A footballer praising his own manager is not exactly a story which is ever going to leap off a page.

For any player to come out and publicly criticise the man who decides whether he's in the team or not does not, sadly for this business, happen too often. Even when the gaffer is less popular than deep heat in a jock strap, every squad member will 99 times out of 100 toe the party line.

However, as the years go by you get to tell when such platitudes are hollow, although every now and then a player helps out, such as Leigh Griffiths last season when after a defeat at Aberdeen said; “I’ll continue to support the manager until told otherwise.”

Even the hard of thinking worked out that was hardly a ringing endorsement of Ronny Deila.

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There are many things which have to come together for a football team to be successful. By far the most important is the standing of the man in charge. If the manager is an ill-fit then you have no chance. Jock Stein said this, as did Sir Alex Ferguson, ergo it’s true.

Brendan Rodgers commands the utmost respect from his Celtic players. They know who the boss is and that he is the most important person at the club. What Brendan says goes and if you don’t like that then there are plenty other teams out there.

Winning helps, of course, but the vibe coming out of Celtic is one of overwhelming positivity. To the mind of this observer, you have to go back to the Martin O’Neill days – over a decade ago now – to recall a time when a Celtic manager commanded such power.

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Rodgers is popular, feared, liked and respected by the players and it doesn’t hurt that his backroom staff, led by impressive assistant Chris Davies, have a philosophy which has been completely and utterly bought into by every single player at the club.

“It’s down to the mind-set the manager has instilled in us," explained Callum McGregor when asked about the night and day changes which have come about from the moment Rodgers walked through the door.

“Every day in training he tells us to be relentless. It’s a word he uses all the time when speaking to us. Since day one, everybody has felt part of things and everyone has been first class in terms of how we have worked.

“We have all come together and focused on what we want to do. Even if you haven’t played for a few weeks, there isn’t a feeling that you are left out. You know the manager will always give you a chance to go back in and play your share of games.

“It leads to everyone feeling part of things and fighting to get big results in big games. But we are always pushing to achieve more.

“Personally, I’m really enjoying it under the new manager. I’ve played a few different positions and it’s just great to be a part of this squad.”

One of the differences is that this Celtic team don’t have to be at their best to win matches and the worry for the rest is that with Europe no longer a consideration – the trip to Manchester next week brings an end of the Champions League – even with a packed domestic programme this group are able to focus on the league and then Scottish Cup when it comes around.

This treble which has been spoken about for the past few years is a more realistic aim than ever, and the players are desperate to turn their toil into trophies.

“We won the league last season but there were a few disappointments in big games, especially the Scottish Cup semi-final,” said McGregor. “That has probably spurred us on to do better this season.

“We don’t want to be there again in those big moments. We want to be at Hampden, standing with medals around our necks, lifting the cup in front of the fans.

“Success drives you on to win even more trophies and that’s certainly how we feel right now. We want to keep going. The fans want trophies too and that’s what we want too.

“The manager always drums in to us that we need to follow up one big result with another one. It’s great to have the Betfred Cup but we won’t just settle for that.

“As the manager says, we can’t just be happy with that win. We need to push on again now. I genuinely think this can be the start of something special at the club - but we also need to be grounded. We need to remember what got us here. If we keep working hard then, with a bit of luck, we can go and be successful this year.”

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Nir Bitton was happy to admit that a clean sweep had been spoken about even before a ball was kicked.

“Hopefully this is just the first for us this season because we want to for the treble,” he said. “We do believe we can do that. Before we started this season, one of the main goals for us was to go for the treble.

We have now won the League Cup, we are eight points clear in the league with two games in hand. We don’t need to look to far forward and think about being unbeaten all season. We need to make sure we concentrate 100 per cent for every match and do our job.”

Right now, it's difficult to see where a bump in the road is coming from.