They would love to think so but the harsh reality is that while they are back at the top of the table for the first time since January, whether they are still there at the end of the season depends on their title rivals. Rangers may have been displaced at the helm but they still have three games in hand.

Following an unprofitable couple of months in which they allowed the Ibrox club to extend their advantage, the defending champions have at least used the past three games to demonstrate they will not give up without a fight. Although, on this evidence, with chances still not being converted as they should, they will still have to up the ante if they plan to get to the end of the campaign without dropping more points of their own. Again there was a desperation near the end as a controversial refereeing decision denied Aberdeen an equaliser, when in truth that should have been well beyond their grasp by that stage.

With Celtic still clinging to a one-goal lead, the assistant referee penalised Zander Diamond for a handball seconds before the defender lashed the ball into Artur Boruc's goal. Initial replays did little to vindicate the official's decision. Not that Celtic cared. The final whistle sounded and there was a huge outpouring of relief, as the title race kept running.

Gordon Strachan was forced to make four changes from the team which defeated Rangers midweek and revitalised the league challenge. Lee Naylor, Paul Hartley and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink all picked up injuries in the derby match and were replaced by Mark Wilson, Massimo Donati and Georgios Samaras respectively, while Gary Caldwell was suspended thanks to his part in the fracas which followed that victory.

His replacement was a more welcome figure as far as the home support were concerned. Bobo Balde is a cult hero with elements of the club's fan base, but he is not a favourite with the Celtic manager and only makes an appearance when there is little other choice. But having been cast aside since his two-match outing at the end of 2007, he returned to the side yesterday.

More pertinently, Aiden McGeady also turned out, having shrugged off the knock he sustained in Wednesday's match and his creativity was balanced by the trickery and initiative shown by Shunsuke Nakamura, who is edging back towards his optimum form. Both players again put in a shift, trucking up and down the flanks, cutting inside and generally taking responsibility for all that was good in this display.

But, without Hartley in there with Barry Robson, there was something lacking in central midfield, something they had rediscovered in recent weeks. Heart.

Massimo Donati is never likely to have the combative, pesky presence of Hartley and, outnumbered by Aberdeen in that area, it meant the home side were never able to dominate.

The visitors also had a point to prove. There are no grand prizes still at stake for the Pittodrie side but there was a need to bounce back from the humiliating cup exit at the hands of Queen of The South at Hampden last week. They too had made changes, Derek Soutar, Jackie McNamara, Sone Aluko and Chris Maguire making way for Jamie Langfield, Derek Young, Stuart Duff and Jeffrey De Visscher and they could have opened the scoring in just five minutes when Scott Severin blasted a long-range effort at Boruc's goal. The effort bounded off the Pole and scuttled along the line, finding the opposite post rather than the net.

Celtic dominated possession but couldn't carve out the opener. Langfield closed down Scott McDonald in the 14th minute, McGeady's sot was then deflected wide, and Robson's header missed the target. Then, in the 19th minute, a McGeady ball drilled across the face of the Aberdeen goal was almost touched in as Balde stretched out a leg and almost got a toe to it.

For all that the Celtic fans have lambasted Vennegoor of Hesselink, he was looking like an increasingly better bet than Samaras the longer the match progressed. Poor decision making, profligacy in possession and wasteful shooting were all bettered in the second half by one of the worst-timed jumps seen at this level. But just then he redeemed himself. From a 56th minute Robson free-kick, the striker rose above everybody else and headed his shot beyond Langfield.

McGeady should have doubled the tally six minutes later when Samaras turned provider, but McGeady's header from about ten yards was too high.

If the Celtic showing and support had been devoid of the nervousness in the first half, it permeated the air as the minutes ebbed away and chances were passed up.

In the 77th minute, Barry Nicholson sent a pass across the face of goal after McGeady had been robbed on the edge of the box and Miller only just failed to get in ahead of the Celtic rearguard at the back post. Then, when Diamond headed the ball on to Nicholson for the midfielder to chest down into his path for him to lash home, the officials had seen something even the television cameras hadn't.

Diamond can't get handle on referee's handball decision

ZANDER DIAMOND slammed referee Iain Brines after his last-gasp goal was chalked off by the official. The "goal" would have given Aberdeen a share of the points and plunged Celtic into despair but the defender was controversially penalised for a handball.

"From what I'm hearing, the goal should have stood, so I'm disappointed in that," said the Aberdeen defender. "I don't know what Brines is looking at, I don't know if he turned away at that moment in time. How he's said I've gone up with my hand is just an absolute joke. That sums him up.

"I turned round to Barry (Nicholson] after it had gone in, and I thought (the free-kick] had been given against him because it was close to Barry's hand. The decision is unbelievable. If he's one of Scotland's top officials, I think were in trouble."

Diamond even ventured to suggest that it could have been a case of retribution for an exchange of views when the player was told to leave the field to receive treatment for a bloody lip. "He's saying to me to get off the park, but if as a referee you can see blood coming, surely you've got to stop it yourself, not get me to go to the side while the game's going on. I'm sure that's the rules of the game, so I wonder what ones he's reading."

He said he tried to speak to the referee after the match to seek an explanation but that simply proved another cause for complaint. "Its just the usual, 'get away from me'. You can't really talk to him about the decision. He just says 'go away', when you're just politely going there to ask to clear the decision up. No doubt I'll be up in front of the SFA shortly.

"It's big decisions in big games. If were challenging to get into third place again, we might look back and say that point at Celtic Park could have done us. He goes away to his job from Monday to Friday but we need to pick up the pieces."

However, a self-confessed Celtic fan, he conceded that he may not have been welcome in his home town had the strike stood. "A lot of people will say they're glad it never went in and I'd never have got back in to Dumbarton if it had," he said.

Celtic manager Gordon Strachan said he was relieved that the goal had not counted but said there were decisions throughout the game which could have gone either way. "In the end, football in this town is just about winning," he said.