There’s only one winner at Celtic Park today, and the Hearts players know it before a ball is kicked

There’s only one winner at Celtic Park today.

And deep down, every single one of those Hearts players knows it before a ball is kicked.

After 9 months of rollercoaster, blood, sweat, and very nearly tears, the title comes home to Paradise tomorrow — and nobody, I mean nobody, is taking that away from us.

Let’s not beat about the bush.

If you’d told me back in January, when Wilfried Nancy was being bundled out the back door at Celtic Park, that we’d be sitting here on the morning of a winner-takes-all title decider with the trophy in our own hands?

I’d have laughed in your face.

Genuinely.

Because at that point, we were on the canvas.

Count at 9.

And the only people more dejected than the Celtic support were the players themselves.

But here we are.

Four months on from Wilfried Nancy’s name being scrubbed off the manager’s office door, Martin O’Neill has dragged this team back from the dead.

One win away from one of the most improbable, hard-fought, and downright sweetest league titles in our modern history.

And finally today, Hearts come to Paradise to try and stop us.

Good f*****g luck with that.

I’ve watched a lot of Hearts in the last week.

Some by accident, some on purpose.

But most of it through the lens of a fanbase that has completely believed for the last 8 months that the title was theirs.

You can’t blame them, really.

They’ve led the table since August.

Tony Bloom’s money.

Jamestown Analytics’ algorithms.

And a manager in Derek McInnes who must have thought all his Christmases had come at once.

The Scottish football media has been waving them across the line for weeks.

But here’s the thing.

Here’s the bit that nobody outside of Paradise wants to admit.

Hearts have never, ever, had to pull a result out of the fire when their backs were against the wall.

Not all season.

Not even once.

You can’t even say that their backs were against the wall recently against their arch rivals, when it took them forever to beat 9 men.

Nor can you say their backs were against the wall when we were reduced to 10 men at Tynecastle in January.

They still couldn’t beat us then, even with the man advantage.

Wednesday night at Fir Park was the moment we found out who was made of what.

Celtic dragged a result out of the Motherwell wreckage in the 98th minute.

Hearts?

Hearts thought after a comfortable 3-0 against Falkirk that it was almost in the bag.

That tells you everything you need to know.

It’s never really in the bag, until it’s actually in the bag.

The fact that their ground staff were amusingly seen to be putting away “title winners” posters and graphics may just come back to haunt them today at Celtic Park.

Which of these two sides handles the pressure of today’s 12.30 kick off?

Do you really need me to answer that???

Derek McInnes called Wednesday’s penalty “disgusting”.

Give me a f*****g break.

Tom English called it “Profoundly Grim”.

Kevin Nolan reckons we don’t deserve the title.

I love it.

I genuinely love every word of it.

Because every one of those screeching takes is the sound of a Scottish football establishment that has woken up to the fact the title is slipping through their fingers.

And there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.

So who wins the title this afternoon?

Celtic.

That’s it.

That’s the article.

Hearts will turn up.

They’ll line up.

They’ll probably even make a fight of it for the first 20 minutes.

Because they have to.

But the moment Celtic Park starts to turn — and it will turn — Hearts will wilt under the wall of noise.

You saw it on Sunday against the Ibrox side.

You saw it for 90 minutes on Wednesday at Fir Park, where the Celtic away end at times sounded louder than Motherwell’s home support.

This is a Celtic support that has been treated like dirt by its own board for the better part of 12 months.

The Green Brigade banned.

A manager hired off the back of being the 7th best in the MLS Eastern Conference.

A January transfer window so embarrassing that not one single signing was deemed good enough to make the matchday squad on Sunday past.

I shit you not, that’s the level of incompetence Michael Nicholson has presided over.

And yet.

Despite all of it.

Despite Nicholson and his cast of clowns doing everything in their power to derail this season, the Celtic support and Martin O’Neill have dragged this club kicking and screaming back to within touching distance of the title.

Make no mistake.

Hearts won’t see what’s coming.

They’ll think they’re still in it at half time.

They’ll think they’re still in it at the hour mark.

And then?

Like every other side that has come to Paradise this season thinking they had a chance, they’ll get hit with wave after wave of Celtic attacks until the dam breaks.

And when it does?

The roof comes off Paradise.

I won’t be there today.

I’ll be in the West of Ireland, at my Celtic supporters club, where we’ll feel it just as much there as in every other CSC around the world today.

But I’ll be there in spirit.

Just as we all will.

Like every Celt who’s ever lived, drawn, or breathed.

Today at Celtic Park, history gets written.

Hearts will be the bystanders.

Derek McInnes will be making excuses by 2pm.

Tom English will be writing his “Profoundly Grim” column 2.0 by full time.

And nobody, I mean nobody, will be talking about Hearts by Sunday morning.

The title?

The title will be back where it belongs.

In Paradise.

Where it always was.

Where it always will be…

Annihilate them today, Celtic.

Show them what we’re made of.

One last fight for the Green!!

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