THIS is a time of year when many people are, by shedding a few pounds or abstaining from alcohol, striving for self-improvement, but Christopher Jullien has no intention of enrolling in anger management classes any time soon.

The Celtic centre half was as affable, obliging and engaging as he chatted to the media after training at Lennoxtown earlier this week as he is imposing, intense and intimidating on it.

Inside, though, he was still furious.

The 2-1 defeat which the treble treble winners slumped at the hands of Rangers at Parkhead in the final game before the winter shutdown last month and the hysterical reaction it provoked have rankled the 6ft 5in defender as well as his team mates.

He fully intends, however, to hold onto the feeling and use it to drive him on to further successes, like a ninth consecutive Scottish title and progress in the Europa League, in the second half of the season rather than seek therapy.

“I look in my team mates’ eyes and see that we are angry,” he said. “We are hungry and we want to show that it was just a bad step. If we trust in ourselves it’s going to be good.

“Sometimes you will have some bad days and the important thing is just to get back up. I repeat often that every time we have a bad day, we just get up and show our strength in our heads, mentally and physically too. I’m sure everything is going to be fine.

“Seriously, all my team-mates have shown that we have that mentality to always think about the next game. If you take a wrong step you can use it as a good thing, an opportunity to learn and then show better form for it.”

Asked if the defeat in the derby match had created any self-doubt in his mind about Celtic being able to retain the Premiership come May, Jullien said: “Personally, no. And looking around the locker-room I see the same. After the game we had time to clear our heads, do our own stuff, but when we looked into each other’s eyes we knew it was just a bad step.

“We know the strength that we have had since the start of the season. We are still top of the league, we had a great campaign in the Europa League and that is going to go on and we won the cup too. That’s not nothing, you know. We did some good things and we are going to keep the faith in ourselves. We are going to keep working hard and it’s going to be good.”

The painful reverse to Rangers means their city rivals, who have a game in hand against St Johnstone at home, are now just two points behind Celtic in the Ladbrokes Premiership table. Many in Scottish football have predicted the defending champions’ reign is poised to come to an end in the wake of a poor display and costly result.

Jullien, who quickly embraced the demands on him after completing his £7 million move from Toulouse in his homeland in June, feels the response to the result has been excessive.

Refreshed after the winter training camp in Dubai last week and looking forward to returning to league action against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Wednesday evening, is still upbeat about their prospects.

“It was a game, we lost it and we have had the chance to clear our heads, think about things other than football and then come back and work hard to give everything on the field,” he said.

“This (the fallout) is what happens when you are champions. When you want to win everything, you want to crush everything and compete it’s how it is. It shows that Celtic is a really big club. The expectation is really high and we understand that. Our job now is to bounce back. It was a mistake, but we need to go again and find that same momentum that we had for a long time.”

Celtic went on a 13 game winning run domestically after losing 2-0 to Livingston in the league at the Tony Macaroni Arena back in October and Jullien is determined for them to respond to their latest defeat in a similar manner.

Playing a competitive fixture on astroturf is relatively unusual experience for the 27-year-old, but he is adamant that, even though Celtic lost to Livingston on the same kind of surface, it will not present a problem.

“It happened to me once in the second division in France,” he said. “And we remember the game against Livingston too. It’s just how it is. Sometimes the artificial pitch can make the ball run slow, sometimes fast. It depends if it has rained.

“The team knows that it’s like that at Kilmarnock. Personally, I need to adapt to it and do my job. Livingston played a good game for sure and we didn’t. It was not easy at the time. It was just not a good day for us.

“I can say today that the bad step at Livingston helped us for the next game and the one after that. After the game we had some good results. We had the Europa League win against Lazio and probably that defeat made us become stronger. I’m not going to refuse a defeat – it’s always something you can learn from.

“I know it’s going to be the same answer because I see everything that we are putting on the field in training. We are going to work hard and just be ready for this game.”