Fear and loathing at Ibrox: The fat lady clears her throat as the boos ring out.

Somewhere in a parallel universe, where major events really are decided and announced according to the old analogy, a rather rotund lady is clearing her throat and preparing to take the stage.

Whichever tune she decides to regale the audience with, it may soon be the moment when the club from Ibrox realises that its transfer gamble and the Danny Röhl experiment have failed. Failed utterly.

As things stand right now, they are third in the league. If we win our next game and Hearts inflict another defeat on them, then they are virtually out of it. Five days later, we can deliver the coup de grâce at Celtic Park.

That is the reality of where they are. On the brink of utter ruination in a season in which they had placed so much hope.

Hearts remain a problem we need to reckon with.

I think we need them to drop something before they come to Celtic Park. Otherwise, we will have to roll up that day and do a real job on them.

My preference right now would probably be a draw between the two teams next Monday night, as long as we win our game. That suits us just fine. It puts us within striking distance of Hearts and gives us some distance from Ibrox. It maintains Hearts’ lead over them, while allowing us to cut the gap and open up our own.

Then it would fall to us to officially end the Ibrox season at Celtic Park.

When you looked at the reaction of their players at full-time today, you could see that they knew. The number of them who slumped to the turf. The number who walked off with their jerseys over their heads. They knew that was a savage blow. They will know too by now that Hearts’ late winner has put them right on the brink.

Don’t let them kid you that they will accept a Hearts title win just to deny us the title. That is nobody’s preferred option over there, and they know it. They can cling to that line as much as they want, but it offers no real consolation.

It certainly would not offer any to me if it is Hearts and not us.

The problem their club has now is that next Monday night is a game they cannot afford not to win. Yet they also know that a victory over Hearts puts the title race in Celtic’s hands, provided we have won the night before.

A draw harms them both. Neither of their sides can afford to play for one. Derek McInnes is not a man who enjoys losing to them. McInnes is one of the few pro-Ibrox managers out there who I know always gives it everything against that club, almost as if he holds some special grudge and wants to settle it by any means necessary.

Even under normal circumstances, that is a game Hearts are capable of winning. Of course, McInnes and Hearts now have very clear reasons for wanting to win it.

We still have no margin for error. Any points we drop are very likely to be fatal. But with Tynecastle and Celtic Park looming, it is the Ibrox club who are in a whole heap of trouble.

They know that defeat in either game probably brings down the curtain on their season. It would leave this a two-horse race they are no longer part of, with third place looking like their most likely destination.

Should we finish third, we at least have the cushion of possible Europa League football if we win the Scottish Cup. It is not a safe or guaranteed route. I would prefer to ignore it completely to focus on the job at hand. We would still need to play qualifiers, which is a nightmare scenario I can barely even face thinking about.

But if the Ibrox club finishes third, and we’re champions, they don’t even have that cushion.

They would be a Europa Conference League team. The impact on what they can spend would be enormous because they bet big on winning this title. Over the next two games, that gamble may explode in their face.

That is going to crush them.

Financially, reputationally and everywhere in between.

The media – that pitiful version of it we have here – has spent much of the last few weeks anxiously watching the Greek league and Shakhtar Donetsk’s progress in Europe. The assumption that the Ibrox club would be champions became so dominant in the media that it was almost embarrassing. They were counting the Champions League jackpot already.

If they have to make do with scraps from the Conference League table instead, everyone knows how damaging that will be. For the next week, at least, we do not have to read any of those stories. That particular cringe-fest is on hold.

Between ourselves and Hearts, we can bring it to an end completely in the next eight days, along with a lot of very arrogant expectations.

The reckoning they will face if they finish third could scorch their club for years to come. For one thing, it is almost impossible to see how their manager survives an outcome like that.

Even if the board decides to stick with him, it will have been a searing experience for everyone over there. He would start next season knowing that if he does not put together a run of straight victories, his grave has already been dug, the lime has already been poured and it is just a matter of time before he takes his place alongside the previous Ibrox bosses who either fell on the sword or got pushed on top of it.

The fear at Ibrox must be enormous.

You saw it written on the faces of their players in the latter stages of the Motherwell game, if you were lucky enough to witness it, as I was. You could see it on the faces of the coaching team too. I would imagine that if the cameras had flashed to the directors’ box, you would have seen it there as well.

But you don’t have to look too far for the loathing.

It came in the booing from the stands. It poured out in the fury on the forums and across social media, places which have become sewers of grievance and rage to an almost mind-bending degree.

We call these pieces Fear and Loathing because those are the default states of that club on a night like tonight. Their fans look at the wreckage they are standing in and try to reckon with what it means. They try to reckon not with anger at the world around them, but with anger at the club itself.

That is a very real emotion over there on nights like this. A deep-seated hatred of the thing they are supposed to love. I enjoy going over to those forums at these moments and reading about it. I’ll admit it. I enjoy sampling the madness.

I am well aware that nothing was decided today. But that is the point. Today set up a deciding moment.

We just have to keep winning and let the chips fall where they may.

But let’s not pretend this wasn’t a good day, because it was. There were three teams in this title race. Provided we win our next game, Hearts can deliver the blow that turns it into a two-horse race. Then our task becomes clearer than it has ever been.

The target is in our sights.

If the title ends up at Hearts, Ibrox will face a long summer of soul-searching and a reckoning like never before. A Celtic title win would be degrees of magnitude worse.

I think they would just lose their frigging minds.

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