Wilfried Nancy’s time as Celtic manager could soon be up … but he’s only one symptom of a bigger illness which is currently gripping Parkhead

Almost 12 months ago, Brendan Rodgers sat in the media room at Lennoxtown in a reflective mood. There were plenty of positives for the Northern Irishman to ponder.

As 2024 ended, Celtic had suffered just two defeats in the calendar year – Hearts in March and Borussia Dortmund in October.

With the three domestic trophies under lock and key, a Champions League campaign going along nicely and stacks of cash in the bank, all seemed well.

Provided the club looked after thir own affairs properly, it seemed reasonable to expect that domestic dominance would continue. There was just a hint that Celtic were belatedly about to punch above their weight in Europe.

A year on, Celtic supporters are reflecting on 2025 like witnesses to a traumatic event. They have seen their team defeated 16 times, including the loss on penalties which followed the goalless draw away to Kairat Almaty.

Wilfried Nancy, who has now presided over a record four straight losses, has cut a bewildered figure since arriving from Columbus Crewe. He may not be long for this little corner of the word.

The Frenchman is, however, only symptomatic of the wider ill which has gripped the entire operation. He is not alone in looking unsuited for the job which he’s being asked to perform.

In future years, events at Celtic Park in 2025 might be the basis for a case study into how quickly a club can go into free-fall.

The most fundamental failing has been that of the hierarchy to adequately support the football department. Everything goes back to this.

When Rodgers spoke a year ago, his frontline boasted players of the ilk of Nicolas Kuhn, Kyogo Furuhashi and Adam Idah.

At Tannadice on Wednesday, Nancy began with Johnny Kenny and ended the game with Shin Yamaha. Michel-Ange Balikwisha, a £4.5million signing, wasn’t even on the bench.

Celtic’s recruitment has been patchy for years. It has largely been masked by the appointment of good managers. Now it’s manifest in a side who look confused and rudderless.

The appointment of Paul Tisdale as head of football operations 15 months ago was intended to sharpen things up.

To date, the self-proclaimed Doctor Football, who won three matches from 21 in his last managerial posting at Stevenage, has been as effective as a sticking plaster on a severed artery.

The sight of him nodding off in the main stand as Celtic lost to Hearts in Nancy’s first game succinctly summed up the entire club of late.

There’s little on Tisdale’s CV to suggest he’s a good fit for this crucial role. So, who brought him on board, and why? How does he reflect on the two transfer windows which have left the squad in such a dreadful state?

He worked with Nancy’s assistant Kwame Ampadu at Exeter, so it’s widely assumed that he pushed for the Frenchman’s appointment.

You’d like to ask him about all of this. But, in keeping with a club who have simply pulled the shutters down, Tisdale hasn’t done a single interview since taking the job.

The abject state of the board’s communications has only widened the divide with an increasingly disenchanted fanbase.

Chief executive Michael Nicholson couldn’t make it as far as Lennoxtown on the day Nancy was unveiled. That meant there was no explanation of the recruitment process or why he felt the Frenchman was right for Celtic.

A couple of cosy in-house interviews – the latest of which saw him publicly back Nancy minutes before Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Dundee United – just isn’t cutting it for a man in his position.

There was a vague acknowledgment from Nicholson in a pre-recorded message at the AGM that mistakes had been made. So far, though, no-one externally has had the opportunity to ask him exactly how he and his fellow directors intend doing things better.

On the other side of the city, Rangers’ American takeover has been a damp squib to date.

But give those involved this much; they’ve fronted up and answered difficult questions. They’ve admitted that they have got much wrong and have resolved to learn from it.

There’s been no such act of public contrition at Celtic Park. In fact, it’s been the opposite.

In an incendiary statement on the club’s official website after his departure, Dermot Desmond pointed the finger at Rodgers. As he settles into his new life in Saudi Arabia, the Northern Irishman will feel he’s had the last laugh on that score.

The club are right to call out the unacceptable conduct of a minority of supporters, yet they’ve alienated the entire fanbase through refusing to engage or explain.

Celtic fans are often accused of being entitled. But isn’t any supporter entitled to see the club in which they invest so much be the best version of themselves? That plainly isn’t happening.

You could be forgiven for believing that those at the helm just don’t see it that way. They often talk of aspiring to be ‘world class’ in everything they do. This has had no basis in reality.

On so many levels, the club are dysfunctional, an analogue institution operating in a digital age. Aside from stockpiling money, the strategy is unfathomable.

To sell one forward in Kyogo without having a ready-made replacement was poor. For it to happen again with Idah in the next window was negligent.

In the wake of the subsequent loss to Kairat, finance director Chris McKay claimed the cash reserves of £77m were to guard against ‘volatility’ in football. That tends to be what you encounter when you knowingly go into such a lucrative match so ill-prepared.

The weeks which followed that humiliating exit in Kazakhstan are beginning to feel like the good old days.

Martin O’Neill’s return as interim manager following Rodgers’ abrupt exit briefly lifted the spirits. He won seven matches from eight, a terrific run given the resources with which he was working.

Nancy’s insistence on abandoning O’Neill’s template and implementing a 3-4-3 mid-season has been an unmitigated disaster.

After starting brightly on Tayside, Celtic again ended the night looking muddled and dispirited.

Nancy is new to all this, but his comments aren’t helping matters. He must have been the only man of a green and white persuasion who felt ‘we deserved to win’ on Wednesday after such an insipid performance in the second half. ‘I think I’m in a good direction with the players,’ he added.

He also invited ridicule when claiming that he ‘knew Scottish football’ because ‘I was close when I was a player to sign with Carlisle’. It merely added to the sense that he’s a man in the wrong place.

Celtic, understandably, don’t want to earn themselves a reputation as being trigger-happy.

But at what point do they reconcile themselves with the possibility that they’ve made a mistake in appointing Nancy. After five defeats? Six?

If the Frenchman gets to January, he’ll be looking for a couple of wings-backs. No point in drafting in a new manager who doesn’t use them afterwards.

He must beat Aberdeen on Sunday, surely.

It was, of course, the Dons who ripped the Scottish Cup from Celtic’s grasp in May, before St Mirren took the League Cup from them last Sunday.

If the Nightmare on Kerrydale Street continues into the New Year, the Premiership title will be gone, too.

It’s going to take a lot more than a change of manager to turn this tanker around, though. The club’s problems run far deeper than one man.