Celtic are a step closer to Hampden (again) and a club at peace with itself.

A cup quarter-final reached easily, comfortably and with room to spare. And a quarter-final means Celtic are now one game away from another trip to Hampden.

We were there four times last season. Four times the season before that. Twice the season before that and four times the season before that. I could go on, but you get the point. There is no other ground in Scottish football we have visited as regularly as Hampden in recent years, and now we are one match away from going back again.

To have reached Hampden four times last season in what was, at various points, an extremely messy campaign was almost unbelievable. For Brendan Rodgers to have got us there four times the season before was rather more believable because, well, it was Rodgers. The only surprising thing was that we lost one of those games, just as we lost one of them last season.

If we get there four times this season, I suspect we will have a very substantial collection of silverware to show for it.

Nine goals in the last two matches. The Ibrox fans were ready to casually dismiss last week’s performance against Kilmarnock because it was only Kilmarnock. Today Celtic went to a ground where they themselves struggled badly and we could have run up something approaching a cricket score.

And Dundee United did not even play particularly badly.

We were simply better.

Materially better. Comfortably better. Better by a significant margin.

That is why Celtic are in the next round of the cup and why we can now look forward to the quarter-final draw without particularly caring who comes out of the hat.

At this moment, I genuinely don’t care.

Send us anywhere.

There is always one ground everybody fears being sent to, but if that means St Mirren Park, fine. So be it. They are the holders. At some point somebody has to remove them from the competition if we are going to win it.

Why shouldn’t it be us?

There is still rustiness in some of the players. Kasper Høgh was excellent today without getting his goal. Camilo Durán was outstanding. We did not really get enough time to make a serious judgement on the two newest signings, although I liked some of what I saw.

But I’ll go one better than that.

Two players from last season’s team looked absolutely outstanding.

The first is Benjamin Nygren.

I am done, done, done slagging him off. His productivity last season was excellent even during spells when I was not entirely convinced by him as an all-round midfielder. But he has picked up exactly where he left off.

Goals. Assists. Energy. Quality. He is flying.

Whatever tactical system Martin O’Neill ultimately settles on, he now has to find a way of accommodating this guy because Nygren increasingly looks like somebody who is going to be central to smashing teams apart this season.

And then there is Sebastian Tounekti.

I never thought I would be writing this either. He came off the bench last week, got an assist and played very well. Today he was outstanding.

At times he was almost unplayable.

If reports that clubs are interested in taking him on loan are accurate, then I hope Celtic are putting those conversations on hold. Because if Tounekti can perform like that with any regularity, we may have another significant player on our hands.

Yes, it is early. Yes, it is only two performances. But that is now two good performances in succession — one from the bench and one from the start.

And perhaps this is his response to the quality which has suddenly been added around him. Perhaps he knows that if he wants to remain part of this Celtic squad, if he wants to play regularly and perhaps even remain at the club, then the standard has changed. There are some players who are like that.

He has to improve. He has to deliver. He has to do it consistently. We already knew there was something there because we saw flashes of it last season.

But flashes are not enough. If he makes this three good games, four good games, five good games in succession, then suddenly we are no longer talking about flashes. We are talking about form. Keep it going longer still and we are talking about consistency.

And that will change a lot of people’s minds.

What excites me most, though, is that watching Celtic is exciting again. A couple of weeks ago — and is it really only a couple of weeks? It feels much longer — I wrote that some of the joy had gone out of watching this team.

The anticipation before games was not what it used to be.

That feeling has come roaring back.

I did not want today’s game to end. I could easily have watched another twenty minutes or half an hour and barely noticed the time passing.

And I am going to talk about this in much more detail tomorrow, because there is a lesson here which I desperately hope this board of directors finally absorbs.

Give supporters reasons to believe. Give them something to be excited about and that excitement manifests itself in the stands. It feeds into the players. It changes the atmosphere around the club. Optimism replaces dread. Excitement replaces anger. Anticipation replaces resignation. That is what supporting Celtic should feel like.

The summer was not healthy. It was not enjoyable. It was deeply uncomfortable watching so many supporters lose faith in the direction of the club.

There will inevitably be people now claiming that all of that anger was unnecessary and that supporters simply needed to trust the process.

That’s bullshit. The needle had to move. And it did move.

Part of the reason Celtic supporters are now watching quality attacking players tearing into opponents is precisely because the fanbase was no longer prepared to tolerate continued backsliding. Neither was the manager.

Martin O’Neill deserves enormous credit for what we are seeing now because it is becoming increasingly obvious that he has a plan.

He knows how he wants this team to approach games.

He knows the type of footballers he wants. He knows the attributes he believes the squad needs. He has spoken about experimenting with different tactical formations, and I will come back to that tomorrow because there are some fascinating choices developing there.

But the immediate effect is unmistakable.

Between O’Neill and the new signings, Celtic Park feels revitalised. Confidence has returned. That matters enormously with Wednesday approaching.

Get through that tie and one of the central objectives of Martin’s return will already have been accomplished.

There will still be arguments to have afterwards. There will still be issues inside Celtic which need resolved. There are still people at this club who have managed to eliminate almost every vestige of trust supporters once had in them, and frankly it would be better for everybody if some of them eventually moved on.

None of that disappears because Celtic have suddenly started playing exciting football. But supporters want reasons to believe. They want reasons to be inspired.

They want joy. They want energy. They want passion. They want to spend the days before a Celtic match actually looking forward to it.

And right now that is the overriding emotion again.

Bring on the next game. Bring on the next opponent. Bring on the next challenge.

And let’s see whether they can stop us.

Because at this moment, Celtic look like a team which is beginning to enjoy crushing whatever is put in front of it.

Goddamn, it’s good to be back.

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