Brendan Rodgers' parting gift to Celtic could seal the title

Kelechi Iheanacho showed balls of steel to keep his cool and tuck away the goal that handed Celtic a Scottish Premiership reprieve and set up a final day shootout against title rivals Hearts at Celtic Park this weekend.

Title races are defined by moments. Some more controversial than others. Celtic's chaotic 3-2 victory over Motherwell on Wednesday night in Lanarkshire was a moment for the ages.

One touch by Iheanacho, who clearly demonstrated that he has ice in his veins, was the very definition of a player refusing to let this season's gripping Scottish Premiership title story end.

Iheanacho's cold, calculated and clinical kick from the 12-yard penalty mark kept Celtic breathing. It kept the men in green and white's belief alive.

It also sent the rest of Scottish football into an amazing meltdown that had to be seen to be believed.

None of that is Iheanacho's concern, of course. As far as the Celtic supporters go, Iheanacho is magic, you know. The 29-year-old Nigerian centre-forward has shown he is the man for the big occasion and not for the first time this season.

When the pressure was at its most unbearable this campaign, more often than not Iheanacho stepped up to the plate.

Titles are rarely won by the side with the neatest football in April and May. They are won by the teams and players that can survive emotionally and keep their head when all around are losing theirs.

The striker has contributed eight goals from 22 appearances in all competitions for Celtic this season. Of his five league goals four of them have proven to be late winners yielding 12 precious Premiership points.

Two of his goals also bailed Celtic out of a sticky wicket at Hampden Park against St Mirren in the Scottish Cup semi-final last month.

Celtic have spent much of this season chasing, stumbling and responding to setbacks, yet somehow, they still remain alive going into a final-day showdown with Hearts largely due to Iheanacho’s timely interventions.

Think how he delivered on his debut with a dramatic penalty winner at Rugby Park in September. Fast forward to April when he rescued Celtic with a late winner at Dundee when Martin O'Neill's sides title challenge was beginning to fade.  

Then with the season hanging by a thread at Fir Park, it was Iheanacho who showed the fortitude to step forward again amid VAR controversy and deafening pressure to confidently bury a 99th-minute penalty.

In the totting up procedure and review of the season Iheanacho's Celtic moments will matter greatly because the champions have been a burnt-out shell of a wreckage of a football team. A pale imitation of what has gone before and at times they have looked nothing like an unstoppable machine this season. Far from it.

Vulnerable defensively, emotionally fragile, easily got at and lacking creativity in attack. Multiple choice answer E- all of the above.

It is Iheanacho who has changed the emotional temperature of this side. He has given Celtic something they have lacked too often this campaign: decisiveness, assuredness and not to mention a focal point in the final third.

There is also a maturity to his contribution that his statistics alone do not capture. He is not just simply scoring goals; he is altering momentum and switching the narrative.

Iheanacho has all of a sudden become Celtic's go-to man who has dragged them through some difficult spells.

Kelechi Iheanacho celebrates a Celtic victory. (Image: PA)

What makes his impact even more significant is the context surrounding him.

Celtic’s season has been beset by ferocious criticism of the recruitment process. Throughout it all, Iheanacho has produced the kind of decisive contributions that the Celtic supporters may have cause to remember long after the title winning medals are handed out.

If Celtic do clinch the title on Saturday, then the images that will endure will be Iheanacho's late strike at Dundee, the composure at Rugby Park, and the cojones shown at Fir Park when the entire season could have boiled down to one kick from 12 yards.

The joyous scenes that erupted in the aftermath tells its own story.

Iheanacho may well be carrying and shouldering a huge burden as Celtic’s only natural attacker but he appears to be revelling in it.

Ironically Iheanacho’s arrival was viewed with scepticism and caution in some quarters. The English Premier League title winner with Leicester was a talented player and a recognisable name but he was viewed as a footballer whose career had stalled badly enough in England and almost ground to a halt in Spain with Seville.

You couldn't escape the overwhelming feeling and sense that he was trading on his past reputation.

For many it felt like Rodgers last throw of the dice as he dug out his contacts book and retreated into the tried and tested.

Indeed, many wondered whether this was a desperate attempt by Celtic trying to reviving a player both on the decline and on the cheap rather than securing one ready to dominate Scottish football.

Brendan Rodgers never saw it that way. Many people should have known better and should not have questioned his football wisdom, knowledge and expertise.

In one cold-blooded swish of the boot in deepest Lanarkshire in midweek, Iheanacho justified exactly and precisely why Rodgers wanted him to come to Glasgow in the first place.

When Rodgers pushed Celtic towards snapping up the Nigerian international, it wasn't nostalgia. It was conviction that Iheanacho could do a job.

Rodgers wanted him because Iheanacho possessed something that Celtic were going to need in the ensuing title race: nerve. Balls of steel.

Somewhere in Saudi Arabia, Rodgers will no doubt have afforded himself a wry smile as the former manager's faith in Iheanacho could well turn out to be Celtic’s ultimate reward.

If O'Neill can lead Celtic to a last day title triumph which at various junctures during this incredible Scottish Premiership campaign has seemed highly unlikely then he will owe Rodgers a small debt of gratitude.

Perhaps more fittingly, the signing of Iheanacho could well be viewed as Rodgers’ final act and parting gift to Celtic.