'Painful truth' laid bare at Celtic ahead of daunting run
· Yahoo Sports
The next six games will go a long way to answering the question that some supporters around Parkhead have been pondering these past few weeks: is Martin O'Neill slowly turning Celtic into the real deal?
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Or is he simply the master-plasterer, frantically masking an ever-increasing number of cracks while rapidly running out of paper?
We're about to find out.
With the greatest respect to the three teams concerned, last-gasp victories over Dundee, Livingston and Kilmarnock won't cut it if Celtic are serious about making further inroads on the three fronts they're currently fighting.
You can't beat it for drama, certainly, and yet the painful truth which even those viewing things through green and white tinted spectacles can't fail to see clearly, is that Celtic only just scraped by three of the Premiership's bottom four teams.
What faces O'Neill now is Celtic's toughest run of fixtures this season, several of which require the side to go into battle on the road.
The step up in quality Celtic are about to face could scarcely be more pronounced. Having just about taken care of the sides placed 9th, 12th and 11th in the Premiership, the Scottish champions now face the fourth best team in the German Bundesliga. Stuttgart have won five of their last six matches in all competitions and arrive in Scotland with a spring in their step.
Celtic then host a Hibs side with eyes on a top four finish and who left Glasgow with a point the last time they travelled to Parkhead. It's the games that follow the visit of David Gray's side, however, which will really test Celtic's mettle. A daunting-looking run of four away games which will make or break the hoops' season.
The significance of the return match with Stuttgart will be determined by the outcome of the home leg. Should Celtic still be in the tie when they head to Germany, the prospect of reaching the Europa League last 16 will tempt O'Neill to go full throttle. His problem, however, is that as soon as they come back from Baden-Wurttemberg, it's straight to Ibrox three days later. For a massive showdown at the top of the Premiership against the league's form team. In the context of an ever-tightening title race, derbies don't come any bigger.
Unless, of course, they're for a place in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup. That's the prospect facing Celtic the following week with a trip to Pittodrie sandwiched in the middle. Quite the run of fixtures, isn't it? Six games in 17 days across three competitions. All of them huge.
Do those numbers add up to something Celtic simply aren't equipped to cope with given the limitations of the current squad? Probably.
While their resilience and determination to play to the final whistle should be applauded, the levels of performance reached in their last three nail-biters simply won't do from hereon in.
Martin O'Neill will need to coax some quality football from his players to match their undoubted grit if he's to add a final, glorious chapter to an already stellar Celtic storybook.