CELTIC will play Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden on Saturday.
But Alistair Johnston insists the champions will treat EVERY game like a Cup Final between now and the end of the season.
The Hoops have five league encounters to negotiate until the Premiership crescendo on May 18 and the holders will be aiming for a place in the showpiece showdown at the national stadium the following week.
Canadian World Cup right-back Johnston is adamant every match is there to be won and stressed: “It’s exactly that, that’s the mind-set we have. 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.
“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.
“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.”
Johnston played a massive role in Brendan Rodgers’ side’s 3-0 win over St Mirren at Parkhead yesterday as he set up the first two goals for Reo Hatate and Kyogo Furuhashi after a frustrating opening period where the blustery conditions made composed football an impossibility.
The right-back, who later presented Hatate with the Man of the Match award, told Celtic TV: “It was really windy in the first-half and I think it made us a bit predictable, just in terms of it was difficult to play a ball behind, so they could get really tight to us.
“With the wind in the second-half, you could see they probably didn’t get as close to as much pressure on the ball.
“Our play style wears teams down. We really showed our quality and I thought the subs who came on did a great job.
“And it’s great that we have guys such as Reo who can have moments of quality like that, it was a lovely goal.”
Adam Idah also got in on the goalscoring act late on after coming on as a substitute for Kyogo.
It was the Republic of Ireland international’s seventh strike for the club after arriving on a short-term loan deal from Norwich City in January.
AS EASY AS ONE, TWO, THREE AS CHAMPS MOVE FOUR AHEAD
