Ange Postecoglou and Celtic face an Aberdeen boss with a flamethrower who specialises in awkward - Hugh Keevins

When Ange Postecoglou was making his emotional post-match speech to an adoring crowd on the day Celtic lifted the league trophy in May, he mentioned a fashion accessory.

The manager thanked the Celtic fans for embracing him, his family and, pointing to what he was wearing: “This jumper.” That garment had become the most revered article of clothing in Scottish football since Walter Smith’s cardigan was the definition of power dressing inside Ibrox at the start of the Millennium.

Or Fergus McCann’s bunnet during the period when he first of all rescued, then resurrected, Celtic in the last years of the 20th century. Now Ange appears to have ditched the jumper in favour of a shiny new tracksuit. For a day at least. And that’s because he’s clearly not the type of man given to superstition or anything else that isn’t based on hard-bitten reality. It wasn’t the label inside the back of his jumper that won Celtic the league title last season.

It was the team on the park who excelled and went 32 league games on the bounce without defeat on the way to providing the flag that will be run up the pole at Celtic Park today. Ange is a cool head in a fevered environment and he’ll need to show that again from kick-off against Aberdeen.

When the CEO of the SPFL, Neil Doncaster, is making pre-emptive strikes on the subject of crowd disorder and publicly threatening the punishments that will accompany any breaches of the peace, you get the feeling intelligence has reached him that this season has the capacity for boiling over.

Rangers made their start in pursuit of the title. Celtic will give their response on Sunday against a background where apoplexy will take on the proportions of an epidemic among rival fans. A draw will no longer