The tone has been set on the eve of the Premiership ’s eagerly-awaited return.
Celtic and Rangers want nothing to do with having away fans inside their ground on Old Firm day – or night.
At least a Scottish game that has always run on spite, malice and mistrust knows where it stands.
Each club retreats behind its respective barriers, resistant to the idea that common ground could ever exist.
Let battle, and mutual contempt, commence again.
Ange Postecoglou will doubtless appreciate the plain-speaking nature of the snub for away fans.
I’ve been listening to managers who were occasionally economical with the truth for the last 52 years.
The great, the good and the gormless have all tried it on, telling you black was white and attempting to insult your intelligence while defying the listener to contradict them.
But Celtic’s manager would pass a lie detector test. When he says the transfer window is now closed for him, I accept that.
When he says he’ll only consider a request to postpone the next Old Firm derby on February 2 if he feels unfairly crippled by international call-ups, I take him at face value.
When he says not getting Riley McGree to sign for Celtic doesn’t concern him, I think he means it.
Money, as Ange appreciates, knows no allegiance.
The Aussie has gone to Middlesbrough, a club where nothing has continued to happen for decades.
But, regardless of their mediocrity, the wages are good and every man has his price.
Clubs arbitrarily bin players when they have no further use for them. It’s a two-way street in the transfer market
In the spirit of candour embraced by Ange, I also believe his tilt at the title could be shaped by what happens on the park over the next 48 hours.
A caller on the radio questioned my intelligence for not waiting until the end of the transfer window before predicting who will win the Premiership title.
Well, Postecoglou is a sensible man and he isn’t waiting for anything to do with the window either.
He’s good to go now, and both Celtic and Rangers could see their title aspirations decided, or derailed, by what happens in the three league matches each has to play between now and their scheduled meeting next month.
Celtic should approach Shaun Maloney with caution for a start.
He’s short on stature but big on meticulous planning and has made astute signings since taking over as manager at Hibs.
I’m told he brought in an opposition analyst last week as well, although how he works out Celtic’s team at short notice is anybody’s guess after their signing of three Japanese and an Irishman.
What happens at Celtic Park on Monday will determine whether Rangers are under pressure, or heavily incentivised, when they face Aberdeen at Pittodrie the following night.
If you’re going out on a limb then make sure it’s a double jabbed, boosted, medically-certificated limb and say what you think.
I’m on record here as saying I don’t think Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s Rangers will lose a game between now and the end of the season.
I don’t accept that’s outrageous, given that Rangers have lost one league game in the last season-and-a- half but I know what’s coming my way if my old sparring partner Scott Brown leads Aberdeen to victory on Tuesday.
A gentleman on social media sent me a photograph of a wheelchair as a way of suggesting I may be too old for this lark, while another said I was in line for an “impending headstone” – the same message only more tasteless.
Either way, Postecoglou has come here and turned the wreckage of last season into a cup-winning example of the power of positive thinking in a ridiculously short space of time.
But now it’s his team, his judgement and his burden to bear concerning what happens next in the league.
If supporters’ bravado contributed to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, Scotland would be the richest country in the world.
But now the talking that has gone on unabated for the last three weeks of inactivity in the Premiership has to stop.
Platitudes now take second place to practicality.
