THE Willie Maley song is belted out over the tannoy before every home match at Parkhead and within the lyrics there is mention of something called "the Celtic way ".

This is not a reference to the relatively new entrance to the stadium, as snazzy as it is, but rather the manner in which the club has always looked to play its football.

Celtic fans like to see attacking flair. To be fair, who does not? However, the greatest victory came about playing "pure, beautiful, inventive football," as a certain former manager once said and everyone since has tried to picked up that hefty baton.

Martin O'Neill was occasionally accused of being overly cautious, which he perhaps was at times.

But with Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton and John Hartson in the side, his teams could hardly be described as defensive.

All three would line up in the same XI at times, three natural centre-forwards, and a fair few Celtic supporters would like to see a return to those days.

Against Raith Rovers last midweek, Ronny Deila stuck with his 4-2-3-1 and will do so again this afternoon for the visit of Hearts.

He will argue that this is an attacking set-up. Many more will simply point to Leigh Griffiths on his own up front and ask when did any Celtic team go with one forward at home.

But Deila has a ready-made answer to the question would he ever tinker with his system and maybe, start with Griffiths and Nadir Ciftci.

A defiant Celtic manager said: "I’ve played two strikers already this year. We played for the last 30 minutes against Aberdeen with two strikers.

"When you play Kris Commons and Ciftci, you can’t come much closer to playing a 4-4-2. Kris is a goalscorer, more of a striker than a midfielder.

“So it is about balance. I want angles in my play. If you have a 4-4-2 with a striker dropping off, rather than having a midfielder in that position, then you have big angles.

“I want shorter angles in the pitch and the number 10 is very important to get the angles round the sides.

“So it is small differences. But it is important you have goalscorers on the pitch. I think we have scored 23 goals in eight league matches - an average of more than three a game. It’s not easy to score much more than that.

“It is more than we did last year in the same period. So there are some positive things there.”

Goals win games - what a pearl of wisdom that was - and to be fair Celtic are scoring them. Indeed, Griffiths is a walking one-man goal of a start in every game.

However, Celtic are playing catch-up - at least for the moment - to an Aberdeen side who in the league have not dropped a point.

Perhaps this resurgence in the north east is the reason why Deila has began to if not talk down his team's chance of a treble, rather talk up the challenge which faces his team from achieving a clean sweep.

Deila said: "You just need to look at history to see how hard it is. It is very, very hard. We just have to be focused and determined in every game.

“If you give just 10 per cent less, you can lose games and lose the treble.

"You can see it in England, Spain or Scotland - wherever you go. Football is about small margins. Everything can happen if you are not switched on.

“There was a lot of talk about the treble last year and I’ve said the whole time that we want to win everything. That’s our goal but we know it is so hard.

“For us now, it is important to focus on the next game. There are so many games left, it is too early to talk about the treble. It’s the same with talking about who is going to win the league - there are still 30 matches left.

“We have to keep our focus on the next match and see where it takes us. We can win every game we go into and that’s a good feeling.

“I haven’t changed. I will always say that’s our goal at a club like this. I’ll always say we are going to win the league because if you say you are going to be number two, you will be number two.

“I always set high goals and there is no changing that. But you saw last year how close we were to the treble and it was small details that can ruin it.

“Last year, it was a decision in the Scottish Cup semi-final which was very important. But maybe we also had some luck with us in other games, like against Dundee United earlier. So it can happen both ways.

“It is so hard to win the treble but it is possible to do it because it has been done before.

"But for me just now, we are just happy to improve as a team all the time and see where that leads us.

"We can win every game we are going into, that’s a good feeling. That’s in Europe as well.”