Use Your Loaf When it Comes to Bread and Butter

There are times when you owe it to your own intelligence to concede that some things are bigger than all of us and admit any resistance is useless.

Ronny Deila made Celtic league champions in all but name with Sunday's comprehensive mauling of Aberdeen. Only the formality of mathematical certainty remains.

A treble which gives Deila access to that page in Celtic's history where previous holders of that distinction, Jock Stein and Martin O'Neill, are named is also forming as more of a probability than a possibility.

The weekend has suddenly crystalised the reality of Celtic's situation. The title is won and a distressed, disoriented Dundee United stand between them and progress to the Scottish Cup's last four and the winners' rostrum at the League Cup final.

And when you're losing two-nil to Partick Thistle at Tannadice then the prospect of Jackie McNamara's side halting Celtic's formidable momentum would appear to be non-existent.

You also owe it to your own intelligence to accept the fates are conspiring in Celtic's favour where the clean sweep of the major honours is concerned.

United fans could argue their support for the club was betrayed by Tannadice chairman Steven Thompson when he sold Gary Mackay-Steven and Stuart Armstrong to Celtic but neither will be eligible to play when Deila's team face United at Tannadice and Hampden.

They'll be missed, but their absence won't materially affect Celtic's progress.

The question now is, for how much longer can the soon to be four time champions enjoy supremacy without serious opposition?

It's a query which ought to exercise Dave King's mind more than anybody else at a time when the Celtic fans are publicly chanting about being on their way to an historic ten league wins in a row.

Your own intelligence tells you King will, following the resignation of Rangers' chairman David Somers, have control of Rangers by the time the team plays at Cowdenbeath on Saturday.

One despised regime goes, another, fan-approved, set of suits takes over at Ibrox.

King may provoke anger among those who say he isn't a fit and proper person for a football boardroom, having been found guilty of forty-one tax offences against the South African Revenue Service and paid a considerable sum of money to avoid a lengthy prison term

That's the SFA's hot potato to handle where the man described by the South African courts as a "glib and shameless liar" is concerned.

In the meantime King has to trust in his ability to make a persuasive case for assuming power at Ibrox and work towards the re-financing of the club, the appointment of a new manager and the signing of a fresh squad of players.

King himself has estimated a spend of somewhere in the region of £25m to carry out those functions and speculated on three to five years being necessary to restore Rangers to something like normal service.

In other words, no more draws at Falkirk on a Friday night that are described as a point gained while a player like Kris Boyd can say afterwards that nobody fears Rangers any more and they might have to fight to make the play-offs at the end of this season.

King began the long road back to prominence at Ibrox by pressing the right buttons. He told the Rangers fans that if they didn't back his fight to un-seat the sitting board of directors then there was a danger Celtic might win ten in a row.

He became the Man With The Plan at that precise moment.

You can dwell on boardroom machinations for as long as you like, but what really motivates the rank and file supporters is an ancient rivalry that has become a one-sided argument.

If Celtic won Ten in a Row the fall-out from taking the bragging rights into their personal possession would be substantial.

And they'll have reached the halfway stage while Rangers are still in the lower leagues unless a poor team can contradict a groundswell of opinion that Kenny McDowall's side aren't good enough to survive the play-offs.

Fans' expectations can be a problem for clubs who'd like to see realism coming before fantasy, but the Rangers support have now spent a lot of money acquiring shares while gaining a foothold within Ibrox.

That's why King's honeymoon period will be short lived and the deliverance of an immediate future that is far more optimistic than Rangers' recent past will be demanded before Celtic get any closer to their goal of going where no team has gone before in terms of league success.