THERE’S no doubt the Rangers support cartwheeled their way out of Ibrox on Sunday night.

It’s quite a while since they could look over their shoulder at Celtic in the league table.

They are more than entitled to enjoy their time in the sun. I just don’t think I’d get too comfortable with the view.

Celtic are not a club in crisis.

Crack whatever crest you wish and parade it along the top of a newspaper column. This is not a crisis.

It is a slump. It is a slump in form and there is a lethargy about the team just now. I don’t think there is any doubt about that.

But a crisis? Spare me.

This is a team that have been untouched domestically for two seasons. They have two trebles sitting proudly in the trophy cabinet.

So before anyone starts getting too excited I think you have to give Brendan Rodgers his chance to go and arrest the decline in form.

I’d guarantee that his players will have had to sit through a video nasty before they set off on the journey up to Perth for tomorrow night’s Betfred League Cup tie.

It’s a massive game now – but every game is a massive game when you play for Celtic.

What Brendan needs to run onto the pitch tomorrow night is eleven Scott Browns. He needs them all to be prepared to roll up the sleeves and get stuck in.

This is where how much you want it really counts. This is when you really get to see what players are about. It’s great when you’re winning games and battering teams and lifting trophies – but what have you got now when the pressure is on?

For the last two years it has been pretty plain sailing for the Celtic players. Everything has gone well, the results have been coming and the fans have been loving it.

But this is a taste of the other side. It hasn’t been so comfortable. The performances haven’t been at the standard they were. This is when it becomes about working your way through it, about running through a brick wall to make sure that you get the win that you need.

I was interested in Brendan’s body language too after the game on Sunday. He knows that this team are falling way short of the standard that was set by them.

And in some ways that is the problem too. When you have such a high expectation then the minute you fall below that then there is always going to be a reaction.

But I still think that it is far too early to be writing anyone off. Rangers will be loving it. But I just wouldn’t get too high if I were in their shoes.

No-one is handed the league trophy in September. There are 96 points to be played for this season. We are a long way off seeing what the table will look like once we get to May.

So by all means get excited and make some noise but Rodgers has already shown what he has as a manager. He is the man who has delivered six domestic trophies out of six so I think he deserves his chance now to go in and steady things.

It was a difficult summer, all the more so with the way that Moussa Dembele engineered his exit from the club in the final hours of the transfer window.

Then there was the Champions League exit which came on the back of that. So there has been a malaise around the club and I think we have all seen that on the pitch.

There is nothing that can be done in terms of getting players in to get some fresh blood into the team until January so between now and then you need to make the best of it.

You need to get out of the slump and get on with it.

That should start tomorrow night. St Johnstone are going into the game on the back of being hammered by Rangers on Sunday afternoon and Celtic need to go and exploit any lingering sense of doubt in the Saints side now.

For some of these Celtic players, this is the first time they will have had to cope with any kind of adversity at the club.

But this is when you show why you are at a big club. It is when you turn up and turn it on.