Celtic’s Title Party Against Motherwell Will Finally Close The Book On Last Year.

And so it will end where it sort of began; with a game against Motherwell, where last season we officially surrendered the title and said farewell to the lingering dream of ten in a row. It was a long painful afternoon but it felt in some ways like a mercy killing all the same.

From the depths of last season to the heights of this one; what a sublimely beautiful journey this has been for the fans and for this team. It started badly, but there was a feeling that once Ange got his ideas across and we started to play some football that it would all slot into place. Maybe not this fast, or to this extent, but we were already believers.

I remember the moment when a vague hope swelled, for me, into something more; the night at Parkhead against AZ when we swept them aside and the magnificent Kyogo was the star of the show. I thought that a performance of that maturity and quality would be too much for any team in Scotland to stand up to. I started thinking we might have something big that evening.

I wrote not long later that the league would be won by the team that first put together a long unbeaten run, and I was convinced that we had the tools for it. I didn’t know at the time, but we were already on that run, right at the start of it, and once we started to rotate through the gears we never, ever looked back.

Going top was just a matter of time. I was convinced that when we reached the summit that we would be there until the end. By the time we did it was obvious that Ange had added real quality to the team in January. Three out of four of the players have made not simply an impact but a momentous one. The whole team just fits like a tailored suit.

There have been bumps along the way; the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat was one that previously might have left me feeling flat and low for weeks. But I realised that day just how incredible it is that we were almost expecting a treble by then … it was a bridge too far for this tam, this early, but the best years are in front of this side and no-one doubts it.

Title winning teams can get there in any number of ways; some stumble towards the finish line. We looked oddly off the pace last weekend, but our the course the thing that has been most obvious is that this is relentless attacking football machine that Ange has built … and as these players get more and more used to his system this machine will grow in power.

My mate Jonny and I, talking earlier in the campaign, pondered whether we really could win this. We were several points behind at the time. His feeling was that we were capable but that it would be too much of an ask. I thought that we had a really good chance if we stayed clear of injuries and kept our away form going. But when the discussion moved to next season, neither of us was in the slightest doubt that Ange’s team would be too hot to handle.

Well we survived the away match carnage most of the hacks thought was a certainty. We even survived the injury crisis I thought at the time that we couldn’t afford. The signings in January reinvigorated the squad and from that point on we were superb. We more than deserve the party that is now pencilled in for Wednesday.

I won’t be in Glasgow for it, I’ll be watching it abroad, on a well needed holiday but I am looking forward to as much as I would be if I was at the game at Dundee or the title party against the team from Fir Park, where last season we watched the dream die. The frustration of that day was not knowing what the future held, or seeing how we could possibly sort the shambles out quickly.

The miracle is almost complete. Ladies and gentlemen, there is one point to go.

Thanks to all of you who light heartedly pointed out my glaring error in the article; to those of you who did it with more needle, you can do one. Today we’ve won this title and I did say I intend to enjoy It. You may assume I’ve started already!