With ongoing supporter discontent, a recent tennis ball protest against the major shareholder on a golf course and a veteran manager deciding now is not the time to "wrap things up", as Martin O'Neill put it, you'd be forgiven for scratching your head when examining Celtic's current domestic situation. They sit four points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership. Five, really, if you factor in a goal difference at present 12 better than nearest challengers Rangers.
All this off the back of a 7-1 demolition of last season's runners-up, Hearts, who - at least until they turned up at Celtic Park - were widely viewed as viable title contenders if there's to be another three-way fight for Scottish football's main prize. Has normal service been restored in the east end of Glasgow after the wobbles of four significant defeats in their past half-dozen? Not as far as their wily old manager is concerned.
Keen to stress that the road is yet long to the division's ultimate destination, O'Neill was full of smiles after his side's biggest win since he returned last year, but he didn't even accept that such a thrashing of the third-placed side in the division was even a 'statement' victory. "I'm not really sure about that," O'Neill told BBC Scotland. "We're eight or nine games into the season or whatever it is.
"It was nice to win and win in the manner we did as well. We scored some really great goals. We looked really good going forward and I thought, defensively, the back four did really well for us when we were under pressure.
"But I think they were helped by the players in front of them as well too, so overall it was very, very pleasing." So, just how good a Celtic performance was this? As far as former Rangers striker Kris Boyd is concerned, it was a throwback to Parkhead's favourite Australian, whose fast-flowing, attacking football delivered a domestic double followed by a treble in his two seasons in charge, prior to Brendan Rodgers' return. "That is the closest I've seen to Ange Postecoglou's Celtic," Boyd told Sky Sports.
Former Hearts defender Ryan McGowan felt his old side simply ran into Celtic at the wrong time. "It's a really poor performance from Hearts," McGowan said on Sky Sports. "At the same time, you've got to give Celtic credit.
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