It was the shortest day of the year but it must have felt like the longest 90 minutes of the season so far for Ange Postecoglou's men.

Celtic re-established their nine-point lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership with a  battling 2-1 win over Livingston thanks to an own goal by Ayo Obilaye and a close-range finish from Kyogo Furuhashi. Nicky Devlin managed to reduce the arrears right before half-time as the hosts put their supporters through the emotional wringer.

Fortress Paradise remains intact, though, as the Hoops made it 24 domestic league wins out of 27 with three draws since Postecoglou took over at the managerial helm. For the statisticians out there it was the 201st and 202nd goals of Postecoglou's reign with 79 of them coming at Parkhead for the concession of only 12.

Israeli winger Liel Abada was the star turn in this one while Kyogo also notched his 12th goal of the season as the champions eventually tamed the Lions. Once again VAR made a reappearance and reared its ugly head... what is it with Celtic and VAR decisions going against them?

Yet for 45 minutes, to all intents and purposes, it looked like it was going to be a case of vintage Celtic as they entertained and played with a zip and a zest. It really was a case of attack versus defence as crosses fizzed across the six-yard box and chances went begging.

Postecoglou got the win that he wanted. However, he did not get the performance he craved. That much was clear post-match.

"I guess the victory was obviously good, another win, but the performance not so good," he said. "We started the game well but I just thought we lacked a little bit of a cutting edge in the front third to take advantage of our dominance.

"But having said that, at 2-0 the game should have been over. The most disappointing thing is that we allowed a really soft goal. We've been pretty good this year and last year at not conceding soft goals and that was a really soft one."

Before the match, Postecoglou had hinted that there may be some more in the way of transfer activity coming into the club. The Celtic supporters desperately seem to want another striker brought in.

On the basis of this evidence against Livingston is not hard to see why. It was the same in the Champions League group stage matches where Celtic had their moments across all six matches against Real Madrid, RB Leipzig and Shakhtar Donetsk.

In Europe, they failed to convert the high-quality chances they created; Postecoglou is well aware of that fact.

Domestically, the goalscoring stats do make for good reading overall. Celtic have scored 53 goals in the Premiership and they have a superb goal difference of plus-39, some 17 ahead of their closest challengers Rangers.

Celtic Way:

However, in their two games since the restart after the break for the World Cup, periods of total dominance in both matches against Aberdeen and Livingston have yielded just three goals for the Hoops, one of which was the own goal on Wednesday night. Remember: Celtic had 33 shots at goal against the Reds at Pittodrie at the weekend.

A concern? Not yet but it will cause consternation soon enough among the faithful if said dominance in matches is not translated into more goals and it costs them points. The European affliction in terms of the number of chances finished to the number of chances created simply cannot be allowed to permeate the domestic form.

Even Postecoglou bemoaned the lack of a cutting edge in front of the goal against Livi, saying: "I think that was our own doing because we just didn't have enough numbers in the box. We know we're getting into those areas, we know the way the balls coming and you have got to work hard to get in there and people just weren't working hard enough to get into those areas.

"There were some really good opportunities that we missed to score goals so that's something we need to keep working on and emphasising with the guys but, like I said, at 2-0 at half-time the game should have been over and we should have been able to control it better in the second half."

READ MORE: Detailed Celtic player ratings as Liel Abada steals show

People just weren't working hard enough to get into those areas... Did Postecoglou mean the players in general, or the forwards specifically? Can we expect a third striker to now join the Celtic first-team fold in the January transfer window?

On that note, he said: "I've said all along that we are constantly working, we're not into January yet and I'm really pleased with the two lads [Yuki Kobayashi and Alistair Johnston] that we've brought in so far. It's fair to say that we're working on a couple of others."

On the plus side, Abada seems to have run into a bit of form again just when his manager needs him to most - and match-winner Kyogo earned some praise from his boss too.

"I just think Kyogo's just got to keep doing what he's doing," he said. "He's scored tonight and he got into a couple of good areas again where he could have scored a couple more so he's just got to keep getting to those positions. But we can't rely on just one player to score a goal, we need more bodies in there and we didn't have enough tonight."

Celtic are grinding it out at the minute; the hallmark of champions. It may well have been the shortest day and Postecoglou's men may well have put their fans through the longest night of the season so far yet, when all is said and done, there is still real daylight between Celtic and the rest of the Scottish Premiership chasing pack.