Nir Bitton found himself reluctantly in the limelight this week after it emerged that he had donated £1000 to help 6-year-old Jasmin Henderson make it to Disneyland in Florida.

The Celtic midfielder was contacted via Facebook by the little girl’s family as they sought a signed shirt of pair of boots in order to raise funds for Jasmin, who is suffering from a brain tumour, to go to Florida.

Bitton donated a signed shirt but also handed over cash to the Make A Wish Foundation – but revealed he had not wanted the story to become public.

“To be honest, it isn’t something I wanted to come out,” said Bitton. “Sometimes it is just good to put a smile on people’s faces. I really didn’t want it to be in the papers or for my name to be mentioned, because it I did it from the bottom of my heart. If I need to do it again, I would do it again.

“The family contacted me on Facebook. They sent me a link to their Facebook page.

“They didn’t ask for money or anything. They just wondered if I could help with a signed shirt or something.

“But I just felt at the moment that if I could put a smile on a kid’s face then it would mean everything to me. Obviously, when you have a kid you feel something. But even before I had a kid I tried to help as much as I could every time people asked of me.

“As I said before, if I needed to do it again, I would do it again. There are plenty of footballers I know who donate a lot of money from their own pocket. But it is not in the media or anything.

“People always talk about the amount of money footballers earn, but I think that if we can help someone then we do it. As I said before, I didn’t want it to be in the papers or anything. If it is not in the papers then none of you would know. But as much as I can I will try and help some people.”

Bitton was less charitable when it came to discussing the contribution made to Scottish football by Joey Barton and Niko Kranjcar.

Celtic’s 27-point lead at the top of the table has invited scorn from some quarters but Bitton has echoed Brendan Rodgers by insisting that the 22 consecutive wins that the Parkhead side have enjoyed in the league this season have not come easy.

“For us it is not as easy as it looks on the table. It's a very competitive league," said the Israeli international.

"I think every game is difficult and the other team are going to defend and try to get something out of the game.

"A lot of people look at the table and think Celtic are far better team [than others] in the Scottish league and they have no competition. It's far from being true.

"I think you can see that players who have played in the Premier League like Joey Barton or Niko Kranjcar that came to Scotland and thought it was going to be easy.

"But no, it's not easy. It's a very competitive league, it's a very difficult league, it's very tough. Some places you go to play like Inverness on Wednesday night, believe me it's not easy."

Celtic are realistically only three games away from a domestic Treble, a feat that the Parkhead side have achieved only three times in their history.

The Parkhead side have not won the Scottish Cup since 2013 and Bitton is wary of deviating from the mantra that Celtic have re-iterated throughout this campaign.

“For us – we don’t think about the treble now. We take it game by game and while we make things look easy, it’s not easy,” he said.

“We need to focus on the cup and Sunday because in one game everything is possible.

“We need to win and get to the semi-final and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully we can do it.”

“When you play for a club like Celtic you want to win everything and all the trophies.

“We have been unlucky in the last few years in the Scottish Cup and we want to go to the end this year. Hopefully we can do it.”

“The Cup is the Cup and everything is possible – we need to be ready for that. We want to make it easier and we want an early goal but if not then we need to keep it going.

“We have to make sure nothing bad happens to us and we can go to the end.

“I don’t know much about St Mirren for now but I’m sure the coaching staff will prepare us the best for the game and we’ll be ready.”