There has been a bit of chat about whether we have a genuine title race on our hands but what you would have to say just now is that it is tighter than it has been previously.

I still think that the Celtic will go on and win the league.

Having got to the top of the table for the first time this season, I just can’t see anyone kicking them off their perch.

Hearts have lost too many influential players. Hibs have slipped away and Aberdeen started too slowly to exert any real pressure.

Rangers will be the team who will look to push Celtic but how much of a challenge is there will be determined by the game at Ibrox at the end of December.

And given the recent form of Celtic, I just think that you would expect them to go and really kick on now.

The feelgood factor seems to be back at the club. There is a cohesion within the team and a unity about them on the pitch.

We have seen long-term contracts handed out to players committing their long-term future to the club and, ironically, the injuries have revealed a stronger squad.

Ryan Christie has really seized his chance these past few weeks and it is all credit to the boy for taking the opportunity when it presented itself.

And I would say this – I don’t think there will be any need to change the midfield from what it has been these past few weeks given how well they have been playing.

Scott Brown and Olivier Ntcham will be available, probably after the international week, but I just don’t think they will walk straight back in. It is what Brendan Rodgers will regard as a happy problem to have.

Given the amount of games that Celtic play, there will always be an element of rotation and they will come back in. I just don’t think it will be as straightforward as them getting back to full fitness and going straight back in purely because of how well others have played in their absence.

There are 11 games now when Celtic return and they can really shape the season. There is the League Cup final, Europa League games and important league games that will be significant in just how the campaign plays out for Celtic. They will have big ambitions about how they want these next few weeks to go and I actually think they look stronger than they did last season.

I suspect that come the January transfer window we will see the addition of at least one striker into the club. In almost every other area of the park you have genuine competition for places and the only real source of concern is what happens at the back.

Celtic cannot compete with the wages that Dedryck Boyata could be offered from south of the border and given the way he has come back to form after his antics this summer, he would be a considerable loss, as would Filip Benkovic if he was to be recalled by Leicester in January.

That will be a school of thought which may determine whether Boyata will be allowed to leave in January or whether the club will look to keep him until the summer, even though that will mean getting nothing at all for him.

But right now that is the only real concern about the team. Celtic look to have firmly come out of the other side from what was a difficult summer but there is a bit of a swagger about them again.

Odsonne Edouard is blossoming into the player that I have always believed he is and I think too that Christie has been exciting these last few weeks too because of the way he has been playing.

The one other player whom I think has looked lively whenever he has been given a chance is Lewis Morgan. He is just a kid and it is a big step to go from St Mirren up to Celtic but to me he looks as though he has got something about him.

He had to go and have an operation on his knee when he had just arrived at the club which would have set him back a bit but I fully suspect that we will see a bit of him as the season goes on.