The board’s apparent belief that nothing is as bad as it seems and that fans need to understand how lucky they are gets them nowhere – only further ensconced in their own echo chamber.
Paul Tisdale, the self-styled football doctor, is a powerful man at the club, the operator who helped bring Nancy to Glasgow. Tisdale is a footballing Trappist monk. If he has a vision, a way out of the morass, wouldn’t it be an idea for him to articulate it?
After the cup final, Nancy said he knows where “we want to go”. He also said: “I try to go beyond results.” By that, maybe, he meant he wants to not just win but win with style. After losing three games in a row the jam tomorrow line was a little misplaced. It came with a shuddering reminder of the kind of things that Russell Martin used to say when he was manager of Rangers.
Nancy is not the whole problem at Celtic, far from it. But he’s a symptom of it, a failing cog in a malfunctioning machine. One of their trophies from last season has now been taken from them and no sane voice could mount any sort of case against St Mirren being thoroughly deserving of their glory.
Another of their trophies, the Premiership title, is in danger in the face of a challenge from a club, Hearts, with cohesion and clarity, run by a manager who knows his stuff and a set of players who are organised and focused.
Celtic had an aura once. Not that long ago in fact. Now they are a husk of what they were – and this decline set in long before Nancy arrived and long before St Mirren humbled them at Hampden.
It was a day for the Buddies. They’ve had to wait a while. Watching them celebrate what was for many, or all, the finest day of their footballing lives was to be reminded of the romance of the cup.
It’s a concept that’s been under threat for a long time from Celtic’s metronomic success. Threatened by Aberdeen last time and with St Mirren now, the threat is back, with bells on.
