O'Neill is still the Blessed Martin

As this article is being written Celtic need three points to secure the league championship for the second year in succession. While accepting that it's never wise to tempt fate, the chances of the Hoops losing the last five league games and Rangers winning all of theirs - one of which is at Parkhead - would seem about as likely as Barry Ferguson being invited to address the Oxford Union Dialectic Society next month.

After last year's triumphant romp to the title we were assured by the Scottish football experts that Rangers were going to come "roaring back... stronger than ever... blah ... determined to regain the title... blah blah ... millions of pounds... blah blah blah... David Murray's private jet ... blah blah blah blah ".

We heard it and read it all and couldn't decide whether to form a mass cowardly cringe in the Walfrid car park or simply gape at the incredulity of anybody daft enough to believe this kind of stuff.

As it happened, our scepticism proved well founded. Neither the mythical private jet nor the extraordinary supernatural power of Murray Park were enough to oust Celtic from top spot in the table, where we've been for the best part of two full seasons now.

It couldn't even be said that they sustained their title challenge for longer than their predecessors. Last season's league championship was over after the second Old Firm game in October which saw the Hoops open up a nine point gap between themselves and the Huns. This season it was September when Celtic disappeared ten points over the horizon. The flowers were still in bloom as Dick's Rangers career wilted like a saggy pee-the-bed.

The Rug had discovered that there is a simple mathematical formula for working out the longevity of a Rangers manager; five defeats in two years against Celtic equals P45.

Would that it were so simple of course. In order to cement the special relationship that David Murray has with his little genital, instead of carting him off to the Job Centre, DM has contrived a position for Advocaat in the mythical land of "Upstairs". In a fiasco worthy of anything the old Celtic board could dream up, Dick will be allowed to sook a million pounds a year or so from the already depleted Ibrox coffers in return for ... well, it's not too clear, but you're bound to see plenty of references in the papers to the unlimited scope for odd jobs around the place that Advocaat has had a hand in.

Having seen off one opponent, O'Neill prepared himself for whoever might be Dick's tag partner, the next one in line for a smack down. Anxious to restore some credibility in the midst of a season that was once again beginning to go Titanic-shaped, Murray turned to one of the best and highly respected coaches in the game anywhere in Europe. A man with a proven track record and one on whom he was prepared to invest the future of his football club, not to mention the family jewels - Murray Park.

But the man fitting this description wasn't available so he got Big Eck from Hibs on an eighteen month deal instead, on the pragmatic premise that he might not be good but at least he's cheap.

Completely understandable in view of the financial state the Huns find themselves in at the moment. As one prominent economist put it, "They're rooked."

Hailed as a tactical genius following the farcical League Cup semi-final, incredibly the tide was already turning when he couldn't manufacture a win at Ibrox in the last Old Firm game. He's still on honeymoon thanks to the fact that everything is being blamed on Dick's diddies. That will soon change once Eck's diddies are revealed in all their glory. Life expectancy in the Ibrox hot seat is estimated at around nine months, depending on results against Celtic next season.

Once the panic button had been pressed at the Death Star it only remained for the gloss to be taken off Celtic's stately progress to the championship by the media. To this end they have tried to use several sticks to beat the Celts, with varying degrees of ferocity.

The "grinding out results" line is one which has been used consistently to somehow detract from Celtic victories in the Premier League. While not very sure what is the difference between a victory and a "ground out" victory, maybe when the classifieds are read out at five on a Saturday afternoon the announcer to make clear to the listeners that although Celtic did win by a single goal margin this, in effect, is cheating.

Another underhand tactic employed by Celtic this season was to score lots of goals from set-plays. This scoring goals from free-kicks and corners mallarkey is simply not the kind of thing that teams in the SPL should be doing (see Aberdeen's Red Arrows impersonation at corners for the way it should be done) and is worthy of Johnny Foreigner at his worst. At the very least the laws of the game should have been changed once Celtic started exploiting these loopholes to score goals.

Towards the end of the season, in the wake of the Bobogate, Celtic were being criticised for an over-physical style of play. The Hoops had bullied their way to another league title, pushing aside nice boys like the Rangers, stealing their dinner money before kicking them and running away.

Unfortunately the facts don't tend to bear this out. Celtic are actually the second best behaved team in the league (after Rangers incredibly enough). If it was possible to massacre your way to the SPL trophy then Motherwell would have had it wrapped up by last August. Even the old "Rangers plagued by injuries" sketch won't stand up this time. Celtic have cantered away with it having to without the services at some time or other of Valgaeren, Sutton, Agathe, Petta and Petrov, all of whom would have been first team picks.

Yes, it has been another outstanding achievement by OFM and his troops. Just one defeat, as we go to print, and twenty clean sheets says more than all the dribbling hacks can about this season's title triumph.

As for Europe, if it was signs of progress we wanted we got them in spades; far from being embarrassed in or first season in the Champions League, Celtic won more points in the competition than Rangers ever have and came within the proverbial of achieving what would have been a stunning entry into the second phase. Accepting the fact that any team can be on the receiving end of a doing in the CL (just ask Man United) it all came down to a German referee in Turin who had had his spine replaced with a Robertson's jelly and a horrible first 45 minutes in Trondheim which saw Harald reprise his hugely successful starring role as The Ghost of Christmas Past.

All that was needed was the luck of the draw in the UEFA Cup to continue playing in Europe after Santa had been - a major achievement if we are to go by the media coverage of Rangers in the same competition; Valencia wasn't it.

Still, European nights are back with a bang at Celtic Park and we're already looking forward to more of the same next season assuming Celtic aren't handed a Valencia-style draw in the qualifying round.

All of which would suggest that we're in for another summer of tabloid tosh about where O'Neill is going, which of our star players are leaving and who Rangers will be signing. Not to mention how the Huns will come "roaring back ... blah ... stronger than ever ... blah blah ... private jet..."

This is where I came in. Enjoy the party and onwards to three in a row!

JB BANAL

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