Don’t forget it has been a busy and successful year

saved by Craig Gordon, while, inset, Rangers’ David Bates, who came on for the injured Bruno Alves, holds off Scott Sinclair.

0 Stuart Armstrong is frustrated as a chance goes begging. a lot of football. It will be good to let the mind and the legs recover. I will take some rest this week, keep myself ticking over. Then when we head to Dubai, all the boys will be fresh there and look to get the fitness back. Most of us only had a week and a half off last summer. That’s a lot of football when you are playing for a club like Celtic. So this gives us a chance to take a breath and re-energise.”

Just as when their unbeaten domestic record came to an end with the 4-0 defeat by Hearts, so Celtic found themselves facing opponents who attempted to press and harry them as high up the pitch as possible on Saturday. Armstrong believes the familiarity bred by the Scottish football schedule means it is inevitable Celtic will have to adapt their approach against domestic rivals.

“When they are pressing, it gives us something to think about, like new ways to get out from the back and take control of the game,” he added. “That’s always going to happen when you come up against teams four or five times a season. They are going to try new things and it’s our job to find solutions.

“When teams come to Celtic Park especially, they sit in and are well organised. It’s not really for them to go and win the game, it’s for us to break through their organisation, be creative and that’s something we’ve incurred for many seasons now.

“We play our best when we play well as a team, when we are organised and our gameplan works. Pulling it together is something which has worked so well for us. When you come up against good teams, that’s what it’s all about. It’s not so much about the individual.”