BRENDAN Rodgers has performed miracles with the Celtic team he inherited from Ronny Deila but even he wouldn't be able to turn this group of Rangers players into title winners.
That it the considered opinion of David Hay, the former Celtic and Scotland full-back, who managed at Parkhead between 1983 and 1987.
Speaking at the launch of nominations for the Scottish Football Hall of Fame, Hay can't recall a time when the two Glasgow giants were in the same division yet the gap between them was this vast.
And the really bad news for the Ibrox side is that, with Rodgers at the helm and the likelihood of another season of Champions League cash in the coffers, Celtic are just going to get better.
As the teams prepare to do battle for the sixth time this season on Saturday - Celtic have won four and drawn one of the previous five - Hay feels the Ibrox side need a seismic event in the order of the Graeme Souness revolution of the mid 1980s if they are to overturn Celtic's advantage at the summit of the Scottish game.
But whatever happens long term, the short term imperative from their supporters and manager Pedro Caixinha is simply to ensure their players aren't as passive in Govan on Saturday as they were at Hampden last weekend.
"It’s amazing a year on how much Brendan Rodgers has changed this Celtic team, with just the addition of a couple of players in [Kolo] Toure, [Scott] Sinclair and [Moussa] Dembele," said Hay. "But if Brendan was to go to Rangers and work with the current squad of players he wouldn’t win the league. If you are a Rangers fan it’s pretty obvious you need new players for the campaign. I can’t think of a time when the gap was as big, but that’s not Celtic’s fault. And the frightening thing is Celtic are looking to improve and on the European scene.
"A lot can happen in life as four years is along time in football," he added. "But who is going to provide opposition to Celtic over the next couple of years? It would take something big from a Rangers point of view. But whatever needs to be done at Rangers - the fans will demand that their team are never again as passive as they were on Sunday."
It isn't just three quality additions which could take Celtic onto a higher plain this summer in the wake of a second successive Champions League qualification - perhaps a new striker, a new playmaker to replace Patrick Roberts and a centre half - it is the fact that exciting young players like Kieran Tierney have been bedded into a side which is already overflowing with confidence, by contrast to how Myles Beerman and David Bates found themselves press-ganged into action at Hampden. And unlike his time as manager at Parkhead, there is no dire need to sell these players immediately.
"We all know that in this day and age the player dictates what happens," said Hay. "But there is no sign of [Moussa] Dembele agitating. He came to Celtic at a time when he could have gone elsewhere. You would get a snippet of something if he was going by now. Maybe in another year or in time Dembele might become so wanted that he and Celtic attract an offer so big it has to happen. But I don’t see it happening in the near future. Tierney? He is just loving playing for Celtic. That will not change for a few years.
"Where can Celtic improve? People are talking about strikers and I think that’s the case. The problem is, ‘what quality of striker do you get?’ And if you only play with one how do you keep everybody happy? But I think that’s something he [Rodgers] will do. Much as they are strong in midfield another type of midfielder might come in as well. Maybe a silky number ten could improve things. And you might find this strange, but maybe central defence. No way were they tested there on Sunday."
One man Hay would exempt from the general malaise across the city on Sunday was Kenny Miller, who once again posed the Parkhead side the most threat. "It would have been easy to throw his arms up and say, ‘what can I do here?’ But he didn’t give in, he did his utmost. That has to spin off to the rest of the Rangers players? Why didn’t it? I don’t know."
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