The Ibrox rebuild is as big as Celtic’s. This title really is for all the marbles.

Over the last couple of weeks, attention in Scottish football has focused on the rebuild Celtic face this summer. That rebuild ties directly to where we finish in the league, because Champions League money sits a world away from a third-place finish and Conference League football.

That is why winning the title matters so much.

But while everyone focuses on the scale of Celtic’s rebuild, people largely ignore the potential rebuild at Ibrox. They face many of the same issues we do, only to a far greater degree. A title win would be manna from heaven for them. It would help them in ways that are hard to overstate. But if they finish third, the consequences could be off the charts.

What many people do not understand is how much trouble that could put them in.

The issue they face mirrors the one we face in squad rebuilding. They have signed a lot of players on loan. Those players will leave, and they will have to replace all of them just to maintain the basic strength of the squad.

I also suspect they will need to make some high-profile sales, although I have no idea who would offer the kind of money they will expect.

In addition to the loans, they also have a number of first-team players out of contract. At the moment, they do not appear to be asking any of those players to extend their stays.

That means they may have to replace as many as eight or nine players in the summer window simply to keep pace with where they are right now. That is very similar to the situation Celtic face, except for one crucial difference.

We have some FSR legroom. We also have tens of millions sitting in the bank and a clear path to selling key players to help fund a rebuild. Even in the worst-case scenario, some money will be there.

I do not know what money will be there at Ibrox.

The media seems to be making the same mistake it always makes, which is assuming that the owners’ money is automatically the club’s money. That is ludicrous. We have said it is ludicrous over and over again.

The club, to a certain extent, will still have to live within its means. If those means are badly damaged by a third-place finish in the league, then the size of their rebuild will be much smaller than it needs to be.

This is a difficult thing for much of the media to grasp. The money of the club and the money of the owners have to be separated. Even if the owners were to hand that club £50 million to spend, which they will not, FSR regulations would surely restrict how that money could be used. But to hear the media talk, you would think there is a bottomless pit of cash waiting there.

So as the final five league games play themselves out, bear this in mind. Celtic are not the only club which suffers from not being champions.

The media will tell you all the pressure is on us. In fact, most of them have already written us off. I do not think we will win it myself, if I am being blunt, because O’Neill scared the living daylights out of me yesterday with his claim that he does not intend to change things. To me, that sounds like a suicide pact he has bound all of us into.

So to say Celtic fans are coming at this with low expectations is an understatement.

The real pressure is on the other clubs. The real pressure is on the clubs the media keeps telling us are favourites. They are the ones who will find the next few weeks very difficult to navigate if they drop anything at all, because the narrative will be unforgiving. So will their own supporters.

But even more than the narrative being unforgiving, football itself will be unforgiving.

That is the reality facing every club which gambles on success and then has to pay for falling short. I strongly suspect their gamble is even bigger than we currently realise.

Their rebuild looks massive. It looks close to the same scale as ours. The difference is that we have FSR leeway, money in the bank and a number of bankable assets. We will probably cope. We may still be able to do some modest version of the rebuild regardless of where we finish in the league.

That does not mean it will not hurt Celtic. It will. It could hit us hard, and I am very worried about it.

But if they finish third, or even if they fail to win the title and have to navigate a series of Champions League qualifiers, I believe they will find themselves in a world of trouble. I had no idea until today that their rebuild was on this kind of scale.

That means when we say the next few weeks are for all the marbles, we are not exaggerating.

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