoy talking about controversy when we are the beneficiaries of the decision. Nothing irritates our rivals more than seeing Celtic come out on the right side of something like that.

For what it is worth, I did not think it was particularly controversial.

Penalty aside, I think we would have won the game anyway. We were on the front foot. We had it in the palm of our hands from the moment we scored the equaliser. The second half was pretty much all Celtic. The way we were playing, the energy and the commitment from the players made that clear.

I think we would have got the points regardless because for spells in that game it felt like watching the Celtic of old again.

We definitely need a frontman. Cvancara scored the penalty kick but he seems very shot shy. He looks nervous in front of goal, and that is the last thing we can afford our strikers to be. He made a promising start and he is clearly cool under pressure. His penalty at Ibrox to win us the quarter-final and the penalty today were both well executed. He is obviously comfortable in those situations.

Yet he does not seem to have much of a goalscorer’s instinct, and unfortunately that is exactly what we are looking for in a central striker.

There were some excellent performances today. I thought Oxley-Chamberlain was brilliant. Rio was excellent again. Yang was outstanding. He scored his two goals and took them both well.

He remains one of the most frustrating players in the team to watch because he can alternate between brilliance and something deeply frustrating in the very next move. At the moment he is offering us more than Tinetti, who had another dire first half. Part of the problem is that he does not want to chase back and does not seem prepared to work as hard as some of the others.

The difference in energy in the second half, when he was no longer on the pitch, was night and day. The energy level went up another notch when Nygren was taken off as well.

There is food for thought there for the manager and plenty for him to consider.

Ultimately, though, the only important thing today was the result. The only thing that mattered was the outcome. We have done the job that was in front of us. We showed up and we won.

This was arguably our toughest post-split fixture. I am not writing off the Dundee sides and I am not writing off St Mirren, but this was the game most people considered the one most likely to trip us up.

Here we are on the other side of it, just as we are on the other side of Hell Week.

Now it is over to our title rivals to see how they handle the pressure. We have cranked it up a notch tonight.

We will see if they have anything in the locker to respond with.

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