Twice denied by the crossbar, one goal disallowed for offside and now a couple of points behind Hearts at the head of the Premiership.

Celtic have sufficient evidence to argue that they should have won this match against a Hibs team that clearly took the journey along the M8 with the primary focus on defending and maintaining organization over anything else.

However, the fact that the defending champions now find themselves lagging behind Hearts in a competition that should, based on wage bills and finances, be straightforwardly dominated, is only going to intensify the organized fan protests against a tone-deaf, complacent board that took on greater momentum here.

Manager Brendan Rodgers has returned to discussing actual football in his media conferences. There are no longer anonymous insiders accusing him of dismantling the club and attempting to create an escape. He’s not labeling them as ‘cowardly’.

However, one cannot claim that this is a club settling into normalcy now that the transfer window has closed. Far from it. Their squad lacks both balance and sufficient depth in crucial areas. Consider how things concluded in this match.

Maeda and Iheanacho are left frustrated as another chance goes begging for Celtic

Iheanacho manages to beat Sallinger in the Hibs goal before the flag went up for an offside

Kelechi Iheanacho led the line after a good showing when coming on against Red Star Belgrade in Europa League during the week. He struck the crossbar at 21 minutes from a Daizen Maeda cross and was deemed offside just after the hour when scoring at the far post.

By that point, he had done all he could and was replaced by Benjamin Nygren. Maeda, who began in an unusual position on the right with Seb Tounekti on the left, moved to the center for a brief period before exiting the game with 16 minutes remaining.

The Japanese forward’s head is clearly wasted after having to call off a move away from Glasgow on deadline day. He is a shadow of himself and is now being played out of position to make matters worse.

His removal left Celtic closing out the match, chasing a winner, with Johnny Kenny at centre-forward. No offence to the young Irishman, but that is simply a byproduct of bad squad management.

He did see a decent downward header from a Liam Scales cross clawed away by visiting goalkeeper Raphael Sallinger in the fourth minute of time added-on, but his failure to score — and the fact Celtic, who didn’t play badly over the piece, looked more ragged as the second 45 went on — simply led to more chants of ‘Sack the board’ around the ground.

Celtic fans continued their protests against the club’s board

Much was made before this encounter of the first of three silent protests against the Parkhead board and, sure enough, it was executed successfully.

The Ultras’ section in the North Curve ran proceedings, raising a banner for the opening 12 minutes aimed at the directors, reading ‘Your Silence Is Deafening’, and holding up other artwork calling for the heads of major shareholder Dermot Desmond, CEO Michael Nicholson, chairman Peter Lawwell and finance chief Chris McKay.

You are never quite sure how the support for such rebellion on internet platforms and social media will translate into the real world, but it must be pointed out that the remainder of the stadium held the line.

We’re not at the stage of braziers in the car park quite yet, but it’s clear a large section of the supporter base is not willing to take a step back in demanding answers from the boardroom over the disasters of the last transfer window and what the club’s strategy really is.

Not that Desmond will be entirely up to speed with their desires. While this was playing out, he was 3,500 miles away at the Ryder Cup in New York.

Applause was allowed, shouts of encouragement permitted. It has been made clear, under the terms of the protest, if you like, that reacting to the action on the field is perfectly fine.

There is just no singing allowed. And for the duration of yesterday’s demonstration, there really was none — other than from the away section in the corner.

Clearly, they didn’t get the message over what was occurring. At one point, chants of ‘Is This A Library?’ boomed out from the visiting fans.

The moment the clock hit the 12th minute, though, everything returned to normal. The banners were folded away and all was well again. Until Thursday night, that is, when 29 minutes of silence against Sporting Braga in the Europa League are planned.

Sallinger springs into action to keep the scores level at 0-0 as the clock ticks towards full-time

Hibs rarely threatened, with O’Hora going close for David Gray’s side

For Hibs, this was a good and much-needed point ahead of the Edinburgh derby. It is tempting to criticise them for being just a bit too defensive at times.

There was one point at the end of the first half where Kieron Bowie released Martin Boyle from a deep position. Boyle faced up to Scales and waited so patiently for someone to arrive in support.

They never did. In the end, he released a shot that was easily saved by Kasper Schmeichel.

Yet, Hibs did still have a couple of real opportunities. The stand-out one came right at the end of the first half.

After Celtic left-back Marcelo Saracchi had cracked the bar with a terrific angled shot at 0-0, a Dan Barlaser free-kick from the left was headed into the danger area by Bowie and fell to the feet of Warren O’Hora no more than three yards out.

He should have scored. It is still difficult to explain how the ball looped over the bar and ended up landing on the roof of the net.

Look, Celtic were the better team. Sallinger had a number of decent saves to make in the visiting goal. Who knows what would have happened had Hibs got their noses in front?

This ground and this Celtic fanbase feels like it’s only one bad result away from a riot, though. The fact they are now trailing Hearts with a visit to Tynecastle at the end of next month now looming on the horizon just adds spice to a surreal season choc-full of subplots.

It also adds fuel to the fire for an angry mob showing no sign of letting the Celtic board off the hook.