One of the first people to shake the hand of Celtic defender Mikael Lustig when the curtain came down on his side’s epic tussle with Manchester City was opposing manager Pep Guardiola.

The City boss made a point of congratulating every member of the Celtic side after the final whistle, after they became the first team to deny the English giants victory this season.

Lustig reckons that gesture shows how Celtic earned the respect of the legendary manager for the way they approached the game, even if they denied him a place in the record books in the process.

A win for City on the night would have equalled Tottenham Hotspur’s English record of eleven straight wins at the start of a season, but Lustig says that the Hoops deserved the point that they worked so hard for.

“Pep didn’t say anything to us, but he showed what a good man he is because he obviously wanted to win to take that record, but a draw was a fair result,” Lustig said.

“I think that showed we earned his respect. There are different ways to take a point, but today I think we did it in a positive way.

“We pressed them really well and scored three goals against one of the best teams in the world, so it was very nice.

“They have done really well, 10 wins in 10 games, so it’s nice that Celtic are the team that could stop that.

“I still think it’s harder to play against Barcelona, when we beat them we didn’t have much possession of the ball but we took three points and to be fair, it tastes better when you take three points.

“But the way we played and the way we pressed them today was really good.”

The feel-good factor generated not only by the result on Wednesday night but by the manner of Celtic’s performance has not been lost on Lustig.

He has warned though that just as his side weren’t too disheartened by the heavy defeat to Barcelona, neither should they get too carried away with the point they won against City.

“To be fair, it was really tough the day we lost to Barca and the day after, but football moves on and we showed really good character to bounce back in this group,” he said.

“We proved we belong at this level, but if we lose our next game then maybe people will say that we don’t belong here.

“We just need to improve in every game. Of course, it’s really nice to get a point against a team like City, but we need to learn from this as well.

“There are things that we did well, the pressure we put on them in the first half was really good.

“Of course, again we didn’t want to lose as many goals, but it’s a different way we are playing now. We are working with a new manager for just a couple of months now, so we’re only going to get stronger.”