O’Neill is set for a major award, but Celtic still won’t get the credit for a title win.

Sometimes, when Celtic are on the brink of success, you read something in the Scottish media that makes you wonder if the general consensus among the commentariat is that we do not deserve it.

That we should not bother turning up to challenge for the prize.

That if we do get over the line, we should not bother collecting it.

That when the trophy is dropped off at Celtic Park, we should immediately return it to sender and hand it back.

If you read some of the headlines this morning and felt a little bit like that, I do not think it is an accident. I think that is exactly how we are supposed to feel.

The media wants us to believe Celtic were lucky yesterday. They want us to believe certain decisions did not go the way of the Ibrox club. They want us to believe this team is not as good as it looked yesterday. They want us to believe we are still unlikely to win the title, and that even if we do, we probably will not deserve it.

I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that.

I do not think I am reading the room wrong.

When you look at a headline saying that if Celtic win the title, we will have done so after losing more games than any champion in more than 90 years, there is not much ambiguity there.

There is nothing subtle about this.

There is no inclination towards subtlety. No sign that anyone thinks it is reasonable, practical or desirable to be subtle. They are bluntly saying it out loud.

We have said from the start that if Celtic get over the line, we will get no credit.

The reframing has already begun.

The new framing is simple enough. It will be that the Ibrox club did not get the manager it hoped it had. It will be that Hearts did not have the squad depth. It will be that certain decisions went Celtic’s way at crucial moments and helped us win matches we otherwise might not have won.

Some of that is true.

Some of it is blatant rubbish.

But this is the narrative now being pushed, and if we win on Wednesday, regardless of what happens with Hearts, it is only going to get louder.

Remember what I said after the Ibrox club were knocked out of it in the aftermath of Hearts’ win last weekend. Celtic are being set up as the bad guys. We are being set up as the party poopers, the party crashers, the spoilers, the killjoys who ruin the fairy tale.

That is fine by me.

I do not care.

This is the real world, and the real world does not work on sentimentality. The best team wins the league every year. As I have said before, the league table does not lie, although it can exaggerate.

When you look at the league table right now, Hearts are top because they have been the best side over the first 36 games.

But the season lasts 38 games.

With two left, Celtic are still in the show.

With that in mind, it was good to see that the football writers did not follow the governing bodies and their decisions when it came to Manager of the Year. O’Neill is on the shortlist. O’Neill deserves to be on the shortlist.

If Celtic win the title, O’Neill deserves to be voted Manager of the Year.

I know a lot of them want to give it to Derek McInnes. I know they want to say McInnes has done an exceptional job and that having Hearts in a title race at all is something close to miraculous.

But here is the fact.

If there had been no Wilfried Nancy interregnum, and if O’Neill had simply been left in charge, Celtic would now be sufficiently clear of Hearts and everyone else that this would not have been a title race at all.

People can dispute that all they like, but the numbers bear it out.

The four losses during the Nancy period are why we are here. Turn around just one of those results and Celtic would be top. Turn around the Hearts result and we would not just be top, we would be champions right now and chasing a domestic treble, not a double.

O’Neill’s win ratio bears that out.

There is nothing to suggest this is not true. Two of the defeats in that period were against Hearts and the Ibrox club, and both managers of those two clubs have been cruising on those results for months, even though it is blatantly obvious that Nancy was the contributing factor in those bad performances.

Four of the losses they are talking about today, the ones supposedly giving us the worst record of any potential champion in more than 90 years, came under him. They are part of the reason he only lasted eight games.

He was an historic aberration.

Fortunately, even this board, which hired him in the first place, realised its mistake quickly enough to correct it.

This is important to note.

Martin O’Neill had to drag this team up from the floor not once this season, but twice. The second time was in circumstances that are barely imaginable.

So yes, Celtic will be worthy champions if we get across the line.

Yes, O’Neill will be worthy of Manager of the Year if he does it.

I do not care how many snipers come out of the woodwork to suggest otherwise. I do not care what lies they tell themselves. It is blatantly obvious that O’Neill has the best form in the league. His team has the best form in the league.

Some people want to pay tribute to the fairy tale of Hearts, and that fairy tale may yet have a happy ending.

But if it does not, the man who hijacked that ending will deserve every bit of credit he gets.

So will this team.

I know it is not important whether Celtic get the credit or not, as long as we get the title. But by God, these men will have earned it.

Nobody, no matter how petty, no matter how angry, no matter how frustrated, has the right to try to take that away from them.

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