Celtic midfielder Aaron Mooy didn’t have the best first Premiership start for the Hoops, as he played poorly and was replaced at half-time in Celtic’s 2-0 loss to St Mirren last month.

The 32-year-old hadn’t started a game for the Hoops since then, but he returned to the starting line-up for the Bhoys in the recent game against Hibernian, and he turned in an excellent display.

Interestingly, he played further forward for the Hoops than many people would have expected, and the move worked, as the Australian international weighed in with two assists in Celtic’s comfortable 6-1 victory. It was Celtic’s best performance in a while, and Mooy had a lot to do with that.

Steve Welsh/Getty Images Sport

The former St Mirren man strolled the 90 minutes, and for this game at least, he has proved the doubters wrong, and shown why Ange Postecoglou was so keen to bring him to the club. So well did Mooy play that if it hadn’t been for James Forrest scoring a hat-trick, then he could have been named as man of the match for the Hoops.

It will be interesting to see how often Mooy features for the Hoops in the next week, as the Bhoys have, on paper, two tricky away games to navigate, against Motherwell in the Premier Sports Cup, and against Hearts in the Premiership at the weekend.

It might be too much of an ask for Mooy to start both of those games for Celtic, but you have to imagine that he will start one of them, and he has earned that spot in the side after his performance against Hibernian.

A lot of people no doubt thought that Mooy would replace Callum McGregor in the Celtic side when the Hoops skipper suffered a knee injury, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, as Matt O’Riley has replaced McGregor in the ‘number six’ role, with Mooy playing further forward.

Steve Welsh/Getty Images Sport

You can’t really say that Mooy is an attacking midfielder in the style of Frank Lampard, but he looks to be more than capable of adding to Celtic’s attacking threat, as was shown with the two assists against Hibernian.

Mooy was always going to play a part for the Hoops this season, but it might not be in the way that people expect, as he could play in much more of an attacking role than was expected. If that allows Mooy to stroll through the 90 minutes like he did against Hibernian, then that can only be a good thing for the Hoops going forward.