Celtic may yet end season of self-inflicted chaos and bedlam as champions | OneFootball

‘Paradise Lost: A Season Like No Other’ was the working title for a book about the self-inflicted chaos and bedlam created by the Celtic board; it was a shocking story of arrogance, incompetence and recalcitrance. It was also a story of complacency and how failing to sign a striker ahead of a crucial Champions League qualifier saw the season and club fall apart.

In 2025/26, Celtic experienced a cataclysmic disconnect among the board, management and support, which led to a failed player recruitment strategy. Celtic looked like a laughing stock. They ‘resigned’ Brendan Rodgers, brought in Martin O’Neill, removed Martin O’Neill and replaced him with Wilfried Nancy. They were forced to sack Nancy after a disastrous 33-day spell and brought back Martin O’Neill until the end of the season. If you listened hard enough, you could hear the theme music to Laurel and Hardy.

The board’s ‘low risk high return’ approach was failing at the word ‘return’ as the money just wasn’t being spent. They hadn’t replaced Kyogo Furuhashi, Nicolas Kühn, Adam Idah or Greg Taylor. The fans questioned the board’s refusal to spend, accusing them of asset-stripping.

The board could argue that Brendan Rodgers brought in eight players, but Kieran Tierney was free (though wages were high) and Ross Doohan also joined on a free transfer from Aberdeen. Jahmai Simpson Pusey came on loan from Man City and Callum Osmand on a free from Fulham.

Along with Tierney, a stand-out arrival was the Swede Benjamin Nygren, who signed from FC Nordsjaelland for £2m on a five-year deal – a stranger to pace, yet a free-scoring midfielder on 20 goals thus far. Hatayo Inamura came from Albirex Niigata (£250,000), and Shin Yamada from Kawasaki Frontale (£1.5 million) on a four-year deal. The biggest mystery was almost £5 million paid to Royal Antwerp for Michel-Ange Balikwisha. He was Brendan’s eighth signing and the seldom-seen Bali is more enigmatic than the lesser-spotted wild haggis.

With what felt like a bizarre mix of parsimony and incompetence, they failed to sign their main target, Anderlecht striker Kasper Dolberg. He went to Ajax for £8m, but their DOF Jordi Cruyff doesn’t rate him. He’s scored five in 24 appearances, has started only 12 games, and is being kept out of the side by oil baron and heir (honest) Wout Weghorst.

Celtic scrambled around like a pub team on a Sunday morning looking for a striker. In came one of Brendan’s mates, an unfit Kelechi Iheanacho. Though if the big man keeps popping up with winners in the run-in, the fans will forgive the slow start.

The lack of preparedness ahead of the Champions League play-off against European giants Kairat Almaty sealed Celtic’s fate and overshadowed the rest of the season. It was only August 26th (though it was already the 27th in Almaty, a 16-hour flight away and only 300 miles from China), yet the season felt over.

With his ‘Honda Civic’ moment followed by a 3-1 defeat to Hearts, Brendan Rodgers was gone. There was a volatile AGM with Ross Desmond’s spectacular misreading of the room. When the fans complained about the board’s incompetence, they reacted with antagonism. The board went to war with the Green Brigade, the club’s ultras group. Stability was required and it wasn’t forthcoming.

Celtic were in crisis mode. Any established, well-run business can accept criticism; the best ones welcome it. Those running Celtic couldn’t handle the truth – refusing to assume responsibility for their incompetence. When the fans shone a light on them, they banned sections of the support. For so-called successful hard-nosed business people, they were all surprisingly thin-skinned.

There was pandemonium surrounding the worst appointment in the club’s history – Wilfried Nancy – who arrived from the MLS with his handheld tactics board. His appointment as the club’s new head coach lasted 33 days. He was sacked in early January 2026 after losing six of eight games, including a humiliating defeat to Rangers, who were struggling with Russell Martin’s ‘fresh’ ideas, too far removed from the support’s vision or the team’s mentality.

As the board patted each other on the back, Hearts were thinking ahead and doing far better with much less. Scottish football was initially sceptical about Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics, his side-hustle from the betting company Starlizard. Bloom was mocked. Starlizard? It sounds like a David Icke project.

But the numbers made sense. Hearts paid the Norwegian second division side Aalesunds just over £400,000 for Claudio Braga, and he seems a shoo-in for Scotland’s Player of the Year. Hearts had something Celtic lacked: a bright, creative, hardworking goalscoring trio in Braga, Alexandrios Kyziridis and Lawrence Shankland. They also had a system that identified Walsall’s Oisin McEntee and Partick Thistle’s Harry Milne.

Meanwhile, the now 74-year-old Martin O’Neill has become Celtic’s interim manager for the second time, and along with his coaching staff, is collectively getting a tune out of his players by not over thinking things and winning ugly. Nobody believes this Celtic side deserve to be champions. And yet. And yet. As they prepare to face Rangers, they just might.