Having racked up four straight title wins on the trot after a little bit of a wobble in the 2020/21 Scottish Premiership campaign, Celtic were flying again under manager Brendan Rodgers and they even enjoyed a good run to the Champions League Knockout Play Offs last season, narrowly falling to German Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich.
The 2025/26 campaign has been a little bit different, though. A poor summer transfer window heightened tensions with the soon to be out of contract Rodgers (there was still no sign of a new contract coming) and it is not unfair to say that their league form became incredibly inconsistent, performances and results were not up to standard and they were unexpectedly playing catch up for top spot despite the halfway point of the year not even being reached.
Sports betting website PA may have seen this coming but things came to a head at the end of October as Rodgers picked up his ball and walked out of Parkhead, presumably for the last time, and in came the legend that is Martin O'Neill who more than steadied the boat and got the players performing with seven wins from his eight games. Many in the wider world off football would have expected O'Neill to stay until the end of the season, particularly as angry fans had turned their attentions back to the board and the general running of the club given all the advantages Celtic hold in the domestic Scottish game, but no, continuity and stability did not seen to be of interest as they replaced O'Neill with the basically unknown and hugely inexperienced Wilfried Nancy.
Having almost salvaged a disaster with O'Neill, just four games later and with not a single point won, many are wondering if the 48 year old Frenchman will last the remainder of the day, let alone any longer. He is talking like he has time to rebuild a project which shows a wild misunderstanding of the expectations placed on Celtic, and although many fans will have sympathy for him and wonder if he knew what he was getting into, he has already long lost their support and they want him gone.
Interviews are now getting daft as he tries to bite back to the media whilst staying calm and he recently commented he understood the Scottish game because as a player he once almost moved to Carlisle United.
We are all still trying to work that one out but in many ways it very admirably sums up the current situation, and people are asking just how did it get here?
Then after the recent Dundee United defeat you learn that Nancy's record across the last 16 games (MLS and Columbus Crew included) is just three wins and you rightly question if the Celtic board have lost their marbles or are playing an elaborate joke on everyone and they are the only ones finding it funny. After all, he has only four years of experience as a manager yet their CEO called him their 'number one' target?
Nancy may be a good man, but the Celtic board are not living this one down for quite a while.
