THERE is surely no one in Scottish football who knows the truth behind the maxim of one day being a peacock and the next, a feather duster, more than Scott Brown. Over the past few years, he has flitted between both in the eyes of supporters and pundits alike, and has even done so in the past week.

At 35, there are those who believe his best days are behind him, and who held up his performances at the start of the season as evidence of his decline. There are others though who back the Celtic captain to the hilt, and will hold up his barnstorming showings against Hibernian and Sarajevo as evidence that he is still very much at the peak of his powers.

Perhaps the most educated - if admittedly biased - opinion comes from the man who is closer to him than most both on and off the park, and according to Callum McGregor, Brown is still utterly indispensable to Celtic for both his footballing ability and his leadership skills.

“He’s immense,” McGregor said. “He’s absolutely immense.

“To play in there beside him as well…he’s 35 but he’s probably the fittest in the team.

“He drives everybody on. He’s absolutely excellent. His influence for us never ever wavers.

“Sometimes, as he’s getting older, people just see one missed tackle maybe or maybe one change of pace that’s not right in the game, and because of his age they try to throw that at him.

“Playing in there beside him, I can tell you that he hasn’t lost a yard. He’s always the fittest guy on the pitch, he’s the fittest in training and he drives the standards.

“I think he’s been excellent, but certainly in the last couple of games he’s really shown his mettle again and shown why he’s such a top player.

“He’s been absolutely first class.”

In fact, McGregor believes that if it weren’t for the influence of Brown, he wouldn’t have become either the player or the person that he is today.

“We’re obviously very close, we’ve been here for a lot of years together to get that bond,” he said.

“Playing with him in the middle of the pitch, we’re always looking at each other to balance off. If he doesn’t get one, then I’ll get it, and if I miss one then he’ll get it.

“You do develop that bond, and we seem to have a good understanding in the game, which is excellent.

“He’s just been a leader from day one, and he’s driving that through the whole squad.

“If you don’t watch that and learn from it then you’re missing a trick in my book.

“Everything he does, I watch it and try to learn from it. He’s been an incredible influence on me.”

Another man who has come in for some stick so far this campaign is Odsonne Edouard, with the striker suffering from fatigue and accusations that his mind was elsewhere.

McGregor admits that the rest of the Celtic players have felt compelled to get around the striker and make sure he is ok, a gesture he repaid with the crucial winning goal against Sarajevo on Thursday night to take his team into the group stages of the Europa League.

“We always know that if he gets a half chance then you are always going to back him to score,” McGregor said.

“He maybe took a little bit of stick last week, but it’s our job to get around him and keep him happy and keep him confident.

“You saw just how important he is to us again on Thursday night. He gets the goal that takes us to the group stages, so again he is showing just how vital he is to the squad.

“He’s actually been good and in good spirits. I don’t think he takes too much notice of what goes on around about him. He’s just a good guy and he’s always very happy.

“Our job as teammates and as players is to keep everyone happy, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

“We’re trying to keep everyone positive and that brings the best out in players to go and give their best on the pitch, which ultimately helps each other.

“We’re a group of guys that are very tight and we’re always getting round each other to make sure we’re all good, happy, and that we keep performing.

“It’s just a case of doing that with Odsonne as well. We get around him and then he delivers for the boys like he did on Thursday night.

“We’ve got a good squad that way.”

That squad has been tested to the hilt over the last few weeks, with the trip to St Johnstone tomorrow lunchtime representing Celtic’s seventh fixture in a short spell that has included trips to Latvia and the midweek jaunt to Bosnia.

If they win at McDiarmid Park, they will have achieved the clean sweep they set out to and maintain the pressure on Rangers at the top of the table going into the international fixtures next week.

“We look at these periods between the international breaks and break them into sixes or sevens,” he said.

“Our aim was to try to win all seven in this run, so we’ve got one more to go and we need to try to do that on Sunday.

“It’s always difficult when you travel back from European games and you have to be on the money come a lunchtime kick-off, but that’s what we need to do.

“We need to recover well, and we need to be ready to go on Sunday.”