OLD FIRM SPECIAL:

NO MATTER their unexpected dominance in the first half-hour, the second Old Firm clash of the campaign ended up a representation of Celtic’s 10-in-a-row campaign in microcosm. A sorry tale of perplexing remarks from the manager, expensive arrivals who can’t be trusted, others compelled to sell the jerseys and history — this oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to alter the terrain upon which one of world football’s greatest rivalries is staged — being gifted to Rangers on a plate.

History thrown away amid a shambles of needless friction, lame excuses, poor professionalism, rotten signings, an inability to figure out your best team until it is way too late and bad, bad decisions at every single level from dressing room to boardroom.

Celtic are the club who clearly stopped bothering about building from a position of incredible strength at home to progress as a club in European terms — because short-termism and bragging rights over Rangers were deemed more important.

And, yet, here they are now. With the prospect of becoming the first team to win 10 successive titles, the be-all and end-all for so many fans who bought season-ticket books they’d never use to fund summer splurges on Shane Duffy, Albian Ajeti and Vasilis Barkas, having sailed over the horizon and little other than moaning at Bobby Madden left as consolation.

Lennon, never a popular appointment given the opaque conclusion of his tenure at Hibs, has cut a peculiar figure this term.

He accused players of trying to tunnel their way out of the club for six months and then tried to put the genie back in the bottle almost as soon as he’d said it, later accusing others of spinning tales about fall-outs and spreading ‘fake news’.

He spent weeks dressing up dreadful performances as something worth throwing a party over. Having lost 4-1 to Sparta Prague’s reserves at home, he hit out over ‘hysteria and panic’ — just before being taken apart 4-1 by the Czechs again.

‘If they can’t enjoy this season, I don’t know which season they can enjoy,’ he remarked, in reference to the supporters driven to breaking Covid regulations and demanding both his removal and the ousting of the board outside a fenced-off Parkhead.

Blaming yesterday’s Ibrox defeat on referee Madden is just the final straw in a season of clutching at straws. Kristoffer Ajer, behind the play and miles from the ball, was never going to track back in time to stop Alfredo Morelos from getting a shot off on goal had he wriggled clear of Nir Bitton.

Madden had no option but to red-card Bitton when he pulled the Colombian’s jersey and sent him sprawling. None. There is simply no debate about it.

When pushed on his view that it was not a clear goalscoring opportunity and challenged on the fact Morelos would surely have got a shot away, Lennon replied: ‘It would be a hell of a goal to beat Barkas from there with Ajer coming in.’

That. Doesn’t. Matter. If Morelos gets anywhere near the area and gets a shot away, it is a goalscoring opportunity. The fact it’s Barkas between the sticks makes it even more of one, you might argue.

Listen, Celtic have been looking more like themselves of late. They were excellent against Hamilton and they ran the show for the first half at Ibrox. Yet, for all that, they are now 19 points behind Rangers with three games in hand.

Whatever they may deliver from now on, it’s over. Not even putting Lazarus in a monogrammed tracksuit on the touchline could spark the kind of comeback required.

The clock was ticking on Lennon’s second spell as boss from the moment he picked the wrong team at home against Ferencvaros and tumbled out of the Champions League in the qualifying stages for the second time in two seasons. He might be allowed to limp on until the end of the campaign, because that Celtic job is a hard sell right now and there will be a bigger pool of available coaching talent in the summer, but he cannot be there when Europe gets back underway. That’s been clear for months.

The same goes for a number of the players. Getting Leigh Griffiths and Odsonne Edouard back together up front has helped Celtic in recent weeks, but both of them should be ashamed of their seasons. Edouard hasn’t looked interested for long spells. Griffiths came back from lockdown unfit and has been getting it in the ear from Lennon over his condition ever since.

It isn’t good enough at a club that still claims — despite all evidence — to have Champions League pretensions.

Edouard and his French pal Olivier Ntcham have to be punted. Guys such as Ajer, Ryan Christie and Callum McGregor should be running for the door, too. Heaven knows what to say about many of the summer’s marquee signings.

Although lumbered with the likes of Barkas and Ajeti, clearly no longer trusted, Celtic fans must be thankful the costly deal agreed with Brighton for Duffy is only a season-long loan.

He was only on the park five minutes when they conceded from a set-piece yesterday and he was lucky not to be sent packing for a scissors-kick on Ryan Kent nine minutes from time.

There hasn’t been a bigger bombscare since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Oddly enough, the emergence of David Turnbull and Ismaila Soro could be seen as a flicker of hope looking ahead to next term. A sign the engine room of this team doesn’t have to be completely rebuilt. Yet, why has it taken so long for them to get a chance? Why did Lennon stick so long with Scott Brown when he was slowing down games to snail’s pace?

The refusal to see the need for change and the inability to settle on line-ups or even formations has been costly — and embarrassing.

Now the league is over and Lennon is done, it is time for the spotlight to fall on those upstairs.

To head of football operations Nicky Hammond and his ghastly transfer record. To chief executive Peter Lawwell and whether the day he handed Lennon the job in the Hampden showers really was the day he showed he had run out of ideas. To chairman Ian Bankier, whose glee in his AGM video about ‘qualifying for Euro’ almost airbrushed Ferencvaros from history.

And to major shareholder Dermot Desmond and his claims earlier this season that this Celtic team is better than the one which reached the UEFA Cup final in 2003.

Sure, they spent money for this season. They blew millions buying rubbish and refusing to sell players who wanted away.

The end result? A club established as cannon fodder in Europe that has now tied up this title above all titles in a big pink bow for rivals that went bust in 2012.

Fair play to Rangers and their manager Steven Gerrard, who was looking like he’d end up getting the sack before Covid-19 intervened.

Despite all that has gone before, they are about to become legends in their half of Glasgow.

Those at Celtic will always have to live with letting that happen — and blowing it when their financial and structural advantages should have taken them from being ‘Invincibles’ to being untouchable.