Wilfried Nancy Media Conference ahead of Celtic trip to Tannadice

The show must go on and Wilfried Nancy faced the mainstream media this afternoon after Johnny Kenny had his turn in the media room at Lennoxtown…

The Celtic manager spent most of his conference picking over the bones of the three defeats in a week to Hearts, Roma and St Mirren in the Premier Sports Cup Final at the weekend. Here’s everything that the new Celtic manager had to say, with a wee reminder that the club has banned Celtic fan media…

Q: As you can imagine, there’s been a lot of noise since the Scottish League Cup final on Sunday. You’ve had fans, pundits, the media already. You’ve only been here two weeks, and some are questioning your position already. Is that a bit of a surprise for you?

Wilfried Nancy: “No, because this is my job. This is a normal reaction. Don’t forget that I come from Europe, so I know the way it works. To be fair, also in MLS it’s the same. Not with the same intensity, obviously, but I’ve been a player also, so no problem with that. They can say what they want and I understand that. After that, do I accept or not, it’s not the topic. The topic is to be good with my players, to be good on the practice and to be good also during the game to win games.”

Q: How confident are you that you can turn it around and prove early doubters wrong?

Wilfried Nancy: “I don’t have to prove anything for anybody. Simple as that. I have to just be coherent with my team and to do my job as best as I can. After that, I think things will turn, not on my side, but it’s going to be more positive. For the moment, it’s been 10 days that I’m here. Like I said, I knew before I came here that it could be difficult, regarding the situation, regarding the fact that this is the first time for everyone to have a coach who comes in the middle of the season like this. I knew that it could be a lot of adversity, but again, like I said, I’m really happy to be here. I do my job as best as I can and after that, things will go in a more positive way.”

Q: What sort of response did you get from the players in training this morning? How confident are you that they’re fully bought in and fully invested?

Wilfried Nancy: “Since the beginning, again, for me, the most important thing is to get this connection with the players. To let them know why I do what I do, regarding the way I want to play, the way I want to defend, the way I want to compete. Every day, I see that there is an improvement. It’s true that for you, you cannot see it because you are not with me. But for me, why I’m really confident is because I can see every day something really interesting and many things really interesting. This is a step-by-step. We’re going to go towards what I would like to do, yes.”

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