If Rangers win the league title today on the back of Celtic dropping points at Tannadice you could hardly say they’ve been crowned by default.
They had the league wrapped up by December.
The win over Celtic at Ibrox on January 2 was confirmation of what everybody already knew at the back of their minds about the progress of the season.
It has been a story of Rangers’ composure over Celtic’s chaos. One team’s consistency over the other’s fatal attraction to calamity.
A real tale of durability over dithering.
That’s why Steven Gerrard’s midweek wobbly in West Lothian on Wednesday was hard to follow.
He might have been denied a penalty kick but even the EU’s Court of Human Rights would throw out any case put forward claiming victimisation of his team.
I’d put my house on Alfredo Morelos to score for the first time against Celtic when the sides meet two weeks from today.
There is an air of destiny about the whole thing.
I might be running the risk of making two OAPs homeless but I’ll be gambling responsibly.
It’s Celtic who find themselves stuck between a rock and a snide place today.
And they represent the biggest gamble of all, bearing in mind Celtic themselves don’t appear to know what will happen to them from one game to the next.
We frequently recall Rangers’ title-winning Helicopter Sunday. Today it’s fruit cocktail Sunday.
Dundee United have Mellon. Celtic have supporters ready
to go bananas if they witness on television the official,
unequivocal, irrefutable end of the 10-in-a-row dream.
Micky Mellon would have hoped to be involved in a title drama when he took over as United manager at the start of the season.
Being from the West of Scotland he’ll understand the implications of his cameo role.
If Celtic do win then Rangers can take the title on the ground of their deadliest rivals in a symbolic transfer of power.
It would be incendiary in more ways than one if Wednesday night’s pyrotechnics at the Tony Macaroni Arena are anything to go by.
If Celtic drop points today, however, then tradition demands we open the debate on whether they should give the new champions a guard of honour when they next visit Parkhead.
No, they shouldn’t.
Just as Rangers were right not to give Celtic a guard of honour when the boot was on the other foot.
For all that the description implies dignity and respect, that’s not what it means where these two are concerned. It is meant as a punishment exercise to be inflicted on one set of supporters for the enjoyment of another set of fans who want to rub their opponents’ noses in their own misfortune.
Rangers have won the title for reasons that don’t stand on ceremony.
Their players don’t need hollow applause from fellow pros who wouldn’t be showing an ounce of sincerity while forming two disinterested lines before kick-off.
And Gerrard doesn’t need to be patronised by hollow gestures when Rangers have achieved success on the back of their own hard work.
It’s not a guard of honour so much as a firing squad that should concern Celtic. Neil Lennon has gone. A vocal percentage have made known their opposition to John Kennedy being appointed as his successor.
Rarely has the pool of realistic candidates for the job looked
so shallow.
Steve Clarke has taken a swift step to the side by reaffirming his sole interest being qualification to the next World Cup with Scotland.
You can, for a variety of reasons, forget all about Rafa Benitez, Henrik Larsson, Roy Keane and Roberto Martinez.
As for the other guy whose name keeps cropping up? For me it isn’t a matter of Howe, more like a question of why?
But former Bournemouth boss Eddie, who didn’t cut it at Burnley when he went there, will doubtless be watching what happens at Tannadice today.
If he turns off before the game’s finished it’ll give us an indication of the way he’s thinking.
