CELTIC will almost certainly be crowned champions at some point this weekend and deservedly so. They have been the best team in the country by a mile and have already managed so much.

But a lot of what they have achieved was probably expected at the start of the season. They have the biggest budget, have the best players and are the biggest club in the land.

So if they wish to take that next step from being considered a good side to one of the all-time greats then they need to go on and complete the job. That means winning the treble and ideally doing so without losing a match.

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If they can do both of those things then they will deserve to be considered one of the finest sides in the club’s history. Ronny Deila won a double in his first season as Celtic manager and I’m sure Brendan Rodgers will be determined to go on to surpass that achievement. We all know the current side is better than the Celtic team of the last few years but they need to go on and make it official in the record books.

The hardest part might be maintaining their standards once the championship has been officially confirmed either this evening at Dens Park or at Tynecastle on Sunday.

When I won my two league titles with Rangers both were achieved on the final game of the campaign so I’ve no personal experience of knowing what it’s like to keep going when the job is already done. You’d imagine there would be a natural drop-off in intensity. But with their unbeaten record on the line and the Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers only three weeks away motivation shouldn’t be a problem for Celtic.

Rodgers may be tempted to give a rest to one or two of his older players like Scott Brown or Mikael Lustig but at lot of his side is young enough to not need a break.

They will probably all want to play on anyway. When you’re part of a winning team and things are going well then all the aches and pains seem to disappear. The manager may drop the level of intensity in training to make things a bit easier and in that situation there is no reason why the crux of this Celtic team can’t keep going until the summer.

Should they go on to complete the domestic clean sweep then people will naturally start to compare them with the last Celtic team to do that back in 2001.

I played against that side when I was with Dundee United and they were a formidable force. They had quality players, of course, but a lot of their success was down to power. They were so quick and so strong all across the pitch. We played them four times that season and lost every one. They were relentless.

You look at the two Celtic line-ups side by side and it is hard to say which of the current team would make it into the 2001 side. Moussa Dembele has had a terrific season but Martin O’Neill had Henrik Larsson who scored 53 goals that year.

In the middle of the park there was Neil Lennon and Paul Lambert so Scott Brown would have to be at his very best to depose either of those. Would you have Jozo Simunovic over Johan Mjallby? Lubo Moravcik or Scott Sinclair? Didier Agathe or James Forrest? It’s all hypothetical but it would be brilliant to find a way to compare the two sides somehow.

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You have to also acknowledge that the 2001 Celtic side faced greater domestic competition. Rangers had won the double in 2000 and were expected to push again for the title the next season but O’Neill’s men simply blew them away. Without taking anything away from what Rodgers has achieved, there hasn’t been that same threat to their domestic supremacy this year.

Rodgers, though, isn’t finishing shaping and improving this team. Already he will be looking ahead to next campaign and the business he might want to do in the close season. In truth, you have to say that it’s a squad that doesn’t need major surgery.

There will be one or two positions that the manager may wish to strengthen to make their passage through to the group stage of the Champions League that little bit easier. But I think he will be looking at first-team players only.

Celtic have a big enough squad as it is so I can’t see Rodgers looking to bring in people just to bolster his numbers. He’ll want players who can make a difference.

Reaching the Champions League will be the first goal but then Rodgers will want to see if he can make them competitive enough in the group to try to and keep them in Europe after Christmas. Those are future targets. But first he must look to complete the job this season and make this Celtic team legends.