Martin O’Neill’s victory story would be every bit as much a fairytale as McInnes’.

I always enjoy it when the media gets the story completely wrong. They got the story completely wrong last night.

They are writing about Derek McInnes, and only Derek McInnes, as if he is the only one on the brink of making history. Now, let us be clear. It would be a big deal for Derek McInnes if Hearts won the title. It would be a seismic achievement for him and for Hearts.

But in terms of making history, this will be an achievement for the ages if Martin O’Neill does it and it was good to see that the sportswriters put O’Neill on their shortlist.

They pretty much had to, because the original SFA awards shortlist was a joke.

The fact that we now have a better goal than the ones scored by Chermiti devalues that award too and shows how daft the way we do things is, just as the original Manager of the Year shortlist was devalued not having O’Neill on it.

If McInnes does not win anything and O’Neill wins a double, O’Neill deserves to win the award. But the media is framing all of this around McInnes.

What McInnes does. What McInnes says. What McInnes and his team might achieve.

There is still a general view that Celtic will not get through this and will not triumph. I looked at the Record predictions for Celtic’s game against Motherwell tonight, and exactly half of them took the draw, which I think they surmise will end our title hopes at a stroke.

It would not really end our title hopes. It would send us into the last game, provided Hearts had also won, needing a goal-difference turnaround. But the assumption that something will stop Celtic is still a big one in the minds of many hacks.

So, of course, this is framed as Derek McInnes’ big moment.

It was Eric on the podcast the other night who framed it best.

This is Martin O’Neill’s historic correction. Because the last time he was at Celtic, he left on one of the saddest notes any manager of this club ever has.

It was an absolute tragedy, the way O’Neill left Celtic without that final league title. All these years later, he has a chance to put it right.

All these years later, he has a chance to correct the record.

That, in itself, is history. That, in itself, is an amazing and wonderful football story.

But the world is not going to acknowledge our perfect version of this football story, even if we win this title. No one outside Celtic is going to talk about us in terms of the perfect football story.

As I have said for a couple of weeks now, the role assigned to us is that of the bad guys.

We are the spoilers. We are the party poopers.

We are the people who came in and ruined a wonderful narrative about Hearts getting their hands on the title, breaking Glasgow dominance and giving McInnes the award that, apparently, he has been deserving his whole football life.

All of it is tiresome. All of it is entirely fictitious and false.

But that is the story they are going to write.

Paulina did a piece earlier about Kevin Nolan’s idiotic comments, and I can tell you right now that this is how parts of the media are viewing the race. This is the lens through which they are looking at it.

They will say this would somehow be an undeserved title. They will say Hearts, McInnes and their team were more entitled to it. There will be resentment coming our way if Celtic spoil this fairy tale.

But as I said when I wrote about this before, it is not our job to make the fairy tale come true for the rest of Scottish football.

We are in this for ourselves. We are in this to win.

That is exactly what we are going to pursue.

The idea that there is something romantic and heartstring-tugging about McInnes winning this, but that the same does not apply to O’Neill, is manifestly false. O’Neill is in his 70s. He was in retirement. He was called out to become manager in an emergency. Now he stands on the brink of making history all on his own.

I do not think the McInnes story is more romantic than that.

I do not think the McInnes story is more compelling than that.

This is every bit as much a fairy tale.

It is just our fairy tale.

If O’Neill pulls this off, it could stand the test of time in the annals of Scottish football as one of the great title wins. That would be obvious if anyone outside Celtic could be bothered to see it that way.

But no one outside Celtic can.

No one outside Celtic will.

The O’Neill story is one of the best in the recent history of our game. It will be a wonderful story for Scottish football long into the future if he pulls this off. To not see the romance in it, and to not see the beauty in it, is simply to not want to.

Regardless, it is a fact.

They can talk about McInnes all they want. But while they may not get their fairy-tale ending, O’Neill would certainly be getting his.

And we would be getting ours.

Maybe that is enough.

Maybe that is all the credit in the bank O’Neill ever needs, and ever will.

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