There are defeats that hurt, and then there are defeats that humiliate. The kind that do not fade with sleep or excuses, but cling stubbornly to the conscience of a club and its people. For Celtic supporters raised on dominance, defiance, and an almost sacred sense of superiority, what unfolded was not merely a loss. It was an exposure.
This club was built on identity before results. On an inherited arrogance earned through history, not demanded by hope. Celtic has always sold itself as inevitable, relentless, untouchable when its standards are intact. That is why the current moment feels so deeply uncomfortable. Because what hurts most is not losing at Tannadice, but being laughed at while doing so.
Dundee United’s 2–1 comeback victory ripped away any remaining illusion of control. An early Daizen Maeda goal briefly masked familiar flaws, but once United pressed, Celtic folded with alarming ease. Krisztian Keresztes levelled without resistance. Zachary Sapsford finished the job while Celtic players looked frozen, passive, and painfully ordinary.
That alone would have been bad enough. But what followed turned embarrassment into something closer to public shaming.
Kris Boyd and Mark Wilson did not analyse. They dissected. In barely twelve words, they reduced Celtic to a punchline. No cushioning. No respect for reputation. Just cold, unforgiving verdicts that framed Celtic as complacent, mentally weak, and structurally broken. For supporters watching on, it felt like watching former insiders slam the door shut and laugh from the outside.
“This is what happens when standards disappear,” one verdict landed.
“Celtic look lost, predictable, and soft,” came another.
Those words cut because they rang true.
This was Celtic’s fourth straight defeat under Wilfried Nancy, and the body language told a story no press conference could rewrite. Players argued, heads dropped, passes slowed. The authority that once defined the shirt was absent. Opponents now sense it. They smell uncertainty. They believe.
The fallout has been vicious. Fans turned on the manager in the stands. Online spaces descended into rage and despair. Chairman Peter Lawwell’s decision to step down, citing “intolerable” abuse, only underlined how far things have spiralled. Reports of assaults on club staff completed a picture of a club eating itself from the inside.
Nancy tried to speak of positives. Few listened. His words felt hollow against a backdrop of repeated collapses and mixed signals, including a cryptic online post that confused more than it reassured. Authority, once questioned, is rarely restored quietly.
Dundee United, meanwhile, celebrated a victory that exposed Celtic’s fragility in full view of the nation. Their intensity embarrassed a side that once prided itself on overwhelming lesser opponents through sheer force of will.
What Boyd and Wilson voiced, brutally and without apology, is what rivals are now whispering openly: Celtic no longer intimidate. They can be rattled. They can be bullied. They can be beaten by belief alone.
“This doesn’t look like a big club right now,” one pundit concluded, a sentence that will haunt supporters far longer than the scoreline.
This is no longer about tactics or injuries. It is about erosion. Of fear. Of respect. Of identity. Celtic fans are not angry because the team lost. They are angry because the club they recognise is slipping away, piece by piece, under the glare of unforgiving judgment.
And the most painful truth of all is this: the laughter did not come from rivals. It came from voices who know Celtic best, and who no longer feel obliged to protect the myth.
