Alistair Johnston managed to grab himself two assists at the weekend and has really looked like his former self the past few weeks of this crazy season…

The Canadian, like many of his teammates, endured a dip in performance levels for a spell during this campaign but has started to find that old form from last year that made us forget all about Josip Juranovic’s departure.

At times, both individually and collectively this year, we haven’t been at our best – far from it. Managing to make things more difficult for ourselves than it should have been in the process has been a tough pill to swallow for sure. But with the team hitting form just at the right time of the season and our rivals enduring a dip, it’s shaping up to what could be another fruitful return for the Hoops once again.

Speaking on the match to Celtic TV after the game with his comrade Reo Hatate, Alistair pointed to the challenging conditions that he and his side faced, saying: “It was really windy in that first half, it was really difficult and I think it made us a bit predictable in the first half, just in terms of it was difficult to play a ball behind, so they could get really tight to us. The second half, with the wind, and again our play style wears teams down.”

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The former Montreal FC right-back insisted that the Bhoys showed their class in the second period, with praise going to those who impacted the game from the substitutes bench. He added: “You could see in the second half, they probably didn’t get as close to as much pressure on the ball. We really showed our quality and I thought the subs that came on did a great job. And it’s great that we have guys like this (Hatate) that can have moments of quality like that, it was a lovely goal.”

With a Semi-final now awaiting at Hampden Park with Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup next on the agenda for Johnston and his cohorts, each passing week carries more and more significance as we reach the “business end of the season”. These games will now be viewed and played as cup finals and both the defender and his team are anticipating that’s precisely how they’ll feel until the climax. “It’s exactly that, that’s the mind-set we have,” he continued. “Now we can really kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel

“We’re almost there, the finish line is close and we know that very single point matters. So we are excited by that, excited by that challenge, I think our crowd is as well. So it’s going to be a big six weeks or so here, but again, we really look at this as an amazing opportunity for us. To come out here, and if we play our football in every match, doing what we need to do, we can come out and make this a special season. That’s the aim.”