So here we are again, doing the old thing: picking up the newspapers, going online and finding nothing but negativity around Celtic.

And you know what? Nobody can really argue with it.

There is another stream of criticism surrounding this club. Our enemies in the media are having a field day. Our rivals are sniggering up their sleeves, although they are four points behind us in the league and are not even playing European football.

Normally, at times like this, we would be scornful of that sort of bitterness. We would laugh because so much of it would sound ridiculous. But let us be honest. We deserve this, and we know that we deserve it.

Almost everyone in Scottish football journalism is now reaching the same conclusion we reached ourselves: this is simply what Celtic are right now. The collapse in standards no longer looks temporary. It looks structural. And as long as the same people remain in charge, there is very little reason to believe it is going to change.

The term getting bandied about now is “flat-track bullies”, the same phrase Chris Sutton used after another of our European calamities earlier this season.

And Sutton is not wrong.

He may be a pain in the arse sometimes. Plenty of people think so. But his criticism of the Celtic board has been among the sharpest around because he knows what he is watching. We all know what we are watching.

The difference is that Sutton has the media profile to call it out publicly, and that is exactly what he has done consistently.

I cannot argue with him. I do not want to argue with him. Because I cannot defend these people, and I have absolutely no inclination to do so, although there was a time when fan media would have stood up for Celtic almost regardless of the circumstances.

But the club is rancid. The people running it are a joke. And the idea that they are somehow “standing by the strategy” is insulting.

They sat there and watched the same thing we did.

I read Tom English saying that there was no doubt these people want the best for Celtic. And I am afraid that is where we part company.

Because wanting the best is not enough. At some point, intention stops mattering. What matters is what you actually do, what you build, the standard you set and whether you are capable of delivering what you claim to want.

I am so tired of this being the last line of defence for people who do not want to admit that those running Celtic are responsible for the mess we are in.

The argument is always the same. They love the club. They are Celtic men.

So what? Hell, we all love the club.

I know perfectly well that I am not qualified to be Celtic Director of Football. If somebody offered me the job tomorrow on £2 million a year, I would turn it down. Why? Because I would do untold damage to Celtic by not knowing what the fuck I was doing.

Love is not competence. Loyalty is not a qualification. Being a “Celtic man” does not magically make you capable of running Celtic.

And that is the point which should now be impossible to avoid.

How can these people look at what this club has become and tell themselves that it is acceptable? How can they believe they are doing a good job when the relationship between the supporters and the institution itself is disintegrating, when standards have fallen, when trust has gone and when the same mistakes keep being made?

At some point, the self-delusion has to end.

They are getting a kicking from every section of the media now, and fan media has finally reached the point where it is no longer prepared to defend this club against every criticism simply because the criticism comes from outside.

We know when the media is wrong. We know when criticism is motivated by rivalry, bitterness or the usual agendas. But we also know when the media has a point.

And right now, it does.

I could not care less that the people running Celtic regard themselves as Celtic men. They are damaging this club. The regression we are watching is happening on their watch.

That is their responsibility.

And if the best defence anyone can offer on their behalf is that they love Celtic and genuinely want what is best for it, then perhaps it is time they demonstrated that love in the only way which still matters: by recognising that they are no longer the people who can take this club forward.

That is where this has reached.

Not anger for the sake of anger. Simply recognition that the people who have overseen this decline cannot also be the people entrusted with reversing it. Celtic needs a different direction, different standards and different thinking.

And if these people really do love the club as much as their defenders insist they do, then they should understand that too.

Because sometimes the best thing you can do for something you love is know when to get out of its way.

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