This Ibrox club is deluding itself on the back a European victory all over again.

Imagine for just a second that we’d gotten that result last night. A lot of us would be fairly happy about it. It’s a very good result in France. But in order for that to have happened, the world would be in a very different shape than it’s in right now.

Our club would be in a very different place.

I knew the media would go over the top today. I find it amazing that their reaction to that result is even more hysterical than I thought it would be.

For the last few years now, we’ve heard how brilliant the Ibrox club is abroad. They certainly seem to know how to do something on the continent, in continental football, that they don’t do or can’t do in domestic football. They’re very good at hitting on the counterattack.

They also seem very good at coming up against teams that are in a bit of turmoil. I don’t know what the preparations for games normally involve at Nice, but I’m fairly certain they don’t involve the club manager being rushed to hospital with a serious illness.

Last night, watching the French side’s hesitant, horrible football and some of the worst defending I’ve seen in a long, long time, I was reminded again that the Europa League is a vast downgrade from the competition in which we are current competitors. There are teams who play in it and don’t even appear to take it particularly seriously.

A lot of the press and a large section of the Ibrox support are trying to account for what happened last night because they know it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. I’ve ceased trying to account for some of their European results. I’ve already said what I think the situation is: they have a style of football that is suited to the continent. When they come up against middling sides, that can be effective. Occasionally, it’s effective against bigger teams.

Before this campaign, a lot of people wondered why we seem to be incapable of doing the same. I keep telling people that we’re not incapable. I keep telling people to look at some of our Europa League results. Some of our results in that competition are excellent. The problem we have is that we tend not to have been playing in the Europa League these past few years. We’re in a much bigger competition. We’re on a much bigger stage with far better teams. And when I say far better teams, that’s what I mean; the standard and quality is night and day.

And that’s what I mean when I say imagine we had gotten that result last night. Imagine what that would mean. It would mean that something fairly terrible had happened at Celtic. It would mean that we had lost our way somewhere along the line, that we had failed to get to the Champions League. Worse, that we’d failed to win the title.

Those who think that we should have a run in the Europa League just to see how well we do—and who actually wish for that scenario—should be very, very careful about what they’re wishing for because what they’re wishing for is that the wheels have come off somewhere on the Celtic wagon.

I like the club where it is right now. I like things just as they are. I don’t want us to go on a Europa League run. I would prefer that we were Champions League calibre. I would prefer that we were in that competition every season. I would prefer that we were punching out of our weight class rather than being in the competition with the also-rans. And this isn’t about money or prestige. It’s a recognition that any competition below the Champions League means that we’ve failed somehow.

So the media is having its day today. It’s having its hype.

It’s giving the Ibrox club its hit of Hopeium. But when newspapers are writing stuff about how the Ibrox club’s European record is better than that of teams like Real Madrid and Manchester City—who won the Champions League in that spell—it tells you how ludicrous the overestimation of this result and what it means actually is and that once again the club across the city is indulging in its favourite form of hysteria and losing all sense of proportionality.

And this is not uncommon after a good European result over there.

The thing is, there is no amount of hype or hysteria that will make this a good Ibrox team or this a good Ibrox manager. They are the same side they were when they drew at the weekend and went further behind Celtic. They are the same side they were when they came to Parkhead and were trounced earlier in the campaign.

Last night did not fundamentally change anything. It didn’t change anything at all. I think of it the same way I thought of the 5-0 win they secured against Ross County earlier in the season. That was supposed to be some big turning point. That was supposed to be them finally getting their feet under them and finally starting to get results.

And I know there are a lot of people out there in the press saying they have to find a way to translate their European form into domestic form. They’ve been talking the same stuff for the last four years and for even longer than that. And they haven’t figured it out yet.

I understand why it presents itself as something of a mystery. I understand why they can’t quite get there, why they can’t quite figure out why they can beat all these allegedly top sides but can’t, here at home, consistently beat the Motherwell’s and Aberdeen’s and Hearts and Kilmarnock’s.

It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter why they can’t do it. The fact is they can’t do it. The fact is that when it comes to playing here at home, when it comes to title races, they’re miles behind Celtic. Remember that the side that reached the Europa League final couldn’t stop us from winning a double. And the following season, they couldn’t stop us from winning a treble.

Today’s big headlines are a familiar piece of self-delusion.

I’m happy to see it, and I hope they keep it up.