If a behemoth and a fellow diehard can be vilified into throwing in towel, what chance does Nancy have now that the same herd is moving against him?

THE Grinch Brigade may have got the one present they wanted more than any other.

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But don't think for a second that Celtic's winter of discontent will end with the festive resignation of chairman Peter Lawwell.

On the contrary, it seems a great deal more likely that this high-profile scalping of the old silver fox is only just the beginning.

Because even though the lynch mob have successfully hounded Lawwell into submission, the appetite for some kind of full-scale revolution has not been remotely diminished, never mind satisfied.

Rather, now that they have the taste for blood, the militants may feel even more empowered and more ravenous for change than before.

These then are likely to become the most dangerous of days for a club which has somehow - and quite spectacularly - managed to disembowel itself over the course of the last 12 months.

Celtic have locked themselves into some sort of death spiral.

And it's impossible to imagine what must be going through the head of new manager Wilfried Nancy as he attempts to navigate his way through this unfolding Christmas nightmare like a traumatised stranger in some dystopian foreign land.

The undiluted venom which was spewed in his direction from the travelling support at Tannadice on Wednesday night will have rocked him to his very core. And there is reason to believe, from his early communications, that this is a fundamentally decent man, perhaps with a soft centre.

Nancy has spoken about the messages of support he's been receiving from friends and family over his first few days in charge.

He's mentioned that even his own mother has expressed concern over the emotional impact this whirlwind of an ordeal has been having on her boy. And he looked physically and mentally shaken by the manic reaction to his side blowing a one-goal lead against Dundee United and crashing to a fourth successive defeat.