The 2025/26 Scottish Premiership campaign will be one that goes down in infamy for loyal faithful Celtic fans around the globe.
Last season’s title and incredible Champions League Play Off run gave the Hoops renewed focus, ambitions and optimism for what we could achieve on the European stage in the years that followed, but Brendan Rodgers’ old concerns and frustrations with our transfer business quickly came to the fore.
We crashed out of the Champions League early on, league form was woeful, and the 52 year old Northern Irishman walked for a second time at the end of October. With how quickly things spiralled many fans would have felt a novice who chose to play blackjack with crypto would garner better luck as they enjoyed their online gaming, but that was only part of the story of the shenanigans that were to come as Celtic did not quit whilst they were ahead and they daftly kept digging.
Fan protests against the board followed which led to further resignations and incriminations, but that was bookended by the utterly bizarre decision to appoint an affable, but completely unknown, Wilfried Nancy.
Well loved and well respected Martin O’Neill had already come in as caretaker and despite letting it be known that he was up for the job until the end of the season, and having picked up seven wins from eight, we still appointed the 48 year old Frenchman with limited MLS experience.
We were not the project he thought we were, and he certainly did not have the time he seemed to assume he had to change our playing style completely and get us back on an upward curve. Two wins from eight games saw his spell come to an end and amongst the additional questions for the board that this experiment sparked – not least who thought he was qualified for the job – many simply wanted to know why it took so long to say thanks but goodbye?
The legend that is O’Neill returned once again and instantly won two from two. This obviously led to the return to the question of why the board felt they knew better in replacing him to begin with?
But with the end of January almost with us now, those questions need to be parked and all our focus and attention has to be on saving the season and making up for the months of pointlessly lost time owing to behind closed doors political posturing.
O’Neill himself has now spoken about the importance of the business that we conduct in what remains of the transfer window if the season is to be salvaged and considered a success and he will certainly be hoping to fare far better than Rodgers did when listing his requirements and top targets from his short list.
Fourteen wins and two draws from 22 games sees us sitting in joint second place in the table, six points shy of current league leaders Hearts, but that is not an unsurmountable gap and arguably had Monny stayed as temporary gaffer we would at least have closed that gap further, if not fully and given ourselves a small advantage.
It is still very doable and it will turn a woeful season into one that can be stomached, albeit not easily forgotten. But we cannot waste anymore time and we cannot afford any more slip ups and a fresh injection of key new faces and talent will make that process easier and then hopefully provide a far better foundation for the Celtic squad that will take us into the future and meet the expectations that all fans have.
