Last night, Celtic’s summer “nightmare scenario” came into focus.

The big story last night, or at least the one a few people wanted to talk about, was the claim that Celtic could approach Roberto Martinez if we still do not have a manager by the time the World Cup ends.

When you stop and think about it, that story is nonsense from start to finish.

For one thing, we need a manager in place long before the World Cup ends. The idea that we might still sit around at that point, waiting to see who becomes available, should terrify every Celtic supporter.

This is not a minor appointment we can kick down the road. It is the first and most important part of a summer rebuild that should already be underway.

Then there is the Martinez angle itself.

Are we seriously meant to believe Roberto Martinez, currently managing at international level, is waiting for Celtic to call? What if he wins the World Cup? Do we really think he will drop everything and walk into a club with no functioning leadership, a broken football structure and a boardroom that has spent the last year making itself look toxic to any serious manager?

It is ridiculous.

And it becomes even more ridiculous when you look at the source. Football Insider, everyone’s least favourite rumour factory, appears to have started this story. The site throws so many claims at the wall that one eventually sticks through sheer volume.

That is the broken clock principle dressed up as inside knowledge. Even Hugh Keevins gets one right now and then, and he probably hits the mark more often than Football Insider.

So let’s be clear. Celtic will not appoint Roberto Martinez. Everyone should get that idea out of their heads now. We will not land a manager of that level while the club remains in its current state.

Every serious manager who gets offered this job will do the same thing. He will pick up the phone to Brendan Rodgers and ask “Will you tell me what happened? What is it like to work for these people? What is the football structure really like? How much control do you actually have? What happens when you ask for proper backing?”

And Rodgers will tell him.

That is the problem now. The damage done over the last year does not sit in isolation. It follows the club into every conversation. It hangs over every interview. This sits on the desk before the first question is asked. Celtic cannot pretend that managers will look at this job as if nothing happened to Rodgers, and perhaps even Nancy.

This club will not improve until it has a complete leadership overhaul. That is the fact of it. The people who have run Celtic into this position are not suddenly going to change course. They are not going to wake up one morning and become serious, modern football operators. They have had years to do that and they have shown us what they are.

That is why the manager conversation is so grim.

A few months ago, names like John McGlynn, Steven Robinson, Neil Lennon, Scott Brown or Askou at Motherwell would have sounded ludicrous in relation to Celtic. They still should. They should be beneath the level of this club. These should be the kind of names dismissed instantly because Celtic should be operating in a different market altogether.

But maybe that is where we are now.

Maybe those names are not ridiculous because the club itself has made them plausible. Maybe this board has dragged the job down to such a level that a domestic appointment, cheap, compliant and grateful, is exactly the sort of thing they now see as sensible.

And I will say this plainly. One of those appointments, something at that level, feels far more likely than Roberto Martinez. That is the real scandal here.

There is too much work to do for Celtic to be drifting through this process.

We should already be far down the road. If the club had any professionalism at all, the search would be advanced and an announcement would be close. Not in a few months or after a tournament. Not after another round of speculation. Soon. Preferably before this campaign ends.

Because the manager has to come first.

You cannot rebuild the squad without knowing who will coach it. You cannot sign players without knowing the system they will play in. Nor can you ask supporters to renew season tickets without offering them some idea of what they are buying into. The next manager is the foundation. Everything else has to sit on top of that.

That is why this World Cup angle worries me.

It is not because I believe the Martinez story. I do not. It is because I can absolutely imagine Celtic using the tournament as an excuse to delay. I can imagine them deciding to wait and see who becomes available. I can imagine them waiting for a manager, failing to get him, and then finding themselves a month behind with the rebuild still barely started.

That would be so Celtic. That would be so perfectly in character for this board that none of us should laugh it off.

The summer is already complicated enough.

The rebuild is enormous. Our squad needs serious work. The World Cup will make recruitment harder, not easier. The last thing this club can afford is to sit around waiting for some fantasy option while serious clubs are doing serious work.

So no, I do not believe Celtic are getting Roberto Martinez.

But I do believe the story should be taken seriously because it offers up one dark possibility which once would not even have troubled our darkest nightmares.

But it will, and it should, because of how unserious the noise around this club has become. It tells us how badly the managerial conversation has deteriorated.

And it reminds us of the danger that Celtic might once again waste time they do not have chasing a plan they cannot execute.

The manager should be step one. If Celtic get that wrong, or delay it too long, then everything else becomes harder. And after the season we have just watched, this club has no right to make anything harder than it already is.