2025 was Celtic’s Annus Horribilis, the worst in the club’s modern history. But will 2026 be any better?
Eric Knott 
(Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images)
2025, what can you say about it as a Celtic fan?
Well, I suppose the positives that you can take out of it are that we won a League and Cup double, and we got to the knockout stages of the Champions League.
There the positives end from a club perspective.
However, I can say that one huge positive has emerged from this calamitous year, and that’s the emergence of the Celtic Fans Collective.
Whether people choose to accept it or not, the Collective is driving change at Celtic.
Last week was the first major breakthrough with the resignation of Peter Lawwell.
What unfolds in the next 5 weeks or so will determine the fate of the remaining board members.
One thing is for certain, Celtic can NOT afford to have their ‘standard’ inactive January transfer window this January.
If the board even attempts that, they know they’re finished.
It won’t be tolerated.
Before we even look at the January window, three decisive hurdles need to be negotiated.
If they are successfully, then and only then can we look towards January.
That starts tomorrow with our trip to Almondvale.
Nothing less than a win will suffice from this one.
Hearts play Hibs at Easter Road in the early kick off, if they win that one they will be 9 points clear of us, albeit we will have two games in hand.
We cannot afford to drop any more points if we want to stay in this race.
Just discussing this indicates how far Celtic have fallen since this time a year ago.
And yes, as I stated in the headline, 2025 will go down as Celtic’s Annus Horribilis.
I cannot recall in living memory a year as bad as this one, and I attended my first Celtic game on this day 42 years ago.
As we discussed in the podcast recently, 1994 wasn’t even as bad.
In reality, that did not come as a shock because the board in place at that time were utter incompetents, and we expected them to fail miserably.
You don’t expect a board that has tens of millions sitting in the bank to run a club into the ground like this one has.
Yet they have, and here we are.
I suppose that makes them more incompetent than the board that was in place in 1994?
At least they had an excuse, they simply had no money.
So, what lies in store for Celtic in 2026?
Well, that’s the thing, it’s virtually impossible to predict.
We cannot realistically predict anything until we overcome the next three fixtures.
Win those games, and then we can see a pathway forward.
Because if we do, then we know that Wilfried Nancy’s tactical changes will have taken hold, and the players will have started to adapt to them.
In addition to that, we can then look forward to crucial positions being filled in the team during the January transfer window.
The opposite to that is that we continue to struggle in our upcoming fixtures, the manager loses his job, and then we are complete disarray.
2026 will begin as badly as 2025 ended.
That scenario doesn’t really bear thinking about.
Because in that scenario, we are not winning this season’s title.
Heads would most certainly have to roll in the board room in such a scenario.
Nobody survives that kind of disaster, especially when it was totally avoidable.
All it will do is expedite the inevitable anyway.
The majority of Celtic fans will not be happy until all of the current board have vacated their positions.
The only reprieve they have is that Wilfried Nancy becomes a resounding success, and one win over Aberdeen certainly hasn’t changed people’s perception of the Frenchman.
He’ll need to do a bit more than that.
Even if he does, we’re reliant on people who have proven in the past they are incapable of getting it right in the transfer window.
If Wilfried Nancy keeps up his part of the bargain and wins his next three fixtures, we then have to trust Michael Nicholson and Paul Tisdale to get it 100% correct in the January transfer window.
I know, right?
The most important transfer window in a long, long time, and these are the two people in charge of getting it right?
Which begs the question, will 2026 be any better than 2025?
I can’t answer that.
I don’t think anyone can.
So we have to take it on a game by game, week by week basis.
We have to hope that things get better.
But what’s even more concerning about that is that we have to hope that people we do NOT trust can make things better.
Which is why we want them gone.
A total paradox really.
But that’s where we’re at, and we somehow have to find a way out of it.
One thing is for sure, just like 2025, 2026 will not be boring.
We just have to hope it’s not boring for all the right reasons…
Key Takeaways
- Celtic had a disappointing 2025, marked by poor board decisions and the emergence of the Celtic Fans Collective.
- The resignation of Peter Lawwell signals possible changes, but the board must act decisively during the January transfer window.
- Upcoming matches are critical; winning them could provide a pathway to recovery for Celtic’s performance and leadership.
- If results do not improve, further managerial changes may occur, leading to increased fan dissatisfaction and calls for board resignations.
- Fans remain hopeful, yet wary, as trust in the management and future performance hangs in the balance.
💚 Season 1977/78. The worst season that I’ve followed Celtic.
Played 36.
Won 15.
Draw 6.
Lost 15.
Goals for 63.
Goals against 54.
Goal difference 9.
Points 36.
League position 5th.
I’m not sure we know for sure the majority of fans want the board out.
What I mean by this is that I am just an ordinary fan.i buy my season ticket and usually European tickets although this year I boycotted the Europa campaign.
I have never been approached at the ground or canvassed by email etc by the collective to see where I stand.I know countless other fans who also feel the collective aren’t aggressive enough in getting more fans onside.its also very disheartening boycotting and yet the games still sell out.
On a personal level i think the collective need to up their game considerably to harness the power of the supporters.
Or are they frightened of what they might see and hear?
The crunch is only a few months away with season ticket renewals.if they don’t come up with a plan then many fans will just renew in my opinion.
I’d say this coming year is very easy to predict at Celtic, Eric:
* Sell what’s left of our quality players
* Make joke lowball offers for shit players
Buy 5 of these shit players at 1-2 million a head
* Make sure at least 3 of them are bought on the very last day in a panicked scramble
* Make a 20 million profit on player trading
* Pocket the difference
* Tell the fans that January is a ‘very difficult window to deal in’
We all know this is how it will go as that’s what they’ve done every year and Peter Lawwell will want to go out with a final hatefilled stomp on the support’s collective faces.
And Stevie, above, is 100% correct, most folk don’t even know what The Fans Collective is, apart from the fact they interrupted a game by throwing tennis balls onto the park.
I’m sorry to say but the Collective is in danger of disappearing up its own arse thanks to all the self aggrandising and preening it’s done.
For Lawwell isn’t leaving because of you guys, no matter how many times you tell yourselves it is, there are a few reasons but the weakling efforts of the Collective really is not one of them.
This comes from a source inside Celtic Park who told me in August he was leaving by the end of the year.
For example, what are the Collective’s next steps?
What is the plan of action if the board buy no one and refuse to vacate their roles as Dermot is ordering them to do?
For it look to me like they’re toothless and clueless so far as they’ve achieved absolutely nothing yet, if they finally accept that half of Scotland knew Lawwell was leaving this year?
Oh, and the internet is alive today with the news that Tisdale isn’t on holiday, he squared up to one of the corporate ticket holders at Hampden, got his arse kicked and has already been sacked for his outrageous behaviour.
Had it been a member of the Green Brigade apparently Dermot and Peter would have given him a medal but since it was a rich Tim he got the bullet instead.
So it’s now down to Nicholson, McKay and Dermot to get those January deals done.
In other, apparently unrelated, news, Shamrock Rovers’ Director of Football resigned yesterday.
Won a double and got to the champions league knockouts!
Yea it’s been a terrible year!
Doomsday brigade!
I broadly support the collective’s aspirations and made sure to be on the Celtic way to listen to the speakers last week at 2pm.Unfortunately it was virtually impossible to hear what the speakers were saying and after about 10 minutes I and a number of other fans started drifting away.Agree with some of the previous posts that communication with the broader, generally sympathetic fanbase could be better from the collective and must improve if momentum is to be maintained.