Celtic fans, get ready. The fixture list could drop any day.

This weekend took care of the last remaining roadblock to the fixture list being published. We now know who the top six will be. We now know who the bottom six will be. The fixture list could come out at any time. Celtic fans, get ready.

Because you know something? I wrote about this last week, and I’m going to talk about it again. The fixture list is already a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. In the larger piece I laid out the various weird permutations. I won’t go over them all again. All I’ll say is that the moaning has started.

We will get the three massive home games which are already pencilled in. They are a fact. It’s the order of those fixtures that is going to be interesting.

The clamour to have the Ibrox club play Hearts on the last day of the season is already widespread. We should be very careful in how we respond if that is indeed the final fixture. It will be a mild insult to us. The presumption that Celtic would play no part in the title decider was so widespread last week that you would have thought we were mathematically out of it.

The case in favour of the Ibrox club playing Hearts on the final weekend is nowhere near as strong as people have suggested. In fact, it’s not impossible that one or both of those teams could be out of the race before that game takes place.

We know this; there’s zero chance of them scheduling the Glasgow derby last. Such a game would be a fantastic match in any other country. Here we try to avoid it. Maybe we wouldn’t have to if we’d act to leech the poison out of this fixture by tackling that poison at its source.

Those who think the SFA’s failure to tackle the scourge of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic racism doesn’t impact on the wider game never consider the many consequences. Well guess what? This is one of them, and it’s a big one.

Of course, it is equally possible that we could be out of the race before the final day. We’re not going to know any of this until the games happen. But I expect the fixture list this week, and I expect it to be controversial. I expect a lot of wailing and whining and gnashing of teeth. I expect a lot of crying the blues. At least one of the teams is going to cry foul. At least one of them is going to scream injustice.

It seems sensible and logical to me to get the Glasgow and Edinburgh derbies out of the way as quickly as possible. Then see what happens after that. I think it’s inevitable that Hearts will be at home on the final day. I think the drum banging to make that game against the Ibrox club will probably have its day.

It is clearly what everyone in the media seems to want. Still, it may play to our advantage either way. It would be God’s little joke if it turned out to be a meaningless match. If it left Celtic with a reasonably straightforward home game to wrap up the title, and where if we won the result at Tynecastle wouldn’t matter to us at all.

That is every bit as plausible now as the Tynecastle league decider.

But the fact is, as I said in the previous piece, there is no scenario here which avoids controversy. You are essentially creating a situation where Celtic and the Ibrox club might hold each other’s fate in their hands. Hibs might hold Hearts fate in their hands, and not even necessarily in games against one another.

There is no version of this that avoids all the potential banana skins. At least one of them is going to be sitting there waiting for someone to slip on. At least one set of problems is going to present itself. We’re just going to have to live with whatever the fixture list throws up.

But after yesterday we still hold it in our own hands, provided we get to the split still within touching distance of both of those clubs.

That means we have to win our remaining home game against St Mirren. Then, regardless of the position either Ibrox or Tynecastle finds itself in, we’ve got a shot at this. Five games, three at home, to win the league is clearly the more straightforward path. That does not mean it will be easy. It does not mean we should take any of it for granted.

We have not beaten the Ibrox club in 90 minutes for nearly two years. We have not beaten Hearts this season. But then we had not won in Dundee this season until yesterday either.

It was a very big weekend for all three clubs. Whatever Hearts tell themselves, it has now slipped from their fingers.

They have given both Glasgow clubs a clear shot at them. Hearts best hope was to go into the split fully in control. They needed a sufficient gap that a loss to either Glasgow club would not, in itself, be fatal. Especially when those two still have to play each other. In short, they had to go into it more than one game ahead.

At the time of writing, it looks as if they will fail to do that.

Of course, there is one more weekend to go. We could drop points. The Ibrox club could drop points. Hearts could capitalise and get the distance they need. But it is looking increasingly as if they are going to face the one challenge they did not want. Their own margin for error is zero. That was the last scenario they wanted, with trips to Celtic Park and Easter Road still ahead of them.

The Ibrox club’s margin for error is zero too, which is also the last thing they wanted, having to go to Tynecastle and Celtic Park. The media seems awfully keen to ignore that simple fact. Everyone seems awfully keen to tell us that our own margin for error is zero. But we are all in the same boat. Two of these three teams are going to find themselves watching the league flag unfurled somewhere else.

Somebody is going to slip.

So, all we can do now is wait. Wait to see what the fixture list throws at us. Wait to see what it looks like. We have to wait to see who we are playing and when. When that list comes out, it will be scrutinised like no other set of fixtures in recent Scottish football history.

And I can tell you right now that on the Ibrox forums they already fear the worst. They already fear a scenario in which somehow screws them. Although I’m not entirely sure how they think that’s going to happen.

When I said in the previous piece that this was going to be vintage conspiracy theory stuff, I was not kidding. Brace yourselves.

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