Former Celtic manager Martin O’Neill has enjoyed watching the Hoops’ successes over the past few years from afar.

Compared to the 72-year-old’s side from the early 2000s, the Bhoys have shown up rather well domestically over the past decade, winning 12 out of 13 available league titles.

A quadruple-treble success was history-making, and O’Neill can’t see past continual dominance for the champions.

Indeed, he reckons that if Celtic and their city rivals were to keep the same squads from this season going into next, there would be no way in which the Bhoys’ chokehold on the title could be broken.

He said: (BBC Scottish Football Podcast) “If the two teams again were starting off with the same squads as they’ve had this particular season for next year, no additions anywhere along the way and you take injuries and all of that into consideration, I’m sure you (host Jonathan Sutherland) and I would both plump for Celtic to go on and win the league again.

“Rangers have got to improve.

“Some of the players, they wouldn’t have got remotely close, they wouldn’t even have been ball boys in the side that we (O’Neill’s Celtic team) played against.”

The gap between Celtic and their rivals at the moment is notable but in a one-off game like today’s, anything can happen.

Cup finals – especially in Scotland – are always full of chaos and controversial talking points.

Especially because this particular game is a Glasgow derby, no stone will be left unturned and everything will be put into the spotlight.

Regardless of outside noise, though, Celtic know what they have to do. Indeed, a win at Hampden this afternoon would send Joe Hart into his retirement in the most fitting manner while also securing a double from what has been an emotionally straining campaign.