Yes we are jaded, says Armstrong, but

us about his future. We will just play as well as we can for him.

“He has told me before the games I’ve played that he trusts me to go out and do it, to put on a good performance. He has helped me a lot. I worked with him in the under20s team. He used to teach me dropping off and defending.”

If Rangers were the happier side at the final outcome, the draw was hardly a deadly setback for Celtic who have now gone two calendar years without losing at home to domestic opponents.

Frustration rather than disappointment was the dominant emotion in the home camp as midfielder Stuart Armstrong reflected upon a 90 minutes which, while always absorbing to watch, was generally of low quality.

“In the first half we did quite well and created a number of chances,” said Armstrong. “If we score then, it changes the game completely and it opens them up.

“As the game went on, it turned more physical and more into an end-to-end basketball game. We were a bit slow to get started in the second half and they had a number of chances, too. So maybe a draw was a fair result.

“It was more frantic than usual in the second half. Usually, under pressure, we cope well and we play it out. But with the type of game that it was, it wasn’t as fluid as we would have liked and it did get more physical and scrappy.”

Armstrong was quick to hail the contribution of goalkeeper Gordon who, the day before his 35th birthday, made highlight reel stops to deny closerange efforts from James Tavernier and Morelos.

“Both of Craig’s saves were terrific,” Armstrong said. “At the time, I didn’t know how he saved them. He’s got that in him and he’s done fantastic to keep us in the game. If Rangers had scored, it would have been a big uphill climb, so he deserves praise. Craig gets a lot of criticism, but when you are a goalkeeper or a defender and you make a mistake, it gets amplified.

“In big games, he has come up with the goods for us time and again.” Stuart Armstrong has admitted Celtic are suffering from “jaded legs and minds” but insists their below-par display in Saturday’s Old Firm stalemate should not detract from their remarkable success in 2017.

The Scottish champions ended the year with a 0-0 draw at home to Rangers which leaves them with an eight-point lead at the top of the Premiership table as they go into the three-week winter break for top-flight clubs.

For midfielder Armstrong and his team-mates, their rest and recuperation period –

0 James Tavernier’s acrobatic volley was brilliantly which will see them fly out to Dubai for some warm weather training next weekend – can’t come quickly enough.

But the 25-year-old Scotland international, who played in 54 competitive matches for club and country in the last calendar year, believes criticism of Celtic’s recent performance levels should be tempered by recognition of the demands placed upon them.

“You could lose count of the competitions, the games, the travel – everything involved in the fixture list we have had,” said Armstrong.

“Sometimes it’s important not to forget the intensity of our schedule. So the rest we are now going to get will stand us in good stead going forward into the new year.

“We wanted to win against Rangers, we wanted to go into the winter break off the back of a good win and performance, but it’s been a long year for us with a lot of football. It’s been one of the busiest seasons we have had.

“There was not much break in the summer and now we’re sitting here at New Year looking back on all our achievements, so we should be happy and proud. But the break is important, especially when you have been playing, playing and playing over back-toback seasons with jaded legs and jaded minds.

“The break has come at a nice time, we have all played