Celtic’s season is starting to unravel, and you can’t say there’s not been an air of inevitability about what happened today

I’ve been talking about what we saw today for a long time.

I’ve been saying this has been coming, and today it came with bells on.

For a long time, I have not name checked Brendan Rodgers in all of the disfunction we’re witnessing at Celtic, but today has left me with no choice.

A big part, if not all, of that performance was down to him.

I’ve been critical of the board for a long time now, but I haven’t criticised Brendan Rodgers.

Today I have to.

Every bit of decision making at Rugby Park was wrong, from the team selection, the substitutions, down to the tactics.

Nothing went right.

Oh should have had a hat-trick, I knew his misses in the first half would come back to haunt us, and so it transpired.

Would Kyogo have done a better job up front?

It’s hard to know.

We were so disjointed today, I think regardless of who was on the pitch, we still would have lost.

Put simply, Kilmarnock wanted it more.

Derek McInnes wanted it more than Brendan Rodgers.

He has done the Ibrox side a massive favour, and I’ve no doubt he’s delighted with that.

They are now breathing down our necks.

In yesterday’s article, I wrote about the clear and present danger they represent in relation to the fact they are exempt from conceding penalties.

Not only are they exempt from conceding them, they are now pretty much guaranteed to be awarded one in almost every fixture they compete in domestically.

I’m genuinely convinced that our board’s comedic view of this situation is really going to come back to haunt them.

Sooner rather than later.

Either way, that does not take away from the fact we were abysmal today against Kilmarnock.

After what I witnessed this afternoon, my confidence in us beating the Ibrox side on the 30th of this month is dwindling rapidly.

There is no way in hell that Maik Nawrocki or Gustav Lagerbielke would have put in as bad a performance as Nat Phillips today.

Why did Rodgers pick him today?

Not only that, why did he leave him on the pitch for the entirety of the game?

If you want confirmation that this team has gone backwards rapidly in the last few months, then today should be enough for you.

If Brendan Rodgers thought he had a challenge at Celtic, then today should be a major wake up call.

Brendan Rodgers has nobody to blame for that performance but himself.

Nobody.

So, he can either wake up and realise that if he allows a financially doped Ibrox side to overtake his team, his career in football management is pretty much over, or he can continue with this turgid football and allow that to happen regardless.

If today wasn’t a wake up call, then nothing will be.

Either way, big changes have to happen.

And yes, the board have their part in that too.

Starting by providing Rodgers with the resources to buy a new keeper, a new left back, and a new striker.

These positions, especially after today, are now critical.

Taylor is now targeted by every team he comes up against.

Everybody can see we are weak on the left side, so they exploit that.

It was exploited today, and it’s the reason we have now lost our first game of the season.

In reality, if we do not get our act together against Hearts next Saturday, our season will start to unravel very quickly.

The last thing we need is to be behind the Ibrox side going into the game against them on the 30th of this month.

Now that we know they will be aided and abetted by refereeing fraternity, we cannot afford any more slip ups from here on out.

I’ve spoken enough about the backlash this board will face if we fall behind the Ibrox side.

Especially with the amount of money we have sitting in the bank.

This board chose Brendan Rodgers as Ange Postecoglou’s successor.

They also chose to inadequately provide him with replacements for Felipe Jota, Aaron Mooy, and Carl Starfelt.

Further to that, they did not adequately replace Giorgos Giakoumakis, or Josip Juranovic.

Today’s performance is perfect evidence of these inadequacies.

Were any of those five players on the field of play today, then the result could have been a whole lot different.

But they weren’t, and we have to accept where we are today.

How we react to it is vitally important to winning this title.

Because make no mistakes, we are now well and truly in a title race.

Brendan Rodgers used his get out of jail free card today.

He does not have another one.

Another slip up like today’s, and we will start to fall behind in this title race.

The SFA and the refereeing fraternity will ensure we do not recover from such a slip up.

This is what we are up against.

If we lose this league to the Ibrox side, then neither this board, nor Brendan Rodgers should survive such a calamity.

With regard to Rodgers, that may seem harsh.

But he either realises that performances like today can never happen again, or he falls on his own sword.

With £72 million sitting in the bank, there can be no excuses from here on out.

We should never be in this position.

Not a million years.

If we lose this title, we have learned nothing from the events of the 10IAR season.

And the very reason we have learned nothing is because the likes of Peter Lawwell is still in the building.

The definition of insanity.

Doing the same thing over, and over again, and expecting different results.

I know I might use this adage fairly often, but it is more than fitting for the current position we find ourselves in.

Because to hand the this season’s title to Ibrox would be exactly that.

Insane.