Dilly Ding. Dilly Dong.

Dilly Ding. Dilly dong. The alarm has gone off at Celtic Park.

The title has officially been wrapped up, in spite of Efe Ambrose's best efforts, with Sunday's win over Aberdeen. Five in a row has been achieved and the Dalmarnock Decima, the dreamed of ten titles in succession, is halfway towards being achieved

It might not exactly be Real Madrid's Decima, ten European Cups or Champions League successes, but in our parochial world the first member of the Old Firm to get to Ten in a Row will have achieved immortality.

All that Celtic require now on the way to seeing if dreams really do come true is a manager to replace Ronny Deila, who is one presentation of the championship trophy and a final Ronny Roar away from being on a page of Celtic's history that is about to be turned over.

Who the replacement will be is falling into the same, mysterious category as "Who shot J.R?"

The list of names in the frame is lengthy, varied and able to be whittled down by a process of elimination.

David Moyes and Brendan Rogers? Unlikely arrivals while there's work to be had in England.

Martin O'Neill? Unanimously loved and respected but not even given a bookmaker's odds of getting the job, suggesting it's already been well established there'll be no emotional return to the ground where he built the best Celtic team since the Lisbon Lions during his memorable stay in the first part of the Millennium.

The rest inspire animated debate over their merits and demerits.

Whoever it is will require broad shoulders as well as a thick skin because the job has become a double edged sword.

Deila didn't have Rangers to contend with in a league that he won twice, but his total inability to handle the Champions League qualifiers ultimately did for him at a club where the revenue from that competition is much sought after.

The next guy , however, will have to bear the burden of qualification and all its financial consequences as well as be aware that normal service has been resumed on the domestic front.

Rangers are back in the top flight, will strengthen their promotion-winning squad and are sure to be Celtic's main challengers for the title next season.

To say so infuriates Aberdeen supporters, but where is the evidence they can get in between the Old Firm, far less finish above the pair of them to win their first title since 1985?

Naill McGinn said after Sunday's defeat in Glasgow that, on reflection, the only thing Aberdeen's season had lacked was consistency. Well, excuse me, but consistency is the only thing that matters over a thirty-eight game season.

And the lack of it is why Aberdeen, or any other club outside of Glasgow, will fail to take the title from Celtic or Rangers for the foreseeable future.

You can forget all this stuff about Leicester City and Claudio Ranieri having given everyone reason to believe that anything is possible in the future. It just doesn't stack up when Celtic and Rangers have the financial clout to make significant changes if anything looks like derailing their ambitions in any particular direction.

Motherwell's manager, Mark McGhee, floated the possibility of his club being able to do a Leicester one day. That was shortly before it was announced the players are being asked to take a wage cut to accomodate financial constraints at Fir Park.

I wouldn't be booking Motherwell's Civic Centre for any title-winning celebrations just yet.

The reality is only Celtic and Rangers have the money, the depth of squad, the mentality and the ambition to be the big fish in a small pond.

All the rest are guilty of drinking in the Leicester hype and feeding off the unrealistic notion that they can somehow confound logic and reason. It just won't happen.

A tweeter to Superscoreboard on Sunday asked me if I thought Celtic's European final appearance in Seville in 2003 would have happened so soon after they had gone out of the Scottish Cup to Inverness Caley Thistle, but that is making my point for me.

Of course it was possible.

Celtic had changed John Barnes for Martin O'Neill and thrown tens of millions of pounds at the team. That's what they can do while others are working on a hand to mouth basis. It happened then and it'll happen now if a scaled down tranche of money has to be spent.

But who'd be the next guy in at Celtic Park? The Champions League is a must. Finishing above Rangers is a pre-requisite of keeping your job. And woe betide the man who falls short of delivering the Dalmarnock Decima and devastates the support.

Getting rid of Ambrose is the first thing the appointee had better do under those circumstances.

That and sorting out the rest of a squad with plenty of deadwood in it before pre-season training starts and the first Champions League qualifier takes place in mid-July.

The Celtic hierarchy may know who the new man is and just aren't telling.

The Celtic hierarchy may not know who the new man is and are open to suggestions.

Either way, the clock is ticking.