In times past, the late leveller coolly stroked home by Kyogo for Celtic at Ibrox on Monday would have been met with an explosion of noise from the massed ranks of visiting fans behind the goal in the Broomloan Road Stand.
As it was, the small but enthusiastic band of supporters packed into the corner were barely audible above the groans from over 49,000 Rangers fans in the home end. If you listened very carefully though, you may also just have been able to make out the sound of the fat lady clearing her throat.
In that moment, any faint hope of a title race developing over the second half of the campaign disappeared.
Ange Postecoglou, the Celtic manager, knows it. Though a withering ‘mate’ would be the only response if you tried to get him to admit it. Rangers manager Michael Beale came a little closer to stating the obvious publicly, though stopped short at saying a second successive Premiership crown was now Celtic’s to throw away.
The problem for Rangers and Beale is that there are precious few signs that this Celtic team will conspire to cede a nine-point advantage at the top of the table.
The draw against Rangers was just the second match of their 20 games so far that the champions have failed to win. The other was a deserved loss at St Mirren back in September, where Postecoglou shuffled his pack on the back of a Champions League trip to Warsaw to face Shakhtar Donetsk, and his rejigged team were caught cold by an energetic and physical Saints side.
On that day, the likes of Aaron Mooy featured while woefully short of match fitness. The Australian midfielder is now up to speed, and putting pressure on the likes of Matt O’Riley to force his way into the starting XI on a more regular basis.
And it is here where the problem lies with any faint hope Rangers fans may have that fatigue may affect Celtic as the season grinds into its later stages. The strength of squad at Postecoglou’s disposal means he could even afford to lose a few key players to transfers or injuries and still be well stocked in just about every area.
If Josip Juranovic were to leave during this window, for example, then the successor has already been identified and recruited in the form of Alastair Johnston. The Canadian right-back was thrown in for his debut at Ibrox and acquitted himself well, instantly making the thought of Juranovic’s imminent departure easier for Celtic fans to bear. Not to mention the fact that Anthony Ralston, so improved under Postecoglou, will soon return from injury to further bolster the position.
The other side of the backline is where there may be a little more concern for Celtic, and Postecoglou will hope Greg Taylor’s knee problem that forced him off against both Hibernian and then Rangers over the past week isn’t a serious one.
The fact he shoehorned Juranovic into the left-back role – where he subsequently struggled enormously up against Fashion Sakala – suggests a lack of trust in summer signing Alexandro Bernabei, but there is an argument to say it was simply a lack of trust in a game of such magnitude.
The Argentinian has blown hot and cold in his appearances for Celtic since his £3.75m capture from Lanus, but he has shown enough to suggest he could certainly fill in when required against other domestic opponents should Taylor face any sort of lay-off.
This is also a problem for Rangers. Even if key performers drop out of this Celtic team, they have shown they still have enough to brush off the other 10 teams in the league. And given that there are now only two Old Firm fixtures remaining this season, they need favours if they are to pull off the unthinkable.
Celtic haven’t coasted through all those games. But their propensity for producing late goals when required is now so reliably predictable that it cannot be chalked up to chance. They have resilience to go with their quality, as well as their depth of squad.
When Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt were out of the Celtic team earlier in the season, they were exposed at Champions League level. But Moritz Jenz and Stephen Welsh still came through – St Mirren away excepted – when required.
Even when captain Callum McGregor, maybe the one player you could pinpoint as being indispensable to this Celtic team and a guaranteed starter when fit (alongside Carter-Vickers, perhaps) was injured, O’Riley shifted back into his position and Celtic motored on regardless.
Up front, an injury to Kyogo may hamper Celtic, with the forward having banged in 16 goals so far this season. But even supposing Giorgos Giakoumakis is indeed unsettled and forces a move away in January, they also have Japan’s starting World Cup forward in Daizen Maeda who they could easily put through the middle, while bringing the immensely talented Jota back in on the left.
In short, there are just not enough things that could feasibly go wrong for this squad of Celtic players to drop the points required to give Rangers a snifter of hope in usurping them at the top of the table.
Even if the Ibrox outfit continue their upturn in form under Beale’s leadership and win the rest of their league matches, and that is a big if when you factor in the two Celtic matches yet to come, there is every possibility that Celtic will win the rest of theirs.
The best Rangers can hope for is to maintain their recent consistency, and build upon their performance after the first half hour in Sunday’s game in the remaining Old Firm fixtures to show Celtic they might not be in for such an easy ride next season.
But the title this term? Well, at the risk of having egg on my face - and Rangers fans potentially egging my house in glee come May - the fat lady has sung.
