A week ago Danny Rohl was the media’s golden boy. Now he’s on the brink.

Seven days ago large parts of the Scottish sports media were practically drooling over Danny Rohl.

Keevins, English and others were already constructing the narrative. The Ibrox manager was the story of the season. The miracle worker. The man who had turned everything around.

Celtic fan sites pointed out at the time that this was absurdly premature. It ignored a lot of statistical data which should actually worry the Ibrox support.

Seven days later, with tomorrow’s game looming, the mood music has changed dramatically.

That change is not simply because Celtic came back from two goals down at half time last weekend. It is not even because we might have won the game had it lasted a few minutes longer.

The real reason is simpler than that.

That second half performance reminded people of something they should never have forgotten in the first place.

Celtic.

Our defeat at home a couple of weeks ago convinced a lot of journalists that we were finished. The narrative quickly became that Celtic were a busted flush and that the Ibrox club were now the only credible threat to Hearts.

We all know why that narrative gained traction.

Much of the “Hearts for the title” excitement is built on one simple idea. Anyone but Celtic. Once we were supposedly out of the equation the media pivoted immediately to the Ibrox club. They wanted the story to be about their revival.

At half time last weekend many of them had already started writing Celtic’s obituary. They had dismissed the idea of a comeback entirely.

Then the second half happened.

Then Celtic won again on Wednesday night.

Now the situation looks very different.

Celtic sit a point ahead of the Ibrox club. That is an uncomfortable reality for journalists who have spent months telling us this is the worst Celtic side in a decade.

Many Celtic supporters would actually agree with that assessment.

But here is the inconvenient truth.

Even this supposedly weak Celtic team still sits above their favourite club.

That forces a rethink.

If genuine concerns about Rohl did not already exist these stories would not suddenly be appearing. The media is reacting to the same numbers and performances everyone else can see. His record since the turn of the year raises questions.

His mini meltdown in front of the press last week only added to that sense of pressure.

People know what that moment meant. It meant a manager who is feeling the strain.

Only a week ago parts of the media were preparing to crown him Manager of the Year. Any suggestion that Derek McInnes or the Askou at Motherwell deserved that award was brushed aside.

Now the conversation has changed.

The question suddenly appearing is a very simple one.

If the Ibrox club finishes third, can Danny Rohl survive it?

An even more important question follows.

If they finish third, should he survive it?

A couple of years ago I wrote that the worst thing that happened to Philippe Clement was getting back into the title race with a team Michael Beale had left in chaos.

Clement arrived with a simple task. Stabilise the situation. Had he merely reduced the gap no one would have blamed him when the title race was eventually lost. The narrative would have been clear. He inherited an impossible situation.

Football is generous to managers in those circumstances.

But Clement briefly did more than steady the ship. His team actually went in front.

From that moment the story changed.

He was no longer the man who inherited an impossible job. He became the man who had the title in his hands and let it slip away.

Narratives like that stick.

The same dynamic now hangs over Danny Rohl.

Many people say he made the Ibrox club credible again. But another narrative is already forming. It says he had the title race in his grasp and could not finish the job.

That narrative is far more dangerous.

Because it reframes the entire debate about his future.

If Celtic win the title and the Ibrox club finish second or third, the argument will be simple. They had their chance and they dropped it.

The same criticism could apply to Hearts. Yet the judgement on McInnes will probably be softer. That may not be entirely fair given the size of the lead his team once held.

The Ibrox club spent heavily in January to strengthen this squad. That matters. This team now looks far more like Rohl’s side than the one he inherited.

In that context second place becomes disappointing.

Third place becomes something else entirely.

It becomes a crisis.

A third place finish could push them into the Europa Conference League rather than the Europa League. That has serious financial implications, although the media rarely bothers to explore them.

It certainly puts stories about spending eight million pounds on players like Skov Olsen in a very different light.

So the question returns.

Does a manager who had the title race within reach deserve another season if he lets it slip away?

He has not been in the job long. That alone may buy him time.

But if Celtic knock them out of the cup tomorrow the pressure will only intensify. If they then finish third behind Celtic and Hearts those questions become impossible to ignore.

At that point his position becomes extremely fragile.

He would need a perfect start to next season. Otherwise he may not survive until Christmas. That is a familiar pattern across the city.

If the roles were reversed Celtic supporters would treat a third place finish as a calamity. No manager of a Glasgow club escapes that judgement.

Second place is bad enough.

Third place is catastrophic.

That reality now hangs over Danny Rohl.

The conversation around him has changed because the circumstances have changed. Like many managers he benefited from the initial bounce that often follows a new appointment.

But football has a brutal logic at clubs of that size.

Second place is a disaster.

Third place is reputational annihilation.

The media has only just started to realise that this may be where his story ends.

The exiled prince they were ready to crown last week is already being reassessed.

By the time the verdict arrives he may no longer look like a king in waiting.

He may look much more like the court jester instead.

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