Jackson dreams of a Celtic slump, but his fantasies about the Ibrox side are even madder.

One of the most popular series on this site is the Keith Jackass series. It was inspired by days like today, when he writes such fantastical rubbish that there are only two appropriate responses; one is to do a deep dive and cover it paragraph by paragraph to highlight its absurdity and the other is mocking contempt.

I’ve not done the deep dive in a while, so today I’m gonna have a go. Let’s start with the title. Every bit as ridiculous as you’d expect.

Mini Celtic wobble has opened door for reinvented Sevco to write title race plot twist no-one saw coming – Keith Jackson

We’ve dropped points for the first time in months. I guess that’s a wobble now.

Our man reckons Philippe Clement was given a chink of light after the Ibrox side made up two points on their rivals at the weekend

It’s not for nothing that “your man” is regarded as a joke figure.

Is anyone else starting to think we may have gone a bit early here?

Other than yourself and a handful of other utter fantasists, no.

It was only a few weeks ago after all when this season’s title race was being widely declared as pretty much done and dusted. Celtic had just about stuck four in a row in the bag already and the main matter of interest centred around whether or not Aberdeen could hold onto the runners up spot.

And nothing substantial has changed since then except that Aberdeen has collapsed like the proverbial house of cards.

For his part, Philippe Clement was only hanging onto his job because rudderless Sevco didn’t have anyone with the authority or mandate to sack him and a double header against Spurs and Celtic was almost certain to bring around his inevitable demise. And yet now here we all are against all the odds, with Clement’s credentials intact after a visit from Celtic managers past and present and his team beginning to look like it knows what it’s doing after all.

These Peepul are so easily amused and impressed. They lost the cup final, although you wouldn’t know that to read some of the utter rubbish which has been in the media since the trophy was handed to Callum McGregor. That makes it 0-1-5 for Clement, whose credentials are most certainly not “intact.” But for a Dundee player missing an absolute sitter on Saturday the conversation around this guy would be toxic again. The media loves an Ibrox redemption story. We’ve heard it all before.

Let’s get one thing straight. This should not be misconstrued as an apology to the Belgian. It’s far from it. On the contrary, had he listened to his critics a little bit sooner and reached the same obvious conclusions then his side might not be stranded in such a distant second place, languishing as it does nine points behind bitter rivals Celtic in what has felt like a seemingly irretrievable position.

Here’s the thing; I don’t see that he’s doing all that much different than he was. Their style of play is pretty much the same as it was and the players in that team of theirs didn’t become better footballers … so many of them have done this before and before and before. They have a couple of good games and they are hailed as world beaters. The truth is, none of them would get into our team.

Sunday’s 0-0 draw for the champions against Dundee United has opened a door just slightly.

To Narnia, apparently.

But it’s still a long shot where Sevco and their manager are concerned. Clement still has to carry the can for that because he was the man responsible for making the job a whole lot harder than it had to be in the first place.

 I love the way this sort of article completely ignores the elephant in the room, the one wearing a Celtic strip. Our own form has been exceptional, but we get no credit at all.

He didn’t rate Ianis Hagi, hardly played Nico Raskin and made up his mind that Hamza Igamane was nowhere near to being ready for first team consideration. All the while he stuck with the consistently dysfunctional Cyriel Dessers as his central striker and left Danilo out of the squad for the Europa League, even though the Brazilian was always scheduled to return from injury in time to make a contribution.

Hagi is a no mark. Hagi has not changed a single game since they put him back in the team. Raskin is a thug without an ounce of football in him. Dessers, we can agree on. Danilo? Another over-rated footballer they all seem to get misty eyed over. Igamane. Dear God. You’d think this guy was tearing up teams single handed.

On top of all of that, he disenfranchised Todd Cantwell to such an extent that the Englishman chose to cut and run back over the border to Blackburn Rovers rather than stick around to fight a losing battle for a regular starting place. Granted, if Cantwell was half the player he thought himself to be he’d have been twice as impactful as he was for Sevco but, regardless of his overblown, rampant ego, there seems little doubt he would have added quality to Clement’s attacking options at a time when Sevco were rendered blunt and devoid of a cutting edge in the final third.

 The only good and smart thing Clement has done in this whole time was showing Cantwell the door. Another footballer who flattered to deceive and one whose giant ego was causing all sorts of problems behind the scenes. The boy is a halfwit. He’ll never make it at any club he’s at; even Blackburn will tire of him. When a player thinks he’s got more sway than the manager that only ends one way if the manager is smart. That Jackson, with all his years writing about football, doesn’t know this is mind-numbing.

