What's Love Got To Do With It?

Craig Gordon told a revealing story at the weekend, the punchline of which should give his Celtic manager Ronny Deila plenty to think about on the long journey to Azerbaijan for the Champions League qualifier with Qarabag on Wednesday night.

The anecdote surrounded the time Gordon got off Celtic's team bus for a game that came early in his time of rehabilitation from lengthy injury problems, only to be harangued by one of his own club's supporters for having once tried to score a goal against Celtic while playing for Hearts.

Gordon's offence had been to come up for a belated corner kick and try to help snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat.

The rescue act failed, the game was lost and Celtic went on to win another league title.

But the act of deserting his own goal in order to see if he could penetrate Celtic's defence was seen as an act of treachery by the outraged supporter. His conspiracy theory was that Craig was doing all he could to deprive Celtic of a win in order to help Rangers take advantage of the points dropped.

This is the kind of convoluted, and tortured, thinking that keeps grown men off their sleep at night and causes them to suspect sabotage at every turn.

However the main point of the story is that the same fan who publicly questioned Gordon's commitment to the cause at Celtic Park then approached the player at the end of the season to ask for his jersey as a treasured souvenir.

The story of revolving rationale is revealing for three reasons.

(A) It proves that Craig has a tremendous eye for a face if he can remember a critic turned acolyte as easily as that.

(B) It shows the dubious value of the average conspiracy theory as it applies to the game of football.

And (C) Gordon's tale underlines how fickle, and hypocritical, fans can be when the mood takes them.

Football doesn't do unconditional love and the sooner Deila accepts that is the case, the better it'll be for him.

The Ronny Roar will become the Ronny Rumpus if Celtic don't beat Qarabag and the fans who have turned the Celtic manager into a cult figure over the last twelve months will reserve the right to perform a 360 degree turn, emotionally speaking, if they are denied the Champions League.

Interest in Celtic's domestic doings has waned in the years since Rangers' mismanagement took the club into exile in Scottish football's lower orders, and that interest will not be fully revived until Mark Warburton wins the Ibrox side promotion at the end of the season that begins with the home win over St. Mirren in the Championship on Friday night.

There will still be Celtic fans who say they have no interest in the Old Firm being re-invented and put back on the market but their case lacked credibility in the first place and can now be just about heard as a fading cry in the wilderness.

But that domestic issue is on the back burner for the next twelve months.

in the meantime Celtic need the fifteen million pound financial boost that comes with entry to the Champions League group stages and the adrenaline rush provided for fans who willingly fork out to see a level of football which actually fires their imagination.

If Ronny can't provide that then it's surely only a matter of time before Celtic find somebody who can.

The club's principal shareholder Dermot Desmond made a rare appearance at Celtic Park last Wednesday to take in the first leg of the tie against Qarabag and have a pre-match meeting with Deila.

"He runs the club in a good way," the manger said afterwards. "Everything we create, we can use."

But if there's no Champions league there's no money to be devoted to investment in the team because the compensation package, a possible place in the Europa League, doesn't provide revenue on that scale.

And elimination from the Champions League means, in all probability, the sale of Virgil Van Dijk, to meet the cost of failure.

It's galling that Celtic, the champions of their own country, must endure three qualifying rounds to gain entry to a competition densely populated by teams who didn't win domestic titles, but who said life was fair ?

Celtic are now deep into the jungle and the usual rules of survival will apply against Qarabag.

The manager has to pick the right team to begin with. Then he has to make sure that his substitutions, whenever they are made, are the right ones.

Neither obligation was fulfilled a year ago when Deila provided a car crash watch for the fans as Celtic were thumped by Legia Warsaw, only to be trumped by Maribor when an administrative error allowed Celtic a second crack at qualification.

What happens now with regard to Leigh Griffiths, an habitual goalscorer, and Nadir Ciftci up front is conundrum number one.

And why wouldn't you play Kris Commons when the roly poly one currently looks sharper than many other options behind the main striker ?

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it, even though having a firmly held conviction has apparently turned into a punishable offence in the early stages of a season already littered with journalists banned from Ibrox.

Been there. Done that. Got the tee shirt.

Best to have the courage of your convictions and say what you think in a forthright, law abiding manner. Otherwise you'll develop a speech impediment while trying to construct an answer that appeases and pleases any club in general.

Tongue tied trawling for weasel words is a waste of time. Say what you think and shame the Devil, so long as you don't construct a case for legal proceedings at the same time.

Celtic need to emerge triumphant from their game on Wednesday night or Gordon's former accuser turned admirer will be off and running on a fresh campaign of disruption that'll make the haranguing of the goalkeeper look like an act of friendship.

And that's a fact.

• Hugh Keevins