Celtic Fans, Don’t Let Tonight Spook Us. This League Won’t Be Won On Goal Difference.

Tonight, the media is going to go insane with the overhype. We know this before a ball is even kicked at Ibrox. We know this because some of them are starting to hyperventilate already. The Ibrox club has a chance to go top. To do so they only need to win by a couple of goals, and when you consider the shocking state their opponents are in you can take it to the bank.

Believe me, I’ll be thrilled to be wrong. But I’m not. I suspect they will win tonight at a walk, and all the emotion that is already gushing into the editorials will be unleashed in full. They have been waiting for this for a couple of years now. They will enjoy their moment. It is the duty of everyone at Celtic Park to ensure that a moment is all it is.

This title race is not, as some have suggested, “going to the wire.” We will win it on points, with games to spare. There’s a prediction for you.

Once this lot lose the aura of invincibility in which the media is determined to project them – utterly ignoring, as I said earlier, the fact of our win before the New Year – I think they could rapidly lose their way. Their new manager is being painted as a conqueror; all their managers are painted that way after they’ve won a couple of games and although this guy has started well so did the last two before him.

Every boss over there is a messiah. I was amused to read some of the gushing praise poured on him over the weekend by the very same hacks who were calling The Mooch a figure of substance and who were ready to make Van Bronckhorst a saint on the spot. They never learn, no matter how many times we beat the lessons into them.

This will be the same. He’ll be the big hero until he’s not, and they will scratch their heads and wonder what happened to convince them otherwise. This guy hasn’t felt pressure yet, but he will, because now he’s not the plucky upstart chasing the champions anymore, if he does this tonight he’s the guy who got his nose in front and then blew up.

That’s real pressure. Go top tonight and that’s what he carries on his shoulders. The media may not put it there, but the circumstances do and the expectation in the stands will be turned up to full and they will certainly expect him to make it over the line.

We dropped the ball in the chaotic week between 10 and 16 December when we lost two games in a row. Those results didn’t come out of a clear blue sky, but they were sufficiently shocking to rock this club to its foundations. We let this fall out of our hands, they didn’t come and grab hold of it. We should still be well clear of them. It’s our fault we’re not.

So don’t buy into any of it, any of the hype that is about to explode over our game, any of the hysteria which is about to engulf our club. It’s been just over two years since we usurped Van Bronckhorst’s team to go top and we’ve held the destiny of the title race in our hands ever since. This is a night they didn’t foresee, and so of course they are reading into it more than they should. Some of us will do the same.

But the rest of us should keep cool, and let it wash over us. Our business is Saturday coming, Kilmarnock at home, and the job of winning three more points. Everything else is noise, and listening to the moon-howling never helped anybody.