Celtic were winners yesterday. But we didn’t play like Champions.

So, Celtic won yesterday and we are all pleased about it. We beat St Mirren 2-1, and yes, I am happy. Of course I am happy. I am a Celtic supporter, and when Celtic win I want to enjoy the three points, celebrate the goals and see the positives.

But have I seen the Celtic I saw against Aberdeen? No.

Have I seen that Celtic Park performance, that 3-0 demolition, that hunger, that power, that aggression, that feeling that Celtic were simply going to swallow their opponents whole? No.

Have I seen Champions? No.

And that is what bothers me.

Because I know this Celtic team can play like Champions. We have already seen it. That Aberdeen performance wasn’t some mythical footballing fantasy I invented because I was sitting in front of my laptop with my Celtic glasses and scarf on.

It happened. I watched Celtic tear Aberdeen apart with intensity, confidence and an almost frightening desire to win. That Celtic had teeth. That Celtic had fire. That Celtic looked like a team which knew exactly who it was.

So why, for God’s sake, does so much of that disappear the moment Celtic play away from Paradise sometimes? This is the question I keep asking myself.

I don’t expect Celtic to win every away game 5-0. I am not completely detached from reality. Football doesn’t work like that. Away grounds are difficult, opponents sit deeper, pitches can be awkward, refereeing decisions can go against you and sometimes you simply have to grind out three points.

But there is a difference between winning ugly and looking like a team which has temporarily misplaced its personality.

And that is where I am struggling.

I want Celtic to develop that mentality of Champions everywhere, not just at Celtic Park. Because Champions don’t become Champions only when they walk through the gates of Paradise. Champions carry that mentality with them. They take it to Paisley, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and everywhere else.

That is precisely what I want to see from Celtic.

Against St Mirren, we got the win. Yang scored a brilliant goal. Scales scored another brilliant goal. There were moments of quality, and I am absolutely not going to sit here pretending Celtic were terrible.

But I came away thinking: where is that monster I saw against Aberdeen?

Where is the Celtic that hunts? Where is the Celtic that suffocates? Where is the Celtic that makes opponents feel as though they are being chased by eleven green-and-white nightmares? That is the Celtic I want.

And I know it exists. That is why I am frustrated.

If I had never seen it, perhaps I would accept that this is simply what Celtic are. But I have seen it. I have watched them produce it. Once you have tasted that level of performance, it becomes impossible not to demand it again.

Then, of course, we come to that disallowed goal. The second one. James covered the first in his piece; a shocking decision. I mean the Shumaira Mheuka one.

New Celtic player. New loan signing from Chelsea. Young, hungry, desperate to make an impression. And he thought he had scored.

I thought he had scored too. For me, that goal was perfectly fine, and yes, I am going to say it: I simply don’t understand how it was denied. Because it was given. There was an on field decision. There was no VAR determination. What we got instead was a referee studying a still image and making a decision based on it.

Since when is that how it is done? Maybe somebody will explain it to me in a way that makes sense. Maybe somebody will produce actual VAR lines which prove it one way or another? If they exist, let’s see them. If they don’t exist, there was no valid basis on which to turn down the goal. It’s that simple.

This is exactly the sort of decision which makes supporters lose their minds. I am not going to accuse a referee of deliberately favouring St Mirren without evidence, although believe me, in the heat of the moment my Ginger Witch instincts were screaming considerably less diplomatic things.

Let’s just say I wasn’t sitting there thinking, what a magnificent piece of officiating.

Quite the opposite. I wondered what he was doing.

I thought we’d killed the game. We hadn’t, and that’s frustrating anyway. Because that is another thing I want to see from this Celtic side. Kill games. If you are Champions, don’t leave yourself vulnerable to a stupid refereeing decision, a deflection, a late corner, a horrible bounce or one moment of madness. Score the third. Score the fourth. Take the bloody game away from everybody.

That is what Aberdeen showed me. That Celtic didn’t look satisfied with being better. They looked hungry to destroy. And I want that hunger all the time.

I want Celtic to stop treating Paradise like the place where they become superheroes and everywhere else like they have left their superpowers in the dressing room. Because Celtic are not a part-time football club.

The badge doesn’t become smaller because we are playing away. The expectation doesn’t disappear because the supporters are surrounded by opposition fans. And the mentality cannot be conditional.

This is where I think Martin O’Neill has an enormous job to do.

He has to make Celtic understand that winning is not enough if we want to be genuinely ambitious. There needs to be an identity. There needs to be consistency. There needs to be that psychological brutality which says: we are Celtic, we came here to win, now move.

Perhaps that sounds dramatic. Good. I am a Celtic supporter. Drama comes with the territory. I don’t want sterile football. I don’t want Celtic simply collecting points while I spend ninety minutes wondering whether we are going to wake up.

I want to feel something.

I want to see hunger. I want to see players fighting for every ball as though it personally offended them. I want to see the opposition terrified of giving Celtic an inch. Most importantly, I want to see the same Celtic home and away.

Because if we genuinely want to call ourselves Champions, and I absolutely believe we will when this season is finished, then the mentality has to travel. It cannot be left sitting somewhere inside Celtic Park.

So yes, Celtic won 2-1. Yang scored a brilliant goal. Scales scored a brilliant goal. Three points are three points. But I am going to be greedy. I want more.

I want the Celtic I saw against Aberdeen. I want the hunger. I want the power. I want the mentality. I want the fire.

And when Celtic finds a way to take all of that with it on the road, rather than leaving it behind at Paradise, then I will look at this team and say: Yes.

Now THAT looks like Champions.

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