No doubts, it's Celtic's title

By Chick Young BBC Scotland football

So that will be that then. Done and dusted. Home and hosed. Cut and dried. Party over.

Getting the picture? If you don't think the title race has fainted then good luck at your next meeting of the Flat Earth Society.

Celtic's 2-1 victory at Ibrox didn't officially put the flag out of touching distance of Rangers. But, frankly, any hope they have will need to come courtesy of Marvin Andrews' hotline to a more celestial place.

I couldn't believe that Rangers risked the big man. But, then, he's a believer and I'm not. There is food for thought there, you know.

Neil Lennon was excellent for Celtic at Ibrox

But the real dining out is to be done by the supporters of Celtic, who have seen their team emerge from the title dogfight with the bone between their teeth.

They deserved their victory at Ibrox because they were stronger, wiser, more experienced and just a little hungrier.

For me - and I have scarcely missed a match either side has played this season, if you will excuse my lack of dual personality in the event of a fixture clash - it was always going to be that way.

Rangers have been stuttering and stammering, misfiring and blowing smoke at all the wrong times.

Inverness and Dundee United at Ibrox were the clues that they weren't the full title package.

Celtic, meanwhile, learned the lesson of their Parkhead defeat to Hearts by correcting a similar 2-0 deficit against Aberdeen. On that afternoon, there was a championship ring about Celtic.

And so it will surely turn out to be.

Celtic's engine room has been purring all season. At Ibrox on Sunday, it could have powered a Ferrari.

It is beyond me why some people think Neil Lennon can't play. If amateur players could only recognise the value of never giving the ball away; of being in the right place at the right time.

But even his contribution was eclipsed by that of Stan Petrov. The Bulgarian collapsed on the Ibrox turf at full time with cramp. He was entitled to be carted off in a bathchair. He covered mileage of Paula Radcliffe proportions and had the decency never to stop for relief.

Alex McLeish has won one trophy in two seasons

In the end, the cold statistics of two seasons don't add up to much for Rangers. One League Cup and the failure to make an impact on Europe ain't much of a CV for the second biggest-spending club in the land.

But it would be crass to label the management team a failure as some will do. Rangers, in my humble opinion, have come a long way in a year.

Alex McLeish's eyebrow-raising signings of last season are distant memories and the acquisition of Jean-Alain Boumsong and his consequent sale, which freed up millions, was a marked improvement in the transfer market dabbling.

It would be insanity to bin Alex McLeish now, although an empty trophy cabinet this time next year may put a slightly different tilt on that point of view.

In fact, peculiarly, it is Celtic who face a more major crossroads this summer. Players reaching the end of their contracts. The Bellamy issue. Indeed, the annual question mark over the future of the manager.

But that won't matter for the rest of the season.

Celtic will purr over that finishing line with Rangers hanging on to their coat-tails in the general direction of the Champions League, which at least will bring some multi-million pound consolation.

It was good stuff at Ibrox on Sunday: exciting, noisy, with the odd outbreak of football.

And a cliffhanger of a last 10 minutes, when Celtic goalkeeper David Marshall was more like Davy Crockett in the Alamo. And, with Celtic's party season under way, he could probably have got away with wearing the funny hat.