The past is a memory. For this Celtic team, only what comes next matters.

This whole season has been like an autopsy. It has all been about what happened, how it happened, the recriminations and the regrets. Quite a lot of time has been spent poking the corpse to find out how this campaign became such an absolute shambles at Celtic.

But we are past that now.

For the next five weeks, we are past that, because we have a very clear path in front of us. We know what has to be done.

So let’s leave all recriminations at the door. Not in terms of the board. They know what they did. They know they are not getting away with what they did.

But in terms of where we go next on the pitch, we have to get behind the current team.

We are now post-split. We are in the final run of games. As far as I’m concerned, every player gets a clean slate. What they did before this does not matter.

These are the games where Celtic can make heroes.

I don’t care if Maeda hasn’t kicked his own backside up until now. I don’t care if Cvancara looks like a lazy signing made under pressure by people too incompetent to understand what happens when they leave these things to the last minute.

Christ, I don’t even care if Adamu and Mvuka look like two of the worst players ever to walk through the famous Parkhead gates.

There are five games left.

What you do in those five games can cover a multitude of sins. It can make everything that came before completely irrelevant.

It is not too late for any of these players to go out there and give supporters something to remember for years.

If Harald Brattbakk had scored just one goal at Celtic, and that goal had come against St Johnstone on the day we stopped the Ten, it would still have made him a Celtic hero. It would still have written him into our history. People would still talk about him for as long as they talk about Celtic itself.

So this is it.

This is one of the things the captain should be telling people now.

Leave all your troubles at the door. Forget everything that has come before. When you step onto the field for the next five games, whatever role you play, understand that the moment has come.

The chance is here.

Seize it. Make something of it. Write your name into the storied history of Celtic. Write a page that no critic and no cynic will ever be able to erase.

It is not for nothing that supporters are talking about this as though it would be the sweetest title win of them all.

This might not quite reach that level for many of us, but it will be one of them.

It will be one of them precisely because of everything that has come before.

All the trials and tribulations. All the mistakes and calamities we have inflicted upon ourselves.

If we can overcome all that and still get over this line, especially with so many writing us off, it will be something special. It will strike a blow against our rivals and foes the likes of which we have not struck in years.

It will not be purely financial; it will be psychological.

I don’t know how they ever recover from it.

Every member of the squad knows what is at stake here. Every member of the squad knows what they have to do now. All we need is 10% more from each of them. All we need is that little extra push.

I don’t have the slightest doubt that if we get it, we will prove good enough. We will get this job done.

We have some key advantages, and those are the advantages we must press home. Five wins will more than likely do it. It is all there in front of us. Everything to play for.

But for the players, especially those people have already written off, this is the moment to make it count.

Forget every missed chance and every bad game. Forget every misplaced pass that cost us. None of it matters now.

Only what these players do over the next five weeks counts.

Get it right, and they wipe away every past mistake. Even those who leave at the end of the campaign will walk away with their heads high, medals around their necks and a place in the story.

Nobody can say they did not earn it. Nobody can take it away from them nor deny they made the difference.

Because right now, every player has the chance to make that difference.

Those who take it claim immortality.

We will never forget them.

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