Being showered with honours for work in April is one thing, but Barry Robson and Gordon Strachan know that the real prizes are handed out in May. The Celtic midfield player and his manager would gladly swap the Clydesdale Bank Premier League player and manager of the month awards they received yesterday to have the title in their hands in 12 days’ time.

The pair were inextricably linked in an April that was as capricious for its football as the weather. When Celtic lost 1-0 at home to Motherwell on April 5, Robson was on the bench and Strachan was in the stocks as some sections of the media hinted at his sacking. Four wins later, including two over Rangers, with Robson netting the winner in the latter, and Celtic were suddenly flavour of the month again.

Robson’s deadball accuracy set up Georgios Samaras last week at Fir Park for the winner to extend the sequence to five Premier League victories. Now, it is all about points, not plaudits. The champions have 180 minutes of football left to ensure they keep their crown and the penultimate game at home to Hibernian tomorrow cannot come quickly enough for Strachan’s team.

“It is great to get an award and it must mean I am doing something right,” Robson said. “However, results are the most important thing. The only prize that counts is the big one, the title, and making sure we get three points on the board from every game.”

Robson was also voted player of the month in January as he ended his association with Dundee United before a £1.5 million move took him from Tannadice to Celtic. The leftsided midfield player was Strachan’s last purchase of the transfer window, and had to make do with a substitute role until he broke through when Scott Brown’s suspension created a gap that he has filled flawlessly.

“The other lads were playing so well in February when I came here and the team was winning every week, so I had to wait,” Robson said. “When you get your chance, you have to take it. I am still not at my best yet. I can offer more. I played well at United but I want to improve every time I go on the pitch. If I listen to the coaching staff here and take their advice on board, I can be a better player.

“It is tactically different here to the way United played. The manager [Strachan] looks at different ways to play the game. I really enjoyed working under Craig Levein, who is a great manager, at United but it is enjoyable under Gordon Strachan and I am learning.” At 29, Robson is a player to whom recognition — such as his transfer and recent elevation to the Scotland squad — has come late in his career. Celtic will hope that he symbolises their own late flourish in the title race with Rangers.

“There are lots of people like me,” he insisted. “I know lots of players who strive to get better every day and play at smaller clubs. I used to stay back after training at Dundee United to practise and Derek McInnes was out there too, even though he had played in the Premiership [with West Bromwich Albion] and with Rangers. He was a good role model for me. There are plenty at Celtic, too. You would think that the higher you go, the more people would take their foot off the gas because they have achieved something but that is not true — they work even harder at the top level.

“It has been good recently having just one game a week because you cannot get proper training done when you are playing all the time. The manager has had us out on the training pitch a lot recently, coaching us. There are still drills and things here that I am not used to yet, but it takes time.”

Robson would love to go into tomorrow’s game with Hibernian in the knowledge that his former Dundee United colleagues have deprived Rangers of points today in their key encounter at Ibrox. “United have got their own agenda in trying to qualify for Europe,” he said. “There is a lot of pressure on Rangers. They have to go away to Motherwell and St Mirren and those are hard grounds to win at. However, we are not thinking about Rangers, just about ourselves.”

After being the subject of such intense scrutiny, and his obituary written in some quarters, Strachan does not get too carried away at being voted manager of the month for April. Indeed, the Celtic manager argues that his team’s performances were better in March when headlines pointed out his inadequacies. “The side that drew against Dundee United at home, got knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Aberdeen and lost to Motherwell here, played just as well as the one last month. The only difference was that last month we started scoring goals again, so results got better and results are the be-all, end-all.

“The attitude among the players has been first class. We had to beat our main rivals twice and go away twice to Fir Park and win against a Motherwell team who are third, and we also beat Aberdeen. The players have handled the pressure really well but we still have two more games to go. If we win against Hibernian, then we know the season will go to the last game.”

Strachan is happy that the bookmakers still make Rangers as favourites to win the title. Speculation about the future, in any form, does not interest him. “You just take what you are given in life,” he declared.

He has had few sleepless nights recently, of the sort he endured in 1999 as player-manager of Coventry City when he was so stricken with fear that he refused to put himself on as a late substitute at Tottenham Hotspur to defend a 2-1 lead on the final day of the season that would keep Coventry in the Premiership. Despite the pleading of Garry Pendry and Alex Miller, his assistants, Strachan remained in the dugout.

“That was truly horrible,” Strachan recalled yesterday. “No, I am sleeping well just now.”