The fat lady has yet to sing

Published 22nd Apr 2019

Celtic give off the appearance of a team who are on all fours and crawling towards the finishing line in the league title race while suffering from mental and physical exhaustion.

Now there's talk of Kieran Tierney's season being at a premature end due to injury, while doubt remains if Scott Brown will be able to lend a hand at a vital time due to the threat of suspension over the gesture he made at the end of the win over Rangers.

Players, as Neil Lennon is sometimes wont to say, are human beings and not robots. And human frailty is coming to the fore now in a way which suggests the end to the championship could yet be fraught with tension.

Brown might have been part of an SAS-style draw with Hibs at Easter Road, not so much Who Dares Wins as Shoddy and Shabby, but he nevertheless contributed in a significant fashion that made him stand out above all others in Lennon's team.

To lose the captain now, when there is clearly no-one else with his indomitable spirit, would be a blow to the interim manager's plans.

When Celtic went fourteen points clear at the top of the league table earlier this month, I said on Superscoreboard that there were times when you owed it to your own intelligence to say the championship was over.

Now it seems only fair to say that there is still a bit of work to be done, starting with Saturday's home match against Kilmarnock.

Pittodrie and then Ibrox will come in between that game and the last time Celtic will play at home this season, against Hearts on May 19.

Anything other than a home win over Steve Clarke's side would have a troublesome effect on Celtic's equilibrium, and that of their fans.

And what of the interim manager at the same time?

Lennon was handed a difficult task when he was asked to step into the breach at Celtic Park following Brendan Rodgers' sudden departure for Leicester City.

The outgoing boss left his temporary successor an eight point cushion at the top of the league, which is now nine points.

If Lennon wins the title there will be some who will say he was handed it on a plate. If he should somehow contrive to lose the title it would be a collapse that lived on in infamy for who knows the length of time.

There was much hilarity when Rangers' chairman Dave King used an open letter to the club's supporters to write about his club being within tangible distance of dominating Scottish football.

The words were taken by his detractors and filed under the heading of things you might wish you had never said.

Like Pedro Caixinha taking to the shrubbery outside the ground belonging to Luxembourg's fourth best team and spouting words of alleged defence after Rangers had gone out of Europe.

Or Rangers putting the word 'Concommitant' into a statement to suggest that Derek McInnes wasn't really a good manager anyway after he had rejected their advances to leave Aberdeen and become the number one man at Ibrox.

But there must be a feeling of regret among all associated with Rangers that the team has failed to take advantage of a Celtic side now showing visible signs of wear and tear.

Belated wins over the likes of Hearts, Dundee and Rangers have left Celtic within touching distance of the title, but periodic failure to win matches they ought to have won have seen Steven Gerrard's side contribute towards the position in which they find themselves.

And the position in which they find themselves is the one where you attempt to kick yourself for being so wasteful.

Rangers could have been touch tight with Celtic at the top of the table but for their own neglect. Now they can only hope someone does them a favour or two before the end of the season, while they have to accept full responsibility for what happens when Lennon brings his team to Ibrox on May 12.

The fat lady has yet to sing and tension is rising.

One Celtic supporting caller to Superscoreboard at the weekend referred to the once revered Rodgers as 'Judas' on several occasions, betraying the sense of bitterness felt over the former manager's betrayal of the fans' trust.

The feeling of certainty the supporters had regarding all things when Rodgers was in charge of the team has now gone and been replaced by a debate over Lennon's entitlement to the manager's job on a permanent basis.

Nothing can be taken for granted between now and the end of the season, remarkable as it may seem.

Brown's SFA hearing to refute any suggestion that he did anything untoward at the end of the Old Firm game now becomes a potentially pivotal moment.

If the captain is removed from the picture for a time when there is no adequate replacement for him then things could yet get even more interesting.

Rarely can a home match against Kilmarnock have carried as much significance as the one which will take place at lunch-time on Saturday.