Tom Rogic was the difference between Celtic and Motherwell yesterday afternoon but the man who really pulls the strings for Ange Postecoglou’s side is Callum McGregor.

“A man of action and words” is how the Greek Australian described the Scotland internationalist last month and it is easy to see why the industry and craft of McGregor would endear him to a coach.

Unfussy and temperamentally likely to dip under the radar at times, McGregor has absorbed the captaincy responsibilities with ease this season.

And this month is when they need to be visible, not just because of a run of games that works out at an average of one every three days but because of the loss of the influential first-team players who are sidelined.

Jota and Kyogo Furuhashi are always liable to be big misses but James Forrest being crocked again hinders Celtic further in an attacking sense. Questions remain too over defender Christopher Jullien who had been anticipated to be back in the starting XI way before now.

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But in terms of leadership, McGregor’s example has been huge for Celtic so far this season. Indeed, it would not be a stretch to suggest that the 28-year-old is currently the best midfielder in the country at the minute given his consistency, consistency made all the more impressive by the sheer volume of minutes he clocks up season after season.

Next week he will have the chance to steer Celtic to their first silverware of his regime and while there are headaches of personnel selection, there is a resilience that Postecoglou’s side have shown in recent weeks that will be encouraging to the Greek-Australian.

Playing catch-up again yesterday following Rangers’ win at Tynecastle there was always going to be a further layer of pressure on the Parkhead side given the lack of a safety net their current league position affords.

The win ought to have been more emphatic given the second-half chances created, a return perhaps indicative of the lack of natural forward options at this moment in time.

Certainly, though, Celtic have shown a steeliness and a resolve that they have had to work hard to find given the fragility that was still evident at the start of the campaign.

Dingwall will be a decent test of that this week in the run-up to the Premier Sports Cup Final with Celtic eager to go into that one on the back of another vital three points. Influential players may still be missing but recent weeks suggest this is a Celtic side currently greater than the sum of their parts.