Celtic fans aren’t the only ones who wonder if the corner has been turned.

It has been a really good day of discussion on the Celtic fan sites, because there seems to have been a real upswell in hope since the weekend.

Not because we were particularly brilliant across the full match. We were not. Certainly not across the 90 minutes, and especially not in the second half. But that little six-minute spell where we scored four times has given everyone a lift. It has done so at exactly the right time, and it has restored confidence in exactly the right part of the team.

There has been a lot of talk about what our best front three might look like. In particular, I like the idea of Maeda, Iheanacho and Forrest being the potent tip of the spear. I was thinking something similar at the weekend when I watched how we played during that short, blazing spell.

The truth is that either Iheanacho or Maeda can lead the line, as long as players get the ball to them in dangerous positions. That is what really changed in those six minutes of brilliance. We cut out the hesitation. and the uncertainty.

We moved the ball quickly, attacked with purpose and got bodies into areas where we could do real damage.

That is why the front three people are discussing appeals. Used properly, all three players understand their roles. O’Neill likes his wingers, and James Forrest remains the best natural winger at the club. That has been true for a few years now, which is a scandal in itself, but scandalous or not, it remains true. If we are going to play with wingers, Forrest is still the best one we have.

What is really encouraging is that nobody is talking now as though Celtic simply cannot score goals. That was the mood not long ago. That was the fear hanging over everything. Now the conversation has shifted. Now people are asking which players we put on the pitch to make goals more likely.

That is a major change from where we were just a couple of weeks ago, and it matters. For those asking whether this renewed belief is real, I think the answer is at least a tentative yes.

When you listen to the Celtic players who have spoken since the weekend, they seem to believe it is real too. Sinisalo has talked about the change in the atmosphere inside the dressing room, and that is important. He is basically saying what a lot of us were saying after the game. The mood among supporters has improved, yes, but the bigger point is that morale inside the team will have improved as well.

That may matter even more.

Because now the team knows it is not gun-shy. Now the team knows it does not have to flounder around wondering where the goals will come from. If they play at the right tempo, create the right chances and put the right players in the right areas, the goals can still come.

That must take a huge psychological weight off their shoulders.

This team never had real doubts about its resilience or strength of character. Those qualities have been tested often enough. The bigger concern was whether it could score enough goals to push itself past its rivals. That was the question that had started to dominate everything.

Our enemies have had a lot of fun with the idea that we are somehow outgunned this season, but I have already shown that this is not quite true. Before the Ibrox club scored six at Falkirk, they were only one league goal ahead of us. Hearts, despite all the hype around their front players, remain behind us in league goals.

So this was never the gigantic problem it was made out to be.

It only looked like one when you compared this Celtic team with last season’s Celtic team. That is where the real difference was. Compared with ourselves, we are miles down. Compared with the teams around us, the gap is nowhere near as dramatic as the narrative suggests.

But this squad has spent so long reading and hearing that it is shot-shy, that it has no goals in it and that it lacks firepower, that perhaps some of that noise started to seep into the players themselves. Perhaps they started to believe it. Perhaps the hesitation we have seen in recent weeks was partly the product of a team overthinking the very thing it most needed to do naturally.

Now they have seen proof that it is not true.

Celtic fans have seen, with their own eyes, that this squad is still capable of putting the ball in the net from a handful of chances. They have seen that the instinct is still there. They have seen that if the tempo rises and the decisions are sharp, they can still cut teams apart.

That may be the lift everyone at Celtic Park needed.

The rise in optimism among supporters is welcome, of course. We needed it. The mood had become heavy, and with good reason. But what matters far more is what has happened inside the squad. If the players have started believing again, properly believing, then this may be the moment the corner was turned.

And by God, talk about good timing.

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