Celtic Will Only Get Stronger From Here, And That Should Terrify Everyone Across The City.

Within the next fortnight, the players who have signed will learn so much about the manager and their team-mates and the club and what the expectations are. The next game is at home to Dundee, and I reckon it’s going to be played in a proper party atmosphere. Between now and then everyone at Parkhead can relax. At Ibrox, the inquest has just started.

What a week this has been for our rivals. A massive defeat, a hammering, in Eindhoven and now this. Theirs is going to be a hard fortnight. Theirs is going to be a rough spell where their fans will stew and fume and spew their bile out on the forums and on the phone-ins. None of it will help the cohesion of their team. None of it will be to their benefit.

They are an utter shamble. He’s lost two of his first four league games. He has been hammered in the Champions League. He has failed to convince; his signings have failed to convince and the pressure on him is enormous. Their fans will watch their team before we watch ours next weekend; it might be the last time we’re saying that for a while, away at St Johnstone. That has already become a must-win game. Anything less he might not survive it.

We will almost certainly build on that result yesterday. By the time the Dundee game comes around we’re going to have some injured players back and some people integrated into the team who right now are total strangers to the rest of the side. You can see us getting stronger and stronger and stronger from here. And that must be terrifying.

The one thing The Mooch and his team could not afford to do is what they have done; they’ve given us a solid lead after our first visit to Ibrox. Our win there will have shattered confidence in that dressing room and no matter how much they think they are going to “bounce back” from the result, they are now one bad day away from a total meltdown.

And that day will come, because everyone now is talking about the “playing style” and how simplistic it is. That playing style we’ve been talking about on here for weeks now, and calling out for effectively being public park football. It’s been obvious. It’s been crystal clear. I have no idea how people in the media have not picked up on it sooner … the Sparta Prague manager said it and the Daily Record treated his comments as if they were an unacceptable provocation.

But they were the simple truth, and that’s what most of the Ibrox fans are now convinced of, and so I do genuinely believe that time is running out for The Mooch already. The only question left is what damage will he do before they finally show him the door?

Their club is a constant mess, it’s in a constant state of flux. The inevitable sacking is going to plunge them back into another rebuild and another shambolic appointment; nothing is surer. For a club that still believes that Steven Gerrard was a success story, there is little doubt that they will make as big a dog’s dinner out of the next hire as they have every time so far.

That our side is going to grow in strength is obvious. Once we start putting teams away with the ease we remember from years gone by, the pressure on the Ibrox boss will mount until the ice finally breaks beneath his feet. I can wait for it. The longer he is there the more damage he will do. Celtic, on the other hand, I cannot wait to watch.

There is so much to be optimistic about if we can hit our stride. This result has re-set the dial for us, and everybody in the support is bouncing again. The manager looked like the happiest man in the world yesterday, like someone who had dropped a bag of bricks. In a manner of speaking he has. Right on top of The Mooch. Roll on 16 September.