ALL VICTORIES at Ibrox are events to be cherished and each finds a corner of your memory bank and settles there for the rest of your life.

There have, of course, been significant Celtic victories at Easter Road, Tynecastle and Pittodrie and you remember them too. Who’ll forget the 3-2 win at Tynecastle when two goals by Stephen Pearson and Stephen McManus in the last two minutes at New Year in 2006 turned the league title race in our favour?

And I’ll never forget a 1-0 win at Pittodrie in October 1987 – our first there for several years – that seemed to signal that a league title in our centenary season was most definitely on.

Victories at Ibrox, as you’d expect, are a little less common but there’s been a plentiful supply of them in the two decades or so since Martin O’Neill’s arrival in 2000.

I can recount in some detail every one of them, beginning with the 3-0 win in 2001 featuring Lubo Moravcik’s wonderful double. Until Sunday's 2-1 win that was perhaps my most memorable Celtic victory at Ibrox. Moravcik’s two goals were works of art in themselves but although the title was already wrapped up that season we hadn’t won at Ibrox for four years. The style and character of that win seemed to define our dominance of Rangers in the O’Neill era. 

In more recent times the 10-man, 3-2 win and that superb winner by Odsonne Edouard in 2018 was a landmark triumph and the 2-1 win early in the Brendan Rodgers’ epoch told us that Celtic were set fair to lord it over Rangers for years to come. And, of course, simply being present to witness our 5-1 win in 2017 was special. You knew then that such an astonishing victory is unlikely to be repeated in my lifetime.

Sunday's victory, though, is perhaps one of the most significant I’ve ever witnessed at Ibrox.

Aesthetically, there have been more pleasing ones. And you might even argue that the Paul McStay-inspired 2-1 win in 1988 was at least as significant. But this one seemed to carry with it an importance that will perhaps only be fully acknowledged with the passing of several more years.

It was a moment of consecration for Ange Postecoglou's vision of what he plans for Celtic - and it has the potential to break the spirit of Rangers. 

It’s unlikely that Celtic, after 32 matches unbeaten in Scotland – in all competitions – will surrender this lead. And so, for the first time since 2008, we’ll secure automatic entry into the Champions League group stage and the £40m-plus bounty that this brings. 

This, allied to Celtic’s much superior fiscal stewardship than Rangers, should presage another period of dominance over them.

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More importantly, though, it will allow Celtic to provide Postecoglou with the resources he requires to think about competing in Europe’s highest court. 

Until the arrival of our Australian coach, I’d begun to lose hope that we would ever again be optimistic about going beyond the group stage and making it into the knock-out phase.

This season, the common wisdom is that Celtic were disappointing in Europe. But there were periods of our away defeats at Bayer Leverkusen and Real Betis when, for the first time in a generation, I saw a Celtic side playing without fear and with a genuine sense of belief in the backyard of teams who were in the upper echelons of two of Europe’s top three leagues.

These occurred at a time in the season before Celtic’s defence had become the fortress of recent months. 

Celtic are also beginning to reap the rewards of Postecoglou's relentless fitness regime. Daizen Maeda is the personification of this. Last week I predicted that our Japanese winger could play a crucial role at Ibrox. His speed and stamina are unsurpassed in Scotland and indicate a level of dedication and pure physical commitment which are the model of what’s required to compete in Europe’s most hallowed cathedrals. Maeda was magnificent at Ibrox.

He simply ground the right side of their defence and midfield into dust. He was my man of the match and to see him harrying his opponents in the 95th-minute as though it were the start of the game was blinding. 

Nor have I seen a more confident and assured performance at Ibrox under pressure by a Celtic central defensive duo since Bobo Balde and Johan Mjallby.

In this we are witnessing perhaps the real genius of Postecoglou: the wisdom, patience and loyalty to keep faith with a player like Carl Starfelt, knowing that it would reap a rich dividend in due course. That man was immense at Ibrox too and I could have wept for him such was the negativity that greeted some of his early displays for Celtic.

Even more importantly, it signalled to the rest of the squad – and to any future signings – that they can flourish in a healthy environment at Celtic. That we have a manager who can take the weight from his players and who will stand by them. Everything about Postecoglou and the way in which he goes about his business conveys stability.  

I also get the profound sense that he is just getting started and that he feels he is working on a project of several years’ duration.

It’s as though he’s been searching for the right club and the right environment and the right circumstances to implement a football philosophy that’s been a lifetime in the making. 

With O’Neill and Rodgers, there was always the impression that neither would be here for more than a handful of seasons. I think Postecoglou might feel he’s found a home from home at Celtic and will be happy to give us the best and most productive years of his career.