In the two pieces that have gone up already today, positivity was the watchword. I wanted to look for the things Celtic could take from the defeat in Lisbon rather than simply wallow in another European failure, and Paulina wanted to talk about the good aspects of our wing play. But let us be perfectly honest here.

The fact that we went into this game with expectations bordering on the subterranean, and the fact that some of us have come away almost relieved that it was only a 4-1 defeat, tells you something deeply uncomfortable about how far this club has fallen.

It does not seem that long ago, because it was not that long ago, that Celtic were swinging punches with Bayern Munich in Germany and genuinely believing we might be building a side capable, one day, of holding its own on that stage.

Now we are looking for encouragement in losing by three goals.

That regression is terrifying and it is not just the regression in the playing team. It is the regression in our level of expectation.

Let me put that in the starkest possible terms.

Coming out of Linz, I was not looking forward to playing the club from Ibrox, even though I think they are as weak and as bad as they have been for years. I remain confident that will be borne out over the season. They are out of Europe altogether, after all.

But I still was not looking forward to playing them.

Fenerbahçe? I thought they would beat us comfortably, and they did.

Benfica? There was not the slightest doubt in my mind about how difficult that was going to be. Even when the Ibrox club came to Celtic Park, I could not see us getting the result we needed. That is where we are now.

Martin O’Neill described those three results before last night’s game as a blip.

I think he is kidding himself.

A blip is something temporary, something which interrupts an otherwise stable pattern. This does not feel temporary. This feels like the trajectory.

We’ve downsized. We’re paying the price for it. Whatever changes we make to the playing system, we’ve gone backwards and that’s pretty undeniable.

And when a 4-1 defeat in Portugal starts to feel almost merciful, that tells you everything about how far our expectations have fallen. I said after Linz that I hoped the directors enjoyed that night, and I was glad they were all in the stand for it.

We know, of course, that much of the Celtic board was at the game last night. The club made sure the corporate guests received the full red-carpet treatment before ordinary supporters could even begin queuing to get in.

That is another issue entirely, and another example of how contemptuously the ordinary fan is too often treated. But I hope the directors enjoyed what they watched.

I hope they felt suitably mortified.

Because Benfica could have scored more, and because Celtic, as things stand, do not even look capable of competing properly at Europa League level.

O’Neill talked afterwards about people keeping their heads up. There are six games left, he said, and he is right. There are six games left and plenty still to play for.

But the fact that we are even discussing this competition in terms which suggest we might be satisfied to scrape a handful of wins together and qualify through one of the lower places should embarrass everybody connected with the running of this club.

O’Neill said before the competition even began that domestic football had to be the priority.

Well, it does now. We are already out of one cup competition and have been humiliated at home by our rivals.

But the fact that a Celtic manager was willing to say openly that Europe had to take second place was one of the most damning things I have heard from somebody in that job.

And what makes it worse is that it was not really controversial.

It was recognisably true. That is where Celtic has been allowed to drift.

When I wrote my assessment of the Benfica game earlier today, I do not want to give the impression that I was satisfied with any of it.

The result went about as badly as I expected. The difference was that there were some positives in the performance which I did not expect, particularly in the attacking areas.

That does not make any of this acceptable.

There is simply no excuse for Celtic being in this position. There is no excuse for those glaring holes in the squad still being there. There is no excuse for a coaching team operating with ideas which, at times, look twenty years out of date. And I am certainly not suggesting that any of this is fine simply because some of our attacking players looked as though they knew what they were doing.

The whole club is regressing in front of our eyes.

Our European reputation has been shattered.

What happened in Austria was one of the worst Celtic performances I can remember, and it completely drained the confidence of supporters going into any game against serious opposition. Nothing we saw in Lisbon, not even the more encouraging forward play, is enough to restore that optimism.

Not under this regime. Because look at how far we have fallen.

From believing we could go to Munich, trade punches with Bayern and perhaps one day build a side capable of holding its own at that level, to looking for comfort in a 4-1 defeat in Portugal. That is the scale of the regression.

And the terrifying part is that I am not even convinced we have hit the bottom yet.

That is one of the great and terrible qualities of this current Celtic regime: just when you think things cannot possibly get worse, they find another way to surprise you.

Zero points from six at the start of this competition.

Seven goals conceded. One scored. Twelve goals conceded in our last three European games. And this was a side which apparently did not need another central defender in the summer. This was a side which did not sign the defensive midfielder supporters have been crying out for for years.

It is not difficult to understand why Celtic are in this mess.

What is increasingly difficult to understand is how anybody can still defend it.

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