“It almost makes it an extended pre-season with the work we’re doing on a daily basis.

“I think that will help us when the games start but our performances right through pre-season were solid and that’s continued through the games.

“The first game against Aberdeen, there was some really good stuff and some things I thought we could have done better.

“There was progression in the second game in the way we controlled it so it’s been a decent start.

"It’s like anything else, it’s beneficial if we use it right. We’ve planned for it for a while and it gives us an opportunity to do some real solid work with the boys physically and around our game model.

“Once the games start we know we won’t have a lot of time to do those things, so now’s a good time to bed that down.

'We have a couple of bounce games organised for the guys who’ve not played, so again we don’t need to throw them in as we know they’re match-ready.'

“You’ve already seen in the early part of the year we’ve had a few injuries and illnesses, so we’ve had to put people in and I want to do that knowing they’re ready.

“All those things factor into it and we are trying to use the time as well as we can.”

Next up is another away tie after the win against Ross County, this time to Kilmarnock, as the newly promoted side welcome the Celts to Rugby Park in the lunchtime kick-off on Sunday.

It’s a ground that has proved to be a testing site in recent years and the manager is fully aware of the threat they will pose.

He added: “Every week’s a different challenge and this will be a different one.

“They got promoted last year and Derek McInnes did a good job to get them up and I’m sure they’ll be looking forward to these fixtures and seeing if they can disrupt and stop us.

“Playing at their venue is another challenge on an artificial surface which affects our game, so all those things are there but whatever challenge there is, the answer lies in our football and as long as we concentrate on playing our brand of football and believing in it we will be fine.”

WATCH THE INTERVIEW ON CELTIC TV

Manager: We're trying to use time between games as efficiently as possible