Celtic fans might be just tolerating their club right now, but that tolerance has its limits…

Yesterday, Martin O’Neill stood in front of the cameras after Easter Road and told us that was the ‘best win of the season’.

I had to read it twice.

Because if that game constitutes our best win of the season, then God help us if we have a poor one.

And that, right there, shows you where we really are this season.

That was not our best win of the season, it was the poorest, and buttering it up as anything else is just delusional

I know what many of you will say.

Three points is three points.

And I agree with you, it is, and I’m not going to sit here and pretend that a win in the teeth of a storm in Leith isn’t worth having.

It was an error strewn mess of a football match, and nobody in their right mind would have expected a footballing masterclass in those conditions.

But there was something very worrying about that performance.

Because a team that is genuinely at its best doesn’t need to hunker down and pray for the final whistle.

Yesterday had none of that.

No control, no fluency, and no sign of a plan.

Kasper Hogh was blown around Easter Road like an empty crisp packet for an hour, passed up a couple of chances, and offered next to nothing before he made way for Hasseim Hassan.

Then Alistair Johnston, back from injury, came off the bench for Colby Donovan, and lasted less than 20 minutes before he was hobbling off himself.

Which left Dane Murray filling in as an emergency right back.

Just when O’Neill thought his options in that position were looking healthier.

That is not a best win of anything.

That is a team hanging on by its fingernails and getting away with it.

Martin O’Neill is completely in denial, and he’s telling us performances like that are fantastic

Keith Jackson summed up the mood in the Daily Record this morning, and I couldn’t put it much better myself:

These fans are doing little more than tolerating their club right now.

You can read the full piece here if you want.

And he’s right.

Tolerating, not enjoying, not believing, just tolerating.

Meanwhile the manager is out there telling us it’s all grand.

Europe is already looking like a lost cause, and he’s now telling us that performances like yesterday’s are the standard we should be happy with.

Let’s look at where that leaves us in the Europa League.

Three games played, three defeats, zero points, and 35th in a 36 team table.

Besiktas arrive in the east end of Glasgow next, and they sit eighth with seven points from nine.

Three of our next four ties are away from home.

So, no, I’m not sure how that adds up to a manager who has his sights set on anything beyond a Premiership title.

Then again, maybe that is the whole point.

He has made it very clear that he signed up to deliver the league title and little else

I’m not having a go at the man for that.

Who am I to judge him?

He walked into a bin fire last season, replaced Brendan Rodgers and then Wilfried Nancy when the board seemed hellbent on scorching the earth beneath their own feet, and he put the flames out.

He was rightly lauded for it by every single one of us.

And he’s 74 years old.

Nobody is under any illusions about what this is.

This is a short-term fix, put in place by a board that has never once been interested in a long-term plan.

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, and the league title keeps the whole thing ticking over.

Dermot Desmond doesn’t need us to win in Europe.

Silent Mike doesn’t need us to win in Europe either.

Why would they?

They need the books balanced, and they need the champions’ money at the end of May.

Everything else is a bonus.

I think if we all make peace with that right now, then our expectation levels for the rest of the season can be set

That is the uncomfortable truth.

If the aim is the league title and little else, then let’s call it what it is and stop pretending that we are building anything.

We win the league, we all go to Merchant City in May, and we celebrate the 15th in 16.

And I’ll be there celebrating with you, because I’m a Celtic supporter and that’s what we do.

But some of our support won’t be, and I don’t blame them in the slightest.

There are fans out there who’ve watched this club go through another season of managed decline, and who will not be satisfied with a trophy and a pat on the head.

How long can you keep asking them to pay up and put up?

Their patience is running thin, and it is not hard to see why.

Because the Besiktas game could become one more bloody and bruising night, and that kind of scarring doesn’t heal over a few weeks.

Martin O’Neill has made it pretty clear what he’s here for.

The question is whether the rest of us are willing to sign up to it too.

Because tolerance only stretches so far, doesn’t it?

The tolerance has its limits…

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