There's a slightly strange thing happening with Celtic. Well, there's quite a few strange things, but let's stick to the football for now.

Because if you look purely at the league table and the results, there isn't a huge amount to complain about.

Nine wins from our opening 10 league games is an excellent return. It's only the third time in the past 10 years Celtic have collected 27 points or more from their opening 10 fixtures.

And yet, if you've watched Celtic across those games, and especially when you factor in our European performances, not many supporters would argue we're playing particularly well.

The strange thing is, both of those things can be true.

Our domestic results absolutely deserve credit and Sunday's win at Easter Road was another good example.

Celtic went behind, the conditions were difficult, the football wasn't pretty, but Martin O'Neill's side found a way to collect another three points.

And that's an important quality for any successful team to have.

Teams don't win league titles by playing beautiful football every week. There will always be difficult afternoons, awkward away trips and games where you simply have to dig in and find a way to win.

Celtic are doing that consistently. But equally, nine wins from 10 shouldn't prevent us asking why the team still looks so unconvincing at times.

Europe has probably exposed those shortcomings more than anything.

When the standard of opposition has increased, some of the problems we've discussed for weeks have become much harder to ignore.

The lack of control in midfield, the defensive vulnerabilities, and the difficulty we have imposing ourselves on better opposition.

Even domestically, there have been matches where Celtic won without looking particularly comfortable.

Sunday at Easter Road was one. Narrow victories over St Johnstone and St Mirren are other examples.

So where does that leave us? Well, probably somewhere in the middle.

Celtic are clearly doing plenty right. But there's also a strong feeling this squad has another level to reach. And if performances don't improve, there's always the danger some of these narrow victories become draws or even defeats.

Perhaps that's where we should find encouragement.

Because Celtic are continuing to win games despite looking like a team with plenty of room for improvement.

Jota and Callum Osmand are already bringing something different to our attacking play, while Shim Mheuka and Landon Emenalo will be hoping to make their own impact as the season progresses.

And with Yang Hyun-jun hopefully not too far away from returning to the squad, Martin O'Neill should soon have even more options.

If he can start getting performances closer to the level of the results, suddenly the overall picture begins to look a lot more encouraging.

So perhaps Celtic's league form is being slightly underrated. But I'm not convinced the performances are.

It's perfectly reasonable to offer constructive criticism, even when the team is winning.

In fact, sometimes that's exactly when those conversations should be happening, rather than waiting until points are dropped and the problems become even more obvious.

Right now, there's a fairly clear gap between Celtic's results and performances.

The challenge for O'Neill and his players is to start closing that gap without sacrificing the consistency that's put us in such a strong domestic position.

Because for all the issues we've seen, and all the frustrations so far this season, Celtic still have an opportunity to establish themselves as the team to beat in Scotland.

And if the performances begin to catch up with the results, there could be plenty more to look forward to.

Next up, it's Dundee United at Celtic Park on Wednesday.

Another three points would be welcome of course. But a convincing performance wouldn't go amiss either.