SO quiet was Craig Gordon for great swathes of Sunday afternoon that Celtic directors of old might perhaps have considered themselves justified in withdrawing his clean sheet bonus.

Fully 61 minutes had elapsed by the time he had a shot to save, and even then Rangers' efforts lacked conviction, as the goalkeeper clasped a Kenny Miller header then saved with his feet with a low left-foot effort from the same player. A late flurry of activity in front of his goal apart, it was easy to forget that this was actually Gordon's first clean sheet in three matches.

Instead, for most of this match, the goalkeeper's main contribution to Celtic's effort was acting as a de facto 11th outfield player, whether it patiently maintaining possession with his centre halves and full backs, or almost gaining himself an assist with a sweet long pass early in the second half which played in Leigh Griffiths to force Wes Foderingham to tip over.

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It illustrated precisely why improving the goalkeeper's distribution had been such a pet project of Brendan Rodgers. While the Northern Irishman's tried and tested game plan was executed to perfection, it was less clear exactly what his opposite number Pedro Caixinha, seemingly clad in Walter Smith's time honoured navy cardigan, was trying to achieve.

Gordon's buzzword afterwards was 'control' - Celtic had hold of it from the opening stages and never looked like relinquishing it. And the amazing thing about this control is that - aside for perhaps the last ten minutes of the League Cup semi-final between these same two teams, periods when they trailed 2-0 and 3-2 at Fir Park in early December, and the closing stages of their recent 1-1 draw against Partick Thistle - it is something Celtic have had for almost all of a domestic season which now stands at 41 games.

Six games, five in the league and the Scottish Cup final, remain for them to negotiate to take their place in history. While these are the hardest yards - matches against the best other teams Scotland has to offer - Rangers have just one chance left to knock them off their perch and it will be fascinating to see if they are able to come up with anything during Saturday's league match at Ibrox which is capable of doing it. It is a match which Celtic will go into with no Moussa Dembele and possibly no captain Scott Brown, pending the result of his appeal on Thursday, but as far as Gordon is concerned their personnel issues should be no problem.

"We’ll deal with the situation [whether Dembele or Brown are available] and try to win it, whoever plays and whatever the formation is," said Gordon. "We can change it up when we need to and we’ll prepare for this one as thoroughly as we do for every other match. Rangers got their draw at Celtic Park and fully deserved it. But we want to keep winning, no matter who we’re up against. We want to keep going and finish the season with as many victories as possible."

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Compared to the uncertain group who went down against these same opponents at this venue 12 months previously, Celtic's belief in their system and their own abilities is obvious. “We’re confident in our own ability; it doesn’t matter who we’re playing against," he added. "Everyone was excellent at Hampden. This was another big game where we’ve turned up and handled the pressure and the occasion and played as we normally do.

“We’re a passing team and we set up to keep the ball and create opportunities by moving the ball about," the goalkeeper said. "For the most part, we managed to do that. We wanted to control the game, which is what we do in most games. We know that if we keep the ball then there aren’t going to be many opportunities for the opposition. On Sunday we did that very well. Our centre-halves were really dominant and we were in total control for large parts of the game.

“We had lots of clean sheets earlier in the season but we’ve been experimenting a bit with different players and positions at the back over the last few weeks. But, although I had a few decent saves towards the end when they had to try and chase the game, it was good to get back to looking solid again.

“We have another really hard game coming up this weekend, when we’ll need to go to Ibrox and put in another performance like that. They created a few chances in the later stages at Hampden so we know they’re capable. But the league table would suggest that Aberdeen are the toughest team we could face in the final. They always give us a hard game although we’ve managed to beat them on a few occasions this season. That is another difficult task if we’re going to get that trophy.”