Victory away at Motherwell today helped ease the pressure on Celtic after a difficult run of things of late. 

The trip to Fir Park proved the perfect tonic to a midweek defeat at home to Sparta Prague as Moi Elyounoussi's hat-trick helped the champions to a routine 4-1 victory. 

While Neil Lennon was obviously encouraged as his side look to make a real run at Rangers atop the Scottish Premiership, he did however, share some insight into how he sees the Europa League campaign going. 

With quotes sourced by the Scottish Sun, Lennon appeared to concede that qualifying from their group is unlikely. 

"I still think we can make in-roads in Europe'' he said

''Maybe not qualify but certainly put in performances that they are capable of, which we didn't do on Thursday.''

The fact he has such a realistic view should, in theory, mean the Bhoys will go all out in domestic competition.

Celtic players

Clearly, the manager is going to demand high performance in any game but Celtic are already five points off AC Milan in Group H and are still to travel to the Italian giants, as well as welcome table-toppers Lille. 

Even if they aren't able to progress, better performances against that level of opposition would surely be welcome and help build momentum for other competitions. 

With that in mind, focus should turn to wrestling the league lead away from their bitter rivals in order to secure a historic 10th league title in a row.