This season is a wake-up call for Celtic if we learn the right lesson.

Yesterday, Martin O’Neill, in one of his characteristically blunt media interviews, described this season as a wake-up call for Celtic. Most Celtic fans know exactly what he means.

The real question is whether the board of directors fully understands it.

More importantly, do they recognise the scale of what has actually happened this season and the scale of what now needs to be fixed?

There is a danger in framing this campaign as being about Hearts. It is not about Hearts. Hearts are having a very good season by their own standards. Motherwell, by their standards, are also performing well.

That has tempted a lot of people in the media to get carried away. Some of them have convinced themselves that this represents a structural shift in Scottish football.

It does not.

Five or ten years from now, when historians look back on this season, they will almost certainly describe it as an aberration. They will see a campaign where two clubs outside Glasgow enjoyed exceptional spells at the same time as Celtic experienced a full-scale internal meltdown.

You could say the same about events at Ibrox. However, because turmoil over there is almost routine, it hardly qualifies as a historical anomaly.

When the story of this season is written it will still be about Celtic.

Even if Hearts were to finish top of the table, historians will look at the points total of the champions and recognise it as one of the lowest in decades. From that alone they will conclude that something went badly wrong at the two biggest clubs in the country.

In Celtic’s case that conclusion fits perfectly.

What people see here is a period of chaos created by catastrophic management at the top of the club.

If anyone draws the lesson from this season that the opposition has suddenly grown stronger, they draw the wrong lesson.

Yes, some clubs have improved. However, nothing points to any lasting transformation in Scottish football. Even if those clubs continue improving, Celtic should never find themselves in a competitive title race that tops out at 80 points.

Not when this club enjoys the structural advantages it does.

An 80 point season only delivers a title when something inside Celtic has gone badly wrong.

That is exactly where we stand today.

Bad leadership in the areas that matter most brought the club here. The balance sheet still looks healthy. The business operation still looks respectable and stable. That is precisely the problem.

Celtic was never meant to operate primarily as a business. The business side should power the football operation. Instead the football team now powers the business.

For years we have watched the steady asset stripping of the squad. Proven players leave and the club replaces them with projects or with cheaper alternatives who simply lack the required quality. Potential now replaces quality. Long term planning now replaces immediate competitiveness.

At the same time the board spent the summer arguing with the manager instead of strengthening the squad. They either refused to support him or proved incapable of doing so. At this stage the distinction barely matters.

He is gone.

The consequences of that failure remain.

Those who sat at the top of the club last summer forfeited their right to lead it. They created the situation we now face. Had they responded decisively in January the judgement might have been different. Instead, they failed Martin O’Neill as well.

That leaves only one honest conclusion. They must go.

This argument does not pit pro-board supporters against anti-board supporters. It concerns standards. Any organisation that values basic governance would recognise the breach of those standards.

The damage to their reputations is obvious. They have lost their mandate. Their legitimacy has collapsed.

The supporters, however, understand the moment.

For many of us this season marks a watershed. We have crossed a Rubicon. This campaign now demands change.

If there has been any failure of understanding it has been within the boardroom itself. Many supporters recognised months ago that this season represented a wake-up call. Some of us have spent much of the year trying to wake others up to that reality.

In truth, the fans may now be ahead of the manager on this issue. The people who must act are those who run the club.

If they want to restore unity, professionalism and direction, some of them will have to step aside. Without that change unity simply will not return.

The club’s transfer trading model has failed. Our scouting system has failed. The strategy of replacing elite players with development projects has failed. Our perverse reliance on short-term loan signings to cover structural weaknesses has failed.

In short, the entire football structure needs to be dismantled and rebuilt. That process should already have begun. If it has not, the consequences will be severe.

Celtic currently stands on the edge of something dangerous. Whatever happens between now and the end of the season, the board has exposed the club to unacceptable risk.

The fact that a non-Glasgow club enjoying a moderately good season could place Celtic in genuine danger of finishing third would have been unthinkable only a year ago. Yet here we are.

Look at the composition of the squad and the temporary nature of the management structure.

Look at the chaos this season has produced both on and off the field.

Denial is no longer credible.

Even if Celtic win the title, even if they win the double, it will not vindicate the board. It will only underline how extraordinary Martin O’Neill’s intervention has been.

Because the man holding this season together is not a visionary director. He is a 73-year-old manager from another era who was brought back in a moment of panic. No one on that board can plausibly claim that his appointment was part of a long-term plan. It was a desperate move by men who were out of ideas.

Yes, this season has been a wake-up call.

Many of us are already awake, and once you recognise the real cause of this crisis you realise something important.

This situation has nothing to do with Hearts. It has nothing to do with Ibrox. It has nothing to do with Motherwell. Whatever incremental improvements those clubs may have made are largely irrelevant. A competently run Celtic would not be here.

We are exactly where our leadership has placed us. This is not bad luck. This is not misfortune.

It is entirely self-inflicted, and whatever consequences follow will be self-inflicted as well.

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