Simply the best

And so the league is finally over.

Unlike last season, or even the season before that, both of which went down to the wire on the final day, Kyle Lafferty's 17th minute winner against Hibs at Easter Road yesterday ended season 2009/10 three games premature. His goal brings down the curtain on a season that's been in the bag for the Ibrox club since the end of January, when the gap between Scotland's top clubs hit the 10 point mark - ironically enough as Celtic went down 2-1 at home to to Hibs in the final game of that month.

Rangers will have to wait until the final day of the season to unfurl the champions flag over Ibrox, as away fixtures at Dundee Utd and Celtic precede their only remaining home game, when Motherwell come to town on the final day.

It's been a tumultuous season for both halves of the Old Firm.

Rangers, out to defend their SPL title, started the season under a cloud of financial uncertainty, with Lloyds Bank - the club's largest creditor - becoming increasingly anxious to recoup the £31m owed to them. Unable to bring in any new players, an unhappy manager, to say nothing about unhappy supporters, frustrated at the seeming lack of progress at the club, the odds where stacked against them right from the start.

While Rangers where counting the pennies and tightening the belt, over in Glasgow East by contrast, the lid had been truly blown off the biscuit tin. A spending spree commenced, with Marc-Antoine Fortune brought in from French mid-table French side Nancy, Daniel Fox joining from English Championship side Coventry and Josh Thompson moving north from League One side Doncaster. The  spree was rounded off with AIK Solna defender Jos Hooiveld swapping Stockholm for Glasgow, and after spending the best part of £7m on playing staff, not to mention a new manager in former Hibs and West Brom manager Tony Mowbray, hopes of taking back the title where high.

On paper then, you'd think that Celtic would be odds-on favourite to retake their title cruelly denied them on the final day of last season. But football has a funny way of not quite doing what you expect - just look at our desperate attempts at score predictions over the season.

Despite all their spending, Celtic never got into the groove. Perhaps it was the change in manager and the subsequent change in playing style that failed to win favour with fans and media alike (Mowbray describes being 'beleaguered' by all and sundry during his nine-month spell at Parkhead). Perhaps there where just too many new faces at the club for the team to gel as a unit on the pitch.

Whatever it was, even the arrival of Robbie Keane in February from Spurs failed to make any impact on the 10-point gap that had developed. Costly defeats to Kilmarnock (on Keane's debut), Rangers and St Mirren (after which Mowbray was sacked) certainly didn't help.

By the time Mowbray had left the car park for the final time, the gap had increased to thirteen points. Neil Lennon took over on a caretaker basis, leading the Hoops through a series of good results (the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat against Ross County aside), but the Charge of the Light Brigade had come too late.

The league (and in particular Celtic) has been poor this season. Hibs' challenge faded away after the New Year, Aberdeen where in self-destruct mode and Hearts kept the revolving-door at Tynecastle busy, while Motherwell's run of form started too late. Only Dundee United can look back on a good season; losing manager Levein to the Scotland job was a blow and it took a while to recover, but recover they did, their challenge for second place only being killed off in the 2-0 defeat to Celtic last Sunday,

But it is  easy to blame Rangers' success on the failings of others. Quite simply, over the course of the season, they're simply the best. Unbeaten in the league at home, a League Cup in the bag and only a Scottish Cup quarter-final away from a domestic treble, these are some achievements for a club written largely written off back in August. The only real blot on their copybook this season was a very disappointing European campaign where Rangers failed to record a single victory, and failed to make it out of the group.

In hindsight, with a small-ish squad (which includes a 40-year old defender), a protracted European campaign might have distracted Rangers from where their true strength lies, namely in domestic football.

Following the defeat against Sevilla at the start of December, Rangers continued on a run of form that would see them lose only one more league game (a surprising 4-1 humbling at the hands of St Johnstone, this defeat coming a week after Celtic where defeated by a similar score by St Mirren) on their way to their record breaking 53rd League title.

Along the way they punished Dundee United and Motherwell (7-1 and 6-0 respectively),  Much talk has been made of Rangers' somewhat pedestrian and workman-like (read: boring and unadventurous) approach to this season, but any team that recovers from a 12th-second goal to win 4-1 is showing true champions form.

There is still a lot to be decided at Ibrox, and the future is far from certain. The club is still up for sale (Andrew Ellis is still performing due diligence with no offer forthcoming) and the future of Kris Boyd - this seasons top scorer (so far) -  may well be decided soon (will he, won't he go to Birmingham?) as he entered the final months of his contract. Likewise, Madjid Bougherra, possibly Rangers' best player this season also looks set to leave.

Aside from securing a buyer for the club, the priority over the summer should be to retain manager Walter Smith, preferably on a permanent contract. There's not doubt about Smith's tremendous importance to the club, but his ability to negotiate new contracts with his players over the summer could be seriously compromised if his own future is not certain.

It will be an interesting summer in Glasgow. Will Rangers find a buyer? Will they hang on their squad? How much of the £12m Rangers look set to make from the Champions League Group stages will be ploughed back into the side? And in the absence of a buyer, just what conditions will Lloyds put  on the club over the summer?

For Celtic too, uncertainty abounds. Lennon is campaigning for his caretaker position to be made permanent, but Celtic say they are looking for a more experienced manager to take the helm; until the succession is assured at Parkhead, squad changes may well have to wait.

Depending on how things turn out in the next few months, there might not be a lot of change at the top clubs in the SPL. The same players (give or take Boyd and Keane), the same debts, the same managers and quite possibly the same outcome.

We shall see. For now though, our congratulations go out to Rangers: worthy winners indeed.