But, the truth of the matter is, Cantwell was forced into concluding he couldn’t coexist with a manager who didn’t trust him and Sevco were considerably worse off for it. These unfathomable decisions have left some rather indelible black marks against the judgement of Clement and created a lingering suspicion that this recent surge in Sevco’ form might have come around more by accident than by design.

Eh, yeah … that’s what I’ve been saying.

That may feel a little bit churlish and mean spirited, especially at this time of year when it’s supposed to be a period of goodwill and glad tidings to all men. But Clement was treated to an early Christmas present on Sunday when an illness and injury ravaged Celtic left a couple of points behind at Tannadice and, yes, for the first time this season there is the hint of a chink of light where Sevco’ title chances are concerned.

Hope springs eternal. Amazing that they do this to themselves so regularly.

All of a sudden an 11 point gap has been reduced to nine and, with another Old Firm showdown now looming just over the horizon, Sevco have an opportunity to make an even more substantial dent in it heading into the New Year.

No, they have the opportunity to cut it by three more points. I’d still be more than confident of the destination of the title coming out of Ibrox with that lead in the league. Not that I expect any of that to happen of course, because Rodgers will get a draw out of that match at the very least and the questions about Clement will start all over again.

Let’s be in no doubt, irrespective of Sunday’s result on Tayside, Celtic have tailed off in form since the start of November when they annihilated Aberdeen in the League Cup semi final before romping to a stunning win over RB Leipzig in the Champions League.

No, we’ve trailed off in performances. Not form. There’s a difference. The form, domestically anyway, has been outstanding. Performances have slipped a little. I’m not worried about that though because every team has a spell like this, and during the mid-season slump last year we shipped a lot of points and actually allowed them to get back in front. How did that one end again?

Yes, Brendan Rodgers has kept them winning games of football but the Parkhead boss won’t have failed to notice that his team has not been functioning in quite the same sweet spot over the last month or so. It hardly constitutes a crisis but it has been a mini wobble which is why it came as no great surprise on Sunday when Celtic struggled to impose their attacking style of play on a well drilled, highly motivated United team.

An atrociously negative Dundee Utd team, barely venturing further up the park than the edge of their own penalty box, at home.

Missing key men such as Cameron Carter-Vickers, Alistair Johnston and Nicolas Kuhn, there was more of a drop off in standards than Rodgers might have anticipated even if his side has been short of its very best in recent weeks. But, even so, that wouldn’t have made any material difference to the big picture had it not coincided with the sudden, unexpected reinvention of Clement’s team across the city.

Reinvention. Good God. They’ve had a handful of decent results

Hagi’s return to the dressing room appears to have sparked Sevco into life.

Is this guy for real? I really don’t get the Hagi love-in. I don’t see it at all. As I said earlier in the piece, tell me a game he has taken charge of and run? I can’t recall one.

The Romanian has added the kind of imagination, craft and guile which has been missing since Cantwell threw his toys out of the pram. Raskin is running games from the middle of the pitch in much the same way as he was when he first arrived from Clement’s homeland around this time two years ago.

 Absolute rubbish. Oh I read a lot of hype about Raskin at the time and I’ve read a lot of hype about him since, but he’s in the team for one reason only; they need to drop Connor Barron to the bench for the moment because they are facing a tribunal to decide how much Aberdeen are due for him. Wait and see what happens when Barron can be slotted back into the side again.

And, yes, Igamane might be as raw as a pound of Moroccan mince but, even though he’s learning on the job, he’s providing the Sevco attack with much more movement and menace than Dessers could muster on one of his good days.

A pound of Moroccan mince. I am saving that one. I have a feeling I’ll be able to use it before long once the bubble bursts here.

Danilo, too, has made Clement’s team look like a much more dangerous, unpredictable attacking force and for all of these reasons, Sevco represent a very different and much more genuine threat to Celtic than they had previously offered up.

As I’ve said, there are two things that have to happen before they catch us. They need to sustain their form – I doubt they can – and we have to collapse. We’re not going to collapse. We’ve drawn a game at a tricky away venue where the home side defended like taking a point would make them champions … I refuse to panic.

Sunday’s result at Tannadice merely feeds into the narrative that there might be some life left in this season’s tussle for supremacy. Of course, it could be snuffed out all over again if Celtic go to Ibrox and slap them back down a week on Thursday – or if Sevco should slip up themselves either at St Mirren or Motherwell.

Well, exactly. So what the Hell is the point of this article?

But the fact remains, if Sevco find a way of coming out of the festivities with another nine points in the bag then this entire campaign will have been blindsided by a plot twist that almost no-one saw coming.

Keep dreaming Keithy. It’s what you do best after all.