Sniping at Celtic is a diversion tactic for an Ibrox board that needs one.

Twice in the space of 24 hours, people have called out Celtic for standing up for our supporters and demanding a safe environment for the game against the club from Ibrox. Have you ever seen anything like this?

Apparently, we are the embarrassing ones, while everyone else rallies to defend a bunch of thugs.

Ally McCoist, we expect, will lead the charge in this. He is a stone bigot who wears a convincing mask, at least if you do not see who he really is. Those south of the border who have never had that exposure, and therefore lack that understanding, still see someone fun and pleasant to be around.

I could not think of anyone less pleasant to be around, to be perfectly honest.

But we have been over McCoist quite a lot on this site over the weeks. That is not the subject I want to return to at this particular moment, although I am sure he will continue to find his way onto this site by virtue of his inane remarks.

No, the guy I want to concentrate on here is the manager of the Ibrox club, as well as those above him, because last night, at their Player of the Year awards, he again vowed to stand up for the fans whilst assuring them this title race still has life in it.

The Ibrox Player of the Year awards have become one of those hysterically funny events, although certainly not intentionally. Coming on the day they lost at home to Motherwell, dropped four points behind Hearts in the title race and allowed us to leapfrog them again, it was not a great look.

But what Danny Röhl said at those awards was more revealing, perhaps, than he intended.

This whole affair has been useful to them in one way, because it allows them to present the appearance of a unified club, all of them moving forward in the same direction. In fact, if you go onto their forums, you will find there is not a great deal of support for Röhl at the moment.

So, this is a neat way to get him back on the good side of supporters who otherwise have serious doubts about him.

I’m not saying this will erase those doubts. It won’t. But over the next few days, they are going to cling ever more tightly to anything that lets them present themselves as being on the side of the fans, and creates the siege mentality the people in charge of that club need in order to avoid real scrutiny.

This league is not over. But right now, they sit third in the table. If Hearts beat them, and then we beat them, and we win our other game in between, then both of us have a decisive advantage over them.

The title race narrows to two clubs, and they drop out of it. They then face the near certainty of a third-place finish, the stuff of their nightmares. That is where a little context matters.

This is not just a manager trying to ingratiate himself with supporters who might otherwise turn on him. This runs deeper than that. A board of directors now looks increasingly desperate to shift the focus of the story.

Because if this season ends with them in third, that is how people will judge their first full campaign in charge. A trophyless disaster. A season where they could not even finish second.

Look at the campaign in full, and it becomes a biblical nightmare. If they finish third, fail to reach a final and crash out of Europe at the group stage, despite the fact that qualification has never looked more achievable, then anyone who claims progress will stand exposed.

What kind of progress is that?

They would finish below last season’s position. They would win no domestic honour. Their European form would collapse in the final season where they still benefit from the coefficient built by stronger campaigns in the past. Weren’t the American owners supposed to fix this?

Weren’t they supposed to solve all of it?

I thought they were coming in to transform the club, professionalise it and make it more successful. This is a hell of a way to start. Like it or not, they are going to have to answer questions about it.

Now, they are going to say that the appointment of Russell Martin knocked them off course. But let’s take a look at the facts, shall we?

Danny Röhl has been in charge at Ibrox since October. We knocked them out of the League Cup at the semi-final stage while he was there. We knocked them out of the Scottish Cup at the quarter-final stage while he was there. They fell out of Europe altogether while he was there. They also spent an awful lot of money, including during the January transfer window.

The mess they are in cannot all be blamed on Russell Martin.

At least some of it has to be laid at the door of the current manager and therefore the people who hired him. They were still shuffling board members and senior executives a month ago, so whatever stability they have allegedly introduced is not as apparent as the media hype suggests.

All of this will have to be distracted from.

So, expect them to pick fights. Expect them to voice their anger. Expect them to needle and niggle at Celtic, the governing bodies and whoever else they think they can target.

They will do it to keep supporters onside, because those supporters increasingly have questions to ask.

The one thing to remember about those supporters, though, is that many of them have already bought their season tickets. Ibrox timed the sale just right, when their side still looked like it might win a double.

In that, at least, this regime is as good as its predecessors.

It knows how to skim money off morons and fools.

But the anger will come anyway, because even the most loyal customer eventually notices when he has been sold a fantasy and handed a bill for the privilege.

That is what all this noise is really about. Not Celtic or fairness or away allocations. Not the sanctity of the fixture. It is about a club staring at the wreckage of its season and trying to point its supporters towards anything else.

Röhl can talk about Celtic. McCoist can play the wounded statesman. The media can pretend this is all about growing up and getting round the table.

But none of that changes the central fact.

Celtic are trying to keep violent thugs out of our stadium. The Ibrox club is trying to avoid explaining why its grand new era already looks like the old one. Only worse. And with a bigger invoice. That is the story they are desperate to bury.

That is why they are making so much noise.

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