If there is such a thing as a football neutral in Scotland, then the Championship race got that little bit more intriguing the night Aberdeen beat Celtic up at Pittodrie.

Derek McInnes’ side followed that result up with a weekend win over St Johnstone that enabled them to draw level with Celtic at the top of the table, albeit that the Parkhead side still have a game in hand, but Hoops midfielder Nir Bitton has admitted that he would far rather romp to the title than find himself in a fight for the accolade of champions.

Two seasons ago Celtic won the league by a whopping 29 points, and depending on your point of view it is a margin that underlines either how badly the Parkhead side have regressed or how much Aberdeen have improved.

For Bitton, though, he would take the easy canter to the Championship every season and happily forgo any level of intrigue in the title race.

“I would rather win the league by 45 points,” said the midfielder. “This is football. We need to respect our opponents. People outside of the pitch think that Celtic will win the league easily and we just walk on the pitch and everything will be fine but it is not like that.

“Teams come to play against Celtic and they try to close the game and make it difficult for us. We aren’t playing the best football right now but we just want to win our next games. But I wouldn’t mind winning the league again by 29 points.”

Celtic’s issue is that their vast resources compared to the rest of the league and the fact there is no challenge from Rangers has created a perception that it should all come easily for them.

Whether that is a fair assessment or not is an argument for another day but certainly there is an expectation that Celtic ought to be streaking this league comfortably.

Asked whether or not the Parkhead side would be satisfied with piping Aberdeen to the title on the last day of the season by a solitary point, Bitton tentatively offered the view that Celtic’s main ambition is simply to win the title and thereby collect the chance to head into the elite stages of the UEFA Champions League groups next season.

“It is a good question,” said Bittton. “To win the Championship it doesn’t matter if you win it by 15 points or 1 point but to be honest we don’t think about it right now. We just want to do as much as we can to win the next games and have a good run. Hopefully Aberdeen will drop points and we will open the gap again.

“We have a new team this year, but that is not an excuse. Aberdeen have been together for maybe three or four seasons now and this is something that affects you. We don’t look at Aberdeen, we just look at ourselves and we do what we can to win games and have a good run. There are three months left and hopefully Aberdeen will lose points.

“Hopefully we will win the Championship and the most important thing for me is to play in the Champions League next year.”

Qualifying for the group stages of Europe’s elite competition is the holy grail for the club although it remains to be seen if it is Ronny Deila who is still in charge when those critical summer qualifiers come around.

The Norwegian has been under considerable pressure since Celtic failed to make it into that environment his summer and then woefully underperformed in the second tier Europa League.

Domestic performances have also been unconvincing at times which has led to continued speculation about how tenable Deila’s position is at the club.

Bitton, though, offered a defence of his manager.

“As a player you can feel it on the pitch, you can feel that a lot of players have progressed under the gaffer – me, Leigh, Kieran Tierney,” he said. “ Sometimes this kind of thing is more important than winning this kind of game or another game. But we don’t look at Nir Bitton or Leigh Griffiths, we look at Celtic as a team. We need to be as strong as we can to win games and make a good run.”

And Bitton is determined to put recent results right when Celtic take on Ross County today.

“There are a lot of guys here who have a lot of experience of playing for Celtic like Scott Brown and Charlie Mulgrew or Kris Commons who have done a lot of things in their career,” he said. “ They know a lot about Celtic and they try to talk with us all the time. I am here for three years so I know a little bit about what Celtic is about and the most important thing is for us to bounce back and win games and win the Championship.

“I think if we play the game as we want and we are ready then we are favourites in every game. But sometimes there are injuries and things that affect you during the game like red-cards or injuries. Nothing comes easy and we need to do as much as we can do to win games and prepare ourselves to fight. Nothing comes easy to us.”