Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou hopes his long-term fitness plan will give his side an edge when games go to the wire during the title run-in.

Postecoglou has devised a training programme to target peak fitness for his players during the season finale.

The Hoops have been tested in recent weeks, needing an 86th-minute winner to beat Dundee before being held to a goalless draw by Hibernian and only getting a two-goal cushion against St Mirren with nine minutes left.

They face another difficult task on Sunday against a Livingston side who have kept two clean sheets against Celtic this season and beat Postecoglou’s side in West Lothian in September.

Postecoglou said: “I said a while back that the whole idea is that we are at our strongest at the end of the season rather than just trying to hold on.

“We manage our programme that way and we try and get the players to be in the best possible condition for the most important part of the year. In theory that’s how we want it to work.

“January was good for us in terms of the players we brought in allowed us to rotate the squad a bit, which means we have got a really healthy group apart from Dave (Turnbull) and Kyogo (Furuhashi), who are out injured. Everybody else is in good condition.

“It allowed me not to over-burden individuals, which we really struggled with in the first half of the season, which I think is why we got so many injuries. We haven’t had that in the second part of the season.

“That means we can put some work into them in training, some physical work as well, we can be really strong for that last part of the year, which I think we will have to be.

“You have seen with all the games, they are really tight, and a lot of the games are getting decided late. Us being strong physically is going to be important for that.”

Celtic will have eight days until their next game after Sunday’s trip to the Tony Macaroni Arena and the upcoming international break will give Postecoglou further chance to condition his squad.

“When you map out the season you kind of look at that last international break as the deep breath before you go for the finish line,” he said.

“The whole plan is to get to the international break, take stock of everything and then, with hopefully a fully-fit squad, really go for it at the end.

“That’s the theory, the practicalities of it and the reality of it we will see as it unfolds.”

Celtic struggled to create clear-cut chances in their two games against Livi this season before Giorgos Giakoumakis saw a stoppage-time penalty saved in the goalless draw at Parkhead.

But David Martindale’s side have collected 17 points in the league since the winter break, which was more than any team other than Celtic going into the weekend, and Postecoglou warned they will pose a threat going forward too.

“It’s under-playing them a little bit to say that Livingston will just frustrate us,” he said. “If you look at their recent form, they have got some attacking threats as well.

“David has done a great job, they have grown into the season and, for them to be in the position they are, I think they will take it a lot of confidence. I think they will have a go at us as well and we have got to be ready for that.

“From my perspective it’s about maintaining the disciplines we have had around our game plan and playing our football and finding solutions within that.

“That’s got to be our focus. As much as you respect the opposition and what they bring to the table, what we know is that when we play our football and are really convincing in that, we are hard to stop and that’s what we are going to try and do on Sunday.”