A week earlier a group of Celtic stars hooped up their League Cup glory at the Ally Pally darts.

But seven days on things weren’t quite so oche as they assembled at their Lennoxtown HQ on Monday morning. From their World Darts Championships high, suddenly it felt more like the end of the world, according to Callum McGregor. A goalless draw at Dundee United 24 hours earlier might only have been the second time Celtic have dropped points this season. A campaign that has seen them yet to lose domestically at that.

But according to the skipper standards are so high that the Tannadice stalemate felt every bit as painful as a defeat. Even with a nine point cushion at the top of the table for Christmas, McGregor admits there was little festive cheer. But the captain is fine with that. He knows it will have focused the minds for a crucial run of three games in the next week and a half which starts with Motherwell on Boxing Day and rounds off with a massive clash against Rangers at Ibrox.

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He said: “Sunday was frustrating. There was a lot of dominance on the ball and a lot of territory in the game. In that first bit of how we want the game, it looked pretty good. But we lacked that bit of quality in the final third to open the game up for us. The success that we've had over a long period of time now means every dropped point feels like a defeat.

“It feels like the end of the world. When you win something it feels like it's business as usual, you come back in and then you've just got to go again. It's good for the players to see that response and understand how it feels, because we're a team that's used to winning all the time.

“Sometimes you learn a wee bit more when you drop points or you lose. Sometimes it's okay to be disappointed and feel hurt. You try to use that momentum in the coming games. The boys speak about it all the time. As soon as you drop points it feels like you've lost.

“It's a weird feeling, the place is quiet and it doesn't have its usual feel. You try and limit the amount of times throughout the season that you feel like that. When it does happen then the players feel it amongst themselves and they do everything they can to put it right in the next game. We're quite good in that sense, the players do really feel it.

“They really understand when we don't win a game of football that it hurts you and you want to do everything you can to put it right. The players were in on Monday for a recovery and we always chat amongst ourselves about the game.

“Generally you can just feel the mood. But it's good that the boys take responsibility because then you know that they care and they understand it. That's never really been a problem for us. We'll be ready to go again come Boxing Day.”

Celtic bossed 78 per cent of the ball at Tannadice and had 17 attempts on goal. But only three of those landed on target on an off day for Rodgers’ frontmen. Kyogo Furuhashi was the chief culprit, passing up a gilt edged chance late in the game and also fluffing his lines from a Daizen Maeda cross in the first half.

It’s now just eight goals in 24 appearances and three in his last 14 outings for the normally talismanic striker. But McGregor has no fears over the Japan international’s confidence taking a dent. He said: “Kyogo will be fine. Yeah, okay, he missed the chance on Sunday. But how many goals has he scored for us over the piece?

“He's won us countless games, countless big games and trophies. In the big moment he's been the go-to man for us. Strikers will miss chances, it's no problem.

"He'll be fine and we go again as a team, so we have no problem with that at all. When the chances did fall for us, we were a little bit unlucky. We could have taken one or two and the goalie made a good save too.”

The doom and gloom mongers might want to remember this side are still on course to eclipse the Invincibles of eight years ago. Fourteen wins and two draws from 16 leagues games - and just four goals conceded is remarkable form.

And McGregor said: “It's hard to go through the season and be perfect. You’ll get five or six of those games throughout the season and generally, you’ll find a goal and you’ll find the quality.nIt was just one of those days when we didn’t do that but then, we pick up the point and it keeps us moving in the right direction.

“There are a lot of games coming up and we don’t want one result to snowball into two and three. The lead we have has been a product of how good we've been this season. But we don't want to have too many of these days where you start to chase your tail a little bit. We understand what the problem was and we dust ourselves down and move on from it. We have been here many times before and we know how to handle it.”