One thing is at stake for Celtic today. Ensuring the Silence of the Bams.

So today it is then. Apparently, the day that will decide whether our season has been a success or a failure. The day when the champions will walk onto the pitch at Ibrox as four-in-a-row winners, and the hosts will play Simply The Best … err … for themselves. You couldn’t make that up. If it were us, I’d be mortified.

There’s something vaguely pitiful about that club at the moment, and about the media narratives which surround this game.

This season, and in season’s past, we’ve hurt them about as badly as it’s possible for one club to hurt another. We’ve taken out multiple managers, and now we’ve taken out multiple boards as well.

It is phenomenal how much chaos has been wrought over there—much of it by our hand. Because it is our success that has driven them to madness.

And you all know I think the purest form of that madness may still be to come—handing over their club to people whose motives they cannot understand, whose backgrounds they’ve not checked out or examined, and whose money may come with more conditions than they’ve ever seen.

All week long, they’ve been pushing the narrative that this game is one we have to win. As if we had anything left to prove. As if this game will define our campaign—despite the fact we’ve already won the league and the League Cup, and we’re now just waiting on the Scottish Cup final to roll around to complete the treble.

I want us to win today. I’m under no illusions that we’re going to get any credit if we do, because we haven’t had it up to now and we’re not going to get it no matter what we achieve. The narrative of the summer is going to be about Ibrox regardless of the result; we know this. It’ll be about how this time, the challenge is real. How this time, Rodgers will be tested. How this time, he’ll be put in his place.

I’ve heard it all before. And today won’t change that narrative, no matter what happens in the 90 minutes. Today won’t make the slightest bit of difference to how this season is thought of or remembered. It won’t make a blind bit of difference to the summer of hype across the city.

A Celtic win will shut them up for a couple of weeks—or at least until the next big takeover exclusive. A trick they’ve now deployed on so many matchdays that I’m amazed they’re still getting away with it.

Today won’t tell us anything we don’t already know. Today won’t make a difference to what’s already done. It won’t change the league table. It won’t alter the history books. It won’t change one fact of football life in Scotland as we know it.

We are the biggest club in the country. We’re so far ahead they can barely see us disappearing into the distance. Their only answer? More sugar daddy spending—blindly ignorant as to how that caused all their problems in the first place.

We’ve lost twice to this team now. In a row. And a third defeat would mean our manager has questions to answer, just as he did after the second one. But all talk that it takes the shine off the season is ridiculous. We go to Hampden and beat Aberdeen, and that’s the season. That’s the Grand Slam.

Today is about silencing that particular narrative. That’s all it is. It won’t stop them monopolising the summer. This game has no bearing on our season at all. It’ll give us a momentary feeling of satisfaction. For some people, that’s enough. Hell, it’s enough for me. That’s a good enough reason to want to win.

We should win today. I expect us to win today. We’re the best team in this country by a mile. The Ibrox club … I don’t know how they’ve beaten us twice. I genuinely don’t. I genuinely don’t know how they managed to raise their game against us to a level they haven’t found consistently against other clubs.

How much does it matter to them today? How much does it matter to us? Do we have a point to prove? Yes, we do. What’s the point? That we’ve learned from the last two games. That’s it. That’s all we have to prove.

Best side in the country? Look at the league table.

So we need to prove that we’ve learned. We have to prove that we’re motivated. That we recognise the importance of not losing three in a row to the same team. And that we get what the narrative will be if we do. In short, it’ll be the same narrative we’ve lived with after losing both the others.

So put it all to bed, Celtic.

Go out today and just damned well win. Shut these people up. Drive the final nail into Ferguson’s musty coffin lid whilst you’re at it. Stamp your authority on this fixture. Let the next incoming coach at the Bigot Dome know why we’re champions. Above all else, Celtic—just show us that you bloody well learned something.

Go and bring back the three points. That’s all.

No big deal, really. Just do what it is that you usually do.