This weekend, the Celtic boss snatched away our enemies fondest wish.

Yesterday, Celtic snatched away from our rivals one of their deepest fantasies and most prevalent hopes. A hope that flared briefly this past week, especially in light of Rodgers’ obvious anger and supposed despondency after the game in Perth.

Now, Rodgers was not a happy man — but some of the press coverage of his mood was insane. I mocked it without mercy in the last Keith Jackass piece.

When Rodgers sat in front of the media on Friday and said that either the personnel changes or the manager would be changing, a lot of them interpreted that as a sign that he was considering quitting at the end of this campaign.

And they would have loved nothing more.

They wanted yesterday to be another disaster. They wanted it to be a struggle, because that would prove that Rodgers had lost his magic and couldn’t get through to the dressing room. They hoped to see more signs that he might quit.

But before the game even began, Rodgers had shattered that hope into a million pieces with his press conference, in which he said, “150% I will be at Celtic next season.” Amazing comments.

Amazing that he was asked the question in the first place. But a brilliant response to it, followed by that brilliant response on the pitch, which showed that he has lost none of his skills, none of his ability to motivate men.

When he reaffirmed not only that he’ll be here next season, but that he’ll be sitting down with Dermot Desmond — the man with the real power at Celtic Park — to discuss the possibility of staying even longer… well, that was the last thing they wanted or expected to hear yesterday. Things are going to change this summer.

This is the part they never seem to understand. This is what they won’t recognise across the city — that if we do our business, if we get things right, if we strengthen this squad, if we keep this manager happy, if we get him to commit to a longer-term deal, then it doesn’t matter what they do. It doesn’t matter what paltry funds they manage to bring in or are able to spend. It’s all going to be about us.

What we showed in that first 35 minutes yesterday was the unbelievable ability to rip teams to pieces, regardless of who they are and regardless of how they try to stop us. When we’re in that kind of mood, when we’re in that kind of form, we are a machine that just rolls over clubs. And if we can maintain that kind of form till the end of this campaign, we will win this in style. And the cup with it.

Brendan’s in a weird position.

This should be the year he puts the finishing touches on his version of the squad — but the fact is, Brendan lost a year due to this board of directors and their mad policy of trying to keep him at arm’s length, with his decision-making running secondary to that of some bean-counter with a particular second name.

We saw in the summer how that policy had been largely dumped, and now the benefits of that are obvious to every fan. We’ve made the progress in Europe that we wanted, and we’ve gone from a double last season to standing on the brink of a treble in this one. What’s more, we’ve gone from a close title race in the last campaign to one where, right now — even though we’ve dropped something like 14 points since the turn of the year — we’re on the brink of clinching it with a double-digit margin.

We built such a lead, we showed such strength, and we plunged the club across the stadium into such abject crisis that they’ve never gotten over it. Our form has been a little rocky of late, but we’re still going to win this by a mile.

This isn’t like the last campaign where we had to fight every step of the way — we’ve crushed domestic opposition this season.

We’ve rendered the Ibrox club an utter irrelevance.

And you know what? Deep down, they recognise that. They recognise that even if someone comes in and acquires 51 per cent of the shares, the task of catching us is going to take years. And it’s going to take more money than they can realistically spend in a short spell. All the talk of bringing in top-class coaches is fantasy-land stuff. All the talk of bringing in top-class players is just howling at the moon.

And through all of it, the darkest fact of them all remains. Whether they acknowledge it or not, we are in a strong enough position that we could — if we chose to — nullify any effort they made to climb on top of us.

As far out as they’re able to push the boat, we can push it further. And that’s just a fact of life. We have at the helm a top-class coach who knows where he wants to make this team better. We have a manager here who will undertake yet another real reordering of the pieces on the game board. And at the end of it, we’ll be even stronger than we are right now — if he’s allowed to do his thing.

Later on, I’m going to talk about why Rodgers’ comments have filled me with a new enthusiasm for the summer.

But suffice to say this: he said everything we would want to hear over the course of this weekend — and none of the things that our enemies wanted to hear. For a brief spell this week, they thought they were watching a manager whose enthusiasm for the job, for the club, and for the challenge in front of him had died on the vine.

Rodgers smashed that notion to pieces — and much else besides. He got the response from the players. He has the full backing of the fans. And the man who counts in the boardroom is ready to talk — on Rodgers’ terms.

His hand has never been stronger, and he has never sounded so emphatic about looking forward to the job in front of him.