Celtic fans should never tire of mocking our hapless rivals.

One of the more ridiculous ideas doing the rounds on social media today is that Celtic supporters somehow prove themselves parochial or small-minded by having a good laugh at what is happening at Ibrox. I reject that charge completely, and anyone thinking along those lines seriously needs to get a grip.

There is nothing small-minded or stupid about mocking your rivals when they have suffered a major blow. Last night was not merely a reversal for them, it was a catastrophe, and there is no point pretending it has no relevance to Celtic because obviously it does.

It puts their team under enormous pressure. It has turned large sections of their support against the players, put the manager under a spotlight and made him an immediate target for the fury in the stands. And let’s face it, Ibrox sometimes looks like one enormous hate group searching desperately for somebody new to despise.

Even simply in terms of the damage done to the cohesion of their club, it is worth paying attention to. It is worth feeling good about, and yes, it is worth laughing at.

There are obvious financial considerations too, although some of those are not immediately visible because their club is currently embarked on a deranged spending spree which nobody outside the building can fully explain. That spending will have consequences somewhere else along the road, and there is no getting around that, especially if they cannot shift key players before the window closes.

The need for sales is crystal clear. The fact they have not yet managed to complete the major ones they appear to need is already damaging, and every day the window gets closer to closing makes their position more interesting.

But look at the coverage on this site and on most other serious Celtic fan-media outlets and you will immediately notice something the people making these criticisms apparently do not want to acknowledge.

Nobody has forgotten the state our own club is in.

Nothing that happened at Ibrox last night has changed my view that the people running Celtic are not fit for purpose and should be removed from their positions. Nothing about their European catastrophe changes my disgust at what happened to us against LASK, or my anger at the decisions which left us vulnerable to it.

Apparently, some of us are capable of holding two ideas in our heads at exactly the same time. Two ideas which do not contradict each other.

You can believe Celtic are run by amateurs while simultaneously recognising that the Ibrox club remains a magnificent source of amusement because somehow, against all expectations, they have managed to outdo even us in the amateur stakes.

That is not merely important. It is objectively fucking funny.

Some people seem to expect Celtic supporters to spend the rest of the season wallowing in uninterrupted misery about our own situation. I am delighted to disappoint them. That is not going to happen.

I do not feel one ounce less furious about Celtic because I am laughing at Ibrox. I do not feel any less disgusted by our performance in Austria, and I do not think for a second that one catastrophe across the city suddenly makes our own disaster acceptable.

But if anybody thinks I am going to pass up an opportunity for a little light relief because apparently, I have some moral obligation to remain permanently miserable, they are out of their minds.

Nor should anybody else in our support feel remotely guilty about enjoying it.

The idiotic commentary suggesting that some Celtic fans suddenly think everything is fine does not really deserve an answer, but I will give it one anyway.

Show me who has said that.

Show me the Celtic writer, supporter or fan-media outlet who has declared that everything is suddenly wonderful because the mob across the city went out of Europe.

Show me where it has been written. Show me who believes it.

And if you somehow manage to find somebody stupid enough to have said it, then subject them to all the mockery they deserve.

Because that proposition is lunacy.

It is just not one I am aware of anybody actually making.

Acknowledging that things could be worse is not the same thing as saying things are fine. Things are not fine at Celtic. Almost nothing about the situation we find ourselves in is fine. We are deeply troubled by what we watched against LASK.

We are deeply troubled by the incoherent tactics, the individual performances and the structural failures which underpinned them. We are deeply troubled by a transfer policy which is stuck in the mud yet again, and by the possibility that the people responsible for the midweek catastrophe are now going to inflict even more damage on us as a consequence of the disaster they helped create.

All of us are still talking about it. All of us are still focused on it. And all of us are still directing the guns where they need to be directed.

What is happening at Ibrox is light relief, but it is also more than that because it carries major consequences and implications for this season and potentially several seasons beyond it. If you are not paying attention to that, if you are not thinking about it and factoring it into your considerations about Celtic, then you are not seeing the whole board.

You are not playing the full game.

And frankly, it is such a fun game.

We absolutely have to reckon with the problems inside our own house. Nobody is running away from that and nobody serious is denying it.

But let’s make something else equally clear. We have one serious rival in this country. Just one. No matter what Hearts supporters might tell themselves and no matter what their board might hope to become, Celtic have one major enemy in Scottish football, and that enemy has just inflicted a grotesque act of self-harm upon itself which even our own board would have struggled to replicate.

If you are not happy about that, even from a strategic perspective, you are simply not getting enough joy in your life.

And if you cannot understand why Celtic supporters enjoy it on a cultural and emotional level, then I think you are in denial about what football rivalry actually is.

The appalling state they are in is also one of the principal reasons why I despise the idea that Celtic should ever use them as any kind of benchmark.

If we benchmark ourselves against that mess, it is no wonder we occasionally stumble around in the dark because that is where they seem to spend most of their time.

Celtic should be aiming far higher. We should be aiming for more. We should be aiming to become better than anything Scottish football can offer and measuring ourselves against properly run European clubs rather than congratulating ourselves because the people across the city have somehow found another rake to step on.

But let me put this in absolutely unequivocal language.

I am never going to tire of the appalling state they are in. I am never going to find it anything other than hilarious. I am never going to stop laughing while people who sing about being up to their knees in my blood are suffering.

Their suffering is the sweetest wine. It is the first taste of the finest food. It is true love’s first kiss. Pick your cliché. Pick your analogy. They all mean exactly the same thing.

I love it. I take pleasure in it. I enjoy it.

And I do not feel the slightest bit bad about doing so.

You do not have to become intellectually dishonest about your own club in order to enjoy your rival’s misery. You do not have to pretend Celtic’s problems have vanished, and you do not need to recalibrate your entire worldview because somebody across the city has suffered an even worse week than we have.

You can demand the removal of Celtic’s board and still laugh at Ibrox. You can think our transfer strategy is a disgrace and still laugh at Ibrox. You can be furious about LASK and still laugh at Ibrox. You can think Celtic have squandered a major opportunity and still look across the city at something even more catastrophic and laugh until your sides hurt.

These things are not contradictory. They are perfectly compatible.

In fact, if anything, they demonstrate that you are paying attention to the entire competitive landscape rather than staring miserably at one square of the board.

Celtic’s problems remain Celtic’s problems. Ibrox’s problems remain hilarious. And as long as both of those things remain true, I intend to keep treating them accordingly.

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