The dust is still falling from the Sunday swatting of The Rangers and perhaps the most remarkable thing to digest was how routine the 3-0 victory was.
Most of us have too much experience to take anything for granted in football but, for me, I was finding it hard not to expect a comfortable win.
I couldn't see how we could lose, draw or even win narrowly and the 3-0 score seemed to be the likely acceptable minimum.
For fans of The Rangers, it seems, the expectations were exactly the converse. The saying goes that it's always darkest just before the dawn but for the antisocial neighbours, it seems that the dawning was of the realisation that their position is now cemented as Glasgow football's (possibly permanent) Hunderclass.
Listening to the media phone-ins and post-mortem discussions following such fixtures can be a task for fools, usually a mixture of delusion and denial, punctuated with some genuinely funny moments of anger. The aftermath of the latest statement of Celtic’s superiority, however, had an altogether different tone.
Pundits had run out of straws to clutch and fans of The Rangers took to the internet and airwaves to declare their hatred and contempt for everyone representing their club and utter despair for the future.
Where once everything was an act of defiance, bloggers, vloggers, Twitterers and callers lined up to sing from the same sheet: “Celtic are superior in every department and the gulf can only get wider.”
Suddenly, the notion that has sustained Scottish football that it must be an endless duality between a Celtic, still unloved by most paid to comment on the game, and the indestructible, immortal, risen Rangers seems shattered.
Fans and media shills who could not and would not accept the fact of the death of Rangers in 2012, now seem increasingly resigned to The Rangers MKII languishing eternally in purgatory, ever looking upwards to Celtic revelling in Paradise.
If many Celtic fans who endured the daily “in-your-faces” experience of the financial doping years will be hesitant to display the same hubris that came before the Rangers fall, there is nevertheless a compelling emerging narrative — that, this time, it’s different.
Strange things do happen in football — often through corruption nodded through by authorities that are more than willing to turn a blind eye to financial unfair play — so The Rangers may yet find a wealthy saviour of similar character and competence to the rogues gallery that have held sway at Ibrox since the 1980s.
But, without moving goalposts to artificially level the playing field, the dominance Celtic enjoys looks set to remain.
After finishing last season as champions but with a squad that most supporters agreed was inadequate for the challenges ahead, Celtic emphatically dominated the match with outfield players who had all been regulars when title 54 was secured. On the bench was approximately £30m of new talent, including our two record signings.
The game was all but won before Celtic paraded Arena Engels, Luke McCowan and James Forrest for his 500th club appearance.
With the transfer window now closed until January, it’s difficult to see what circumstances could allow The Rangers to close the gap and, with Celtic enjoying the superior wealth of the Champions League, the club looks likely to be set for further development over the coming 12 months.
Anyone who has seen a football club die, only for its imitators to be hailed as the real thing by authorities and media alike will know better than to take anything for granted. On the other hand, as an increasing number of The Rangers partisans are coming to terms with, the difference between our dominance and the old Rangers’ swagger show is stark. Ours is founded on a solid structure while their’s was built on sand.
And, if that does come to pass — “Espanyolification”, as it was once known or “being Everton to their Liverpool” as one desperate caller put it -- would it be such a bad thing? Paul Lambert may believe that Scottish football needs a strong club accepted as Rangers but their demise might well provide an opportunity for clubs from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Ayrshire and Dundee to find new opportunities and build something sustainable as Scottish football is realigned.
Before that is allowed to happen, we can expect the sort of dirty tricks that would put a referendum campaign to shame but, with fair play, it looks increasingly likely that Scottish football may have to be ready to accept new realities along with the surrender of the would-be supremacists.
No, Celtic don’t need “a strong Rangers” and neither does Scottish football. However hard The Rangers may scramble to reach for it, it seems that penny is finally dropping.
