As Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers noted at the weekend, 2024 has been a year to remember for his club. But reflecting on a job well done over the last 12 months doesn’t seem to be diminishing the hunger within his squad to top their achievements in 2025.

That will be a hard ask, mind, with Celtic suffering just two defeats in the entire calendar year just past, but defender Alistair Johnston wants to send out a signal that there is still more to come when he and his teammates travel across Glasgow to Ibrox on Thursday.

As first footers go, Celtic are likely the last team that Rangers want to welcome right now, and piling on the agony to Philippe Clement's outfit - reeling as they are from disappointing performances and results over the festive period - is the first order of business for the champions when the new year gets underway, with Johnston hoping a win can set the tone for another year of Celtic domestic dominance, and progress in Europe.

“That would be the perfect start to 2025,” Johnston said.

“We are just taking it game by game and this is the next one – and everyone is excited for it.

“The game the other day was the perfect set up for it, with a little bit of rotation, everyone feeling fresh and contributing, and everyone playing at a high level.

“When you look at the schedule, with no January break this year, it’s pretty mental, but there’s an understanding in the squad that the manager will need everyone.

“So far, we’ve seen guys step in and step up to the plate, and that is going to bode well for us going through this month and for the rest of the season.

“[The St Johnstone game] was a performance that was worthy of summarising the whole year for us.

“The gaffer had touched on it in his pre-match meeting. He’s looked at some of the stats and it’s been a pretty historic year, even by Celtic’s standards.

“To think we picked up the three domestic trophies in the calendar year, and the points and everything, it’s going to be a pretty special year when we look back on it.

“It was important to end it on a high note and I think that performance summarised what we’re all about over the year.”

Johnston does acknowledge though that the standard Celtic have set for themselves this year will be hard to surpass.

“Yeah, probably,” he said.

“But that is what this club is all about. It’s about setting new benchmarks and surpassing them.

“We are still alive in this new Champions League format, and that is something that gives us a lot of excitement going into the first month of 2025.

“Hopefully we can kick on in the last couple of group stage matches. Again, everything is to play for domestically, with the league and Scottish Cup, which is something we are obviously striving for.”

With much talk across the city at Rangers about the lack of a winning mentality throughout the Ibrox squad at the moment, there are no such worries at Celtic, where any rotation has largely been seamless.

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Johnston believes the key to their success has not only been their greater strength in depth in terms of ability, but also the fact that every single member of Rodgers’ squad understands that a relentless pursuit of trophies is the bare minimum that is expected of them. And that they wouldn’t be a Celtic player for long if they didn’t possess such a mentality.

“It really comes down to the DNA of this football club,” he said.

“It’s always about the next one. You don’t really rest on your laurels or the trophies you have won, otherwise you wouldn’t be here – you wouldn’t be a good fit.

“There’s constantly been new blood added and that extra drive from the young players coming in. The ones who do stick around and have been here a long time, they live and breathe lifting trophies.

“It takes a big player to carry that weight, and I feel our leadership has that. You look at guys like Cal (McGregor) and James (Forrest), to play at that level for so long and to still have that drive to want to keep doing it again and again.

“It’s hard for the guys who walk in the door not to feel the same way. When you have that personality and DNA running through the club and the leaders, it sets us up for that hunger and desire to constantly be there.

“It’s like, ‘I want to be the one who has lifted X amount of trophies’. You saw it was James there, becoming tied as the most decorated player.

“That is unbelievable – this is Celtic Football Club we are talking about. One of the most storied clubs in the world.

“And one of the current players has tied that record and hopefully we can break it for him.”

A win for Celtic at Ibrox would surely break any remaining Rangers spirit when it comes to their hopes of somehow clawing back their rivals at the top of the table, but Johnston is adamant that the 14-point cushion is the last thing on the minds of the Celtic players ahead of the game.

(Image: Andrew Milligan - PA)

“For us, winning every match is always the priority,” he said.

“Again, it’s still just about to be January and it’s still too early to be looking at a league table in my opinion.

“No matter what the point gap is, as long as we focus on ourselves, we feel really comfortable we can take care of business.

“It’s a good sign we have built up a lead. But we had a similar situation last year and struggled a little bit through this winter period. All of a sudden, leads can evaporate quickly.

“But our leadership doesn't let us stray from what it is to be a Celtic player and what that means.

“When you focus on doing the little things right every day and focus on competing for spots in training, it bodes really well, and you don’t get caught up in things.

“It’s another chance to go there and hopefully get a result against our biggest rivals and we’ll see where it goes.

“It should be a cracker of a match.”