Wilfried Nancy arrived in Glasgow just over a month ago and described himself as the perfect fit for what Celtic wanted from a manager.
‘We want to attack and score goals,’ he said. ‘My philosophy is always about what we do with the ball. We will try to entertain people.’
Credit where it’s due, Nancy certainly delivered on the entertainment front. A colourful and chaotic reign, truly historic in the sheer scale of its horror, was brought to a swift end on Monday after only 33 days.
His appointment was like a New Year’s resolution. Full of positivity and good intentions at the outset, but abandoned by the first week in January.
With Paul Tisdale, the club’s head of football operations, also departing, this is not merely a managerial execution. It is the collapse of a house that had been built on sand.
Wilfried Nancy was unveiled back at the start of December after Martin O’Neill’s interim period in charge
However, things got off to a terrible start as he lost his first four matches in charge
Paul Tisdale has also now departed the club along with Nancy after a difficult period for the club
A house that Brendan Rodgers knew was collapsing. He made his escape and has probably enhanced his reputation by saying nothing in response to Dermot Desmond’s brutal character assassination.
It is important not to rewrite history here. Rodgers was no angel. He often spoke to suit his own agenda. But no one can deny the regression in the Celtic squad assembled by Tisdale.
The employment of Tisdale, and the hiring of Nancy on his recommendation, will forever stain the current board.
The Celtic hierarchy wanted to back Nancy and give him time to build a team in his own image, but the reality was that the manager was showing precious little to warrant any further support.
The 3-1 defeat against Rangers on Saturday, where Celtic had imploded from a 1-0 lead and a position of promise, proved to be the final straw.
Six defeats in eight games is a sequence of results which no manager can survive in Glasgow, especially one who was insistent on making a rod for his own back with his tactical naivety and inflexibility.
Seeking to impose his will on a foreign land, this was the most ill-conceived plan of attack by any Frenchman since Napoleon pitched up at the Battle of Waterloo.
Nancy leaves Celtic as the worst manager in the club’s history. Bar none. No other manager even comes close. No previous nadir has plumbed depths such as those witnessed over recent weeks.
He will go down as the worst, not because he tried and failed, but because he never truly understood the stage upon which he stumbled.
And in that ignorance lies his eternal infamy.
Even taking all of this into account, there will be those who feel a measure of sympathy for Nancy, and that’s understandable.
Nancy lost the League Cup final against St Mirren in what was his third game in charge
Purely on a human level, you had to feel for him in certain moments. Coming into a new country, doing his best to communicate in a second language, only for people to mock him about the colour of his trainers.
That was a ridiculous critique by which to judge any manager. By all means judge his tactics and credentials as manager, but all the other nonsense belongs in the gutter.
Some people will point to Nancy’s use of a tactics board at the side of the pitch during a defeat to Hearts in his first match in charge as being his first misstep.
Truthfully, it wasn’t a good look. But it wasn’t the worst thing a manager has ever done. What was far more alarming was Martin O’Neill speaking on national radio about his conversations with Nancy.
O’Neill had answered the SOS call following the resignation of Brendan Rodgers and led Celtic to seven wins in eight games.
After handing over the reins to the new man from Columbus Crew, O’Neill was asked about the nature of his brief dealings with Nancy.
‘I met the incoming manager,’ said O’Neill. ‘He was very affable, very nice. It was only a 15-minute conversation. He’s got his own philosophy and viewpoint, which is fine.’
Given the difficulty of taking charge mid-season, surely it would have been wise for Nancy to seek the counsel of a club icon? Could he not have tapped into O’Neill’s knowledge of the squad and of Scottish football?
But this is what ultimately proved damning for Nancy. There was an arrogance and a delusion that underpinned his methods and his desire to rip everything up.
He spoke last week and bemoaned the lack of a pre-season. But that simply didn’t wash. Danny Rohl did not have a pre-season at Rangers but swiftly engineered a formula and system to make them competitive.
Nancy, on the other hand, continued to deploy his players in a back-three system to which they were hopelessly ill-suited.
The defeat to Hearts started it all off and was followed by a Europa League thrashing against Roma, before Celtic then lost to St Mirren in the League Cup Final.
When they also went down 2-1 against Dundee United, a fourth straight defeat extended the worst start of any manager in the club’s history.
It was after that match at Tannadice that Nancy uttered the famous line about how he knew all about the demands of Scottish football… because he almost signed for Carlisle during his playing career.
That was the type of gaffe where Celtic really ought to have taken him aside and offered him a few pointers in terms of how to handle himself with the media.
But his communication skills did not improve. His rantings continued in press conferences and players had clearly switched off to whatever message he was giving them in-house.
Instance Luke McCowan’s comments after the Old Firm game at the weekend. Pressed on whether the players still believed in the manager, McCowan replied: ‘We have to be. He’s the manager, what else can we do?’
Without saying so in as many words, it was a damning admission that the players simply were not buying what Nancy was selling.
To be fair, it looked like Nancy was finally starting to turn some kind of corner when Celtic claimed successive wins against Aberdeen and Livingston either side of Christmas.
But it should be noted that Aberdeen played half the match with ten men, whilst Livingston sit rock bottom of the Premiership table.
Celtic did beat Aberdeen and Livingston but they proved to be Nancy’s only victories
What was also alarming was the fact they continued to haemorrhage goals at an extraordinary rate. All in all, they conceded 18 goals in Nancy’s eight games at the helm.
It was back to square one last week when Celtic crashed to defeat at Motherwell, with the defeat to Rangers being the final nail in the coffin.
Even last week, prior to the Old Firm clash, Nancy spoke of how he believed the media were trying to ‘kill’ him. In reality, the only harm journalists have done him has been to print his results.
What remains to be seen now is whether Celtic will issue another SOS call to O’Neill. Whilst their season has been shambolic, they are by no means out of the title race.
There is still plenty to play for and a couple of good signings over the course of the January window would further improve their chances of catching Hearts at the top of the table.
Maybe in the fullness of time, Nancy will be a bizarre footnote in an otherwise fruitful season. That might be stretching it, but Celtic could still win the league. It’s not beyond them.
All that’s left to say is: au revoir, Wilfried. An idealist who crumbled under the thunderous weight of expectation in Glasgow.
He was suppose to arrive as a breath of fresh air. Instead, he brought a howling gale that scattered the furniture and left the place in one hell of a mess. Now for the clean-up.
