Why Celtic's performance in 2-0 win over St Mirren won't concern the league leaders

The stylistic high bar that Celtic have set themselves at their best this season means it can be possible to get too hung up on the artistic merits - or otherwise - of Ange Postecoglou’s men.

Yet, with the finishing line in the cinch Premiership not so distant anymore, all that matters for the league leaders is simply surmounting the hurdles in front of them.

In that sense, their 2-0 success at home to a St Mirren that sought to stifle them as Hibs had at Easter Road at the weekend, would have been judged perfectly acceptable by the home denizens. Even if it took them until 11 minutes of the second period to breach the visitors’ defence - and required a rare goal from centre-back Cameron Carter-Vickers to end almost three hours of football without a goal. Their goal was never threatened, and with Callum McGregor finding the net for the first time in three months in the 81st minute, they experienced no anxieties in retaining their three-point advantage over Rangers.

With only nine league games remaining, it is what you do not the way that you do it that counts for would-be champions. Irrespective of the fact Postecoglou craves his team producing pep and panache. Following their lethargy down Leith way, there was certainly enough of the former, even if the latter is proving elusive in more than brief snatches.

The Australian would maintain it isn’t easy to produce winter-warming football when oppositions opt for blanket defence, and certainly Celtic made heavy weather of fashioning clear cut opportunities in the first period, with Daizen Maeda again struggling to find his radar in deputising for the illness-absent Giorgos Giakoumakis. With Jota and Liel Abada also making little headway towards goals in the opening period,