Scottish football is laughing at us, Celtic. It’s time to shut them up.

Let’s talk about liberation, fellow Celtic fans. Let’s talk about the feeling you get when you no longer have to keep your mouth shut, when you no longer have to bite back what you really think, when you can finally let it all spill out in full flow and full flight.

For the first time in two years, Ibrox fans woke up to find their club on top of the table. After spending most of the season looking up at Hearts, that must feel pretty good. That must feel liberating. But it’s not just liberating for the Ibrox fans who follow their team every week and make no bones about what they are.

It is liberating too for members of the Scottish media who have been waiting for this moment every day of those two years. They had a very good night last night.

I don’t like that they had a very good night last night. When a team went above Hearts this season, that should have been us. There have been enough opportunities along the way for it to be us. We’ve squandered those chances and now we are where we are.

We cannot cry over that. We have to focus now, because if we are going to drag ourselves back into this title race with seven games to go, focus is going to be everything.

Still, it is worth pausing on that odd sense of liberation our rivals feel at this moment. Those in the media who have been desperate to crow from the top of the dung heap now feel as if they finally can. Even if Hearts get a result today, they have had their thrill. They have seen their side go top, and now they no longer have to pretend.

They no longer have to pretend they were ever really interested in a Hearts title win. Most of them weren’t. They were interested in seeing Celtic stopped. That is not the same thing, and we all know it.

Some of them, like that skin-crawling figure of embarrassment at the Sunday Mail, that ancient writer who should have retired twenty years ago, are openly gleeful about it. Others are a little more careful, but not by much.

They always get like this when they catch the scent of possible success, and I find it amusing that so many of them are so willing to write us out of the title race when, of the three clubs involved, we are the ones who have been over this track before.

I wrote recently about the Ryan Stevensons, the Hugh Keevinses, the Keith Jacksons, the Michael Gannons and the rest, all openly laughing at us right now. And do you know what? I’m not even going to criticise them for it.

They should laugh. Our board of directors should have that laughter ringing in their ears. Because this is on them.

We are the butt of the jokes right now because of the people who run this club. We are a shambles because they have made every bad decision it is possible for a board to make. That is the simple truth of it.

If the Scottish media is gloating this morning, they are not really laughing at you and me. They are laughing at the people who have dragged Celtic into this state. That is why Dermot Desmond should be looking at the papers today. He should be taking in the glee in the Scottish media. He should be seeing clearly the mess we are in.

And if he has an ounce of passion for this club left in him, then he should feel two things in quick succession. First, embarrassment. Then motivation.

Because the only answer is to bring in the right people and change the direction of the club, and if this is bad now, imagine how it will feel in a few weeks if someone else wins the title.

If they are laughing at us now, think what they will be doing then. Every single person at the top of Celtic should be following that coverage and letting it sink in.

But this title race is not over. That matters.

For the players who feel as though they’ve been written off, guess what? You have been written off. The people doing it are all over the media this morning. They think you’ve already blown it. Ryan Stevenson thinks some of you have chucked it. There are people who think the manager will settle for simply being here at the end of the season, as though a farewell tour without silverware is good enough.

I do not think it is good enough. I think Martin O’Neill came back here to win trophies, and I do not think he will settle for less.

Today is a chance for this team to go out and bury the opposition and show there is still fight left in it. Today is a chance to remind this country why our name is still on that trophy and why it will remain there until someone else rips it from our cold, dead hands.

The people at the top of this club have their own thinking to do. They have a reckoning coming, and they deserve it. But right now, it is the football department that has the questions to answer.

And today, they have the chance to answer them.

That is what this is really about. Not just winning, but winning with force. Not just taking three points, but making a statement.

A statement that says this race is not done. A statement that says write us off at your peril. One that says if you want what’s ours, you had better be ready to take it from us because we’re not giving it up without a fight.

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