Celtic the worst coached side in the league? Look at the board…

Celtic have been named the worst coached side in the Scottish Premiership last season.

The champions.

The team that won the league and the Scottish Cup.

The worst coached.

And I’m sorry, but I can’t say I’m in the least bit surprised.

Three managers in one season doesn’t happen by accident, it happens because of the people in the boardroom.

According to the Daily Record, the boffins at PLAIER and the University of St. Gallen have put together their Global State Of Football report.

They looked at over 200 clubs across 14 leagues following the 2025/2026 campaign.

Four measures were used – squad quality, sporting director efficiency, coaching efficiency and financial stability.

Here is how the Record summed up where we landed:

It is noted that the Hoops underperformed their squad quality despite being crowned champions. Theirs was the only F grade to be dished out, with a score of -1.16.

The only F in the entire league.

Not one club in the Premiership was handed a worse grade than us.

Think about that for a second.

Now, I’ll be honest, I’m not going to pretend I know exactly how a computer works out a coaching grade.

And I’m not about to start arguing over the decimal points either.

But I don’t need an algorithm to tell me what we all watched with our own eyes.

Brendan Rodgers started the season and ended up in a public fallout with the absent meddling golfer.

Martin O’Neill came in on an interim basis, which, as usual at Celtic, meant nothing of the sort.

Then the board decided they’d rather not stick with the Celtic legend and went and gave the job to Wilfried Nancy instead.

We all know how that one went.

The man who rescued the season was the one the board didn’t want to give the job to in the first place.

O’Neill came back, steered us over the line on the final day and added the Scottish Cup for a double.

Credit where it’s due, that is a hell of a thing to do with a squad that had been through the wringer.

But that’s exactly the point.

Make no mistake, Martin O’Neill didn’t win us the league because of a plan.

He won it in spite of one.

And when a club has three different men in the dugout in a single season, is it any wonder the coaching grade comes out in the red?

Meanwhile, Motherwell got the only A grade in the league for the season overall.

Their coaching efficiency came in at 1.53 under Jens Berthel Askou.

That is the best in the Premiership.

David Gray at Hibs scored 1.12 and Derek McInnes at Hearts 0.92.

Askou has since left Motherwell, but that grade is on the board.

And he was a man Celtic were apparently interested in.

Remember him?

Askou was a leading candidate for the Celtic job, and now he’s being linked with Crystal Palace.

When O’Neill finished his second interim stint, Askou was viewed as one of the favourites.

Then he took the job at Toulouse and the race came down to O’Neill and Robbie Keane.

We know who got it.

Now the Dane is a candidate at Crystal Palace after Pierre Sage was axed.

Speaking to Open Goal about his time in Scotland, he said:

I don’t want to talk about what other opportunities might have been.

I will let people speculate about that. I am here now, and I am happy about that. I feel it’s a very good decision I have made.

Coy.

Very coy.

Did the Celtic board offer him the job?

Your guess is as good as mine.

But if you ask me, a man who “doesn’t want to talk about what might have been” has told you plenty.

And let’s not forget, O’Neill is contracted until the end of the season.

He’s 74.

The club look set to go hunting for his successor in the summer.

Same board.

Same process.

Same result?

Watch this space…

Of course the board came out with an A for financial stability, it’s the only thing they’ve ever cared about.

Because here’s the kicker.

There was one A grade for Celtic in that report.

Financial stability.

Estimated profit of around £33 million.

The only A in the Premiership for it.

So the worst coached club in the league is also the best run in the books.

You couldn’t make it up.

That is the Celtic board in one neat little report.

A balance sheet that is the envy of Scottish football and a dugout that is a revolving door.

Dermot Desmond and his pals will be delighted with that.

Because for them, the money in the bank is the only grade on the report that matters.

The rest, the F for coaching and the squad that underperformed, can wait.

It’s the fans who get the F.

Who sit through the managerial merry-go-round, who watch the squad being picked apart every window and who are told to be grateful for a trophy, because heaven forbid we should be bothered about how the thing got won.

Don’t be fooled by the title.

It papered over the cracks.

And the cracks are the board.

Amateurs!

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