Kieran Tierney and Celtic manager Wilfried Nancy are seen during the Premier League match between Celtic and Heart of Midlothian at Celtic Park on December 07, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Risky decision backfires in Nancy
Celtic should have waited until after the cup final next Sunday to make the change. It would have been fairer on everyone – the players, the interim coaching staff and most importantly Wilfried Nancy.
Nancy could and should have listened to those – like The Celtic Star in our predicted team – who reckoned that the sensible thing to do in the circumstances would be to go with the same team that started on Wednesday night, with the same system and formation and take it from there, with his changes being rehearsed on the training pitches at Lennoxtown before being showcased at Celtic Park.
Nancy was all guts and glory and if Daizen had scored…
But Nancy was all guts and glory and if Daizen had scored from his two brilliant chances then maybe his high risk gamble would have worked and we’d be talking about the genius in the Celtic dugout.
Martin O’Neill assessed the players he had to work with and despite talking up Nygren as the fourth best thing to come out of Sweden in his farewell speech on Wednesday night, had deemed the summer signing an worthy of just a place on the bench and useful as a late substitute, as was shown in Rotterdam.
Sebastian Tounekti of Celtic is seen during the Premier League match between Celtic and Falkirk at Celtic Park on October 29, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
On Sebastian Tounekti he ended up under O’Neill dropping into the unused substitute bracket and results don’t like. His contribution always looks much better than it actually is, with the likes o Sandman making comparisons with Mikey Johnston and his time at Celtic.
The Celtic Board decided WHEN Wilfried Nancy would take over from Martin O’Neill
The Celtic Board decided WHEN Wilfried Nancy would take over from Martin O’Neill. He decided to ditch the playing style to go three at the back and to make the changes to the team that he saw fit. Celtic lost the game and now have Roma in the Europa League on Thursday evening and St Mirren in the Premier Sports Cup final at the weekend.
Of the three games, ahead of yesterday the one I was most worried about with the final. St Mirren won on Saturday and now have eight days to prepare for Hampden. They were impressive in their semi-final so can play well at the National stadium and Celtic – with a new manager coming in – had two tough matches against Hearts and Roma to play.
Roma celebrations at Ibrox. theRangers v Roma. Europa League, 6 November 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou
Roma would have been favourites anyway for Thursday night and it is going to take a huge effort from Celtic to take anything from the game. Then, win lose or draw the recovery time is short ahead of Hampden.
A steady as she goes approach under Martin O’Neill then a hand-over this time next week would have been the best option
A steady as she goes approach under Martin O’Neill then a hand-over this time next week would have been the best option but we are where we are and now Nancy needs to get his system right as Roma look on and unlike Derek McInnes they will come to Celtic Park knowing how Celtic are going to play. They have already won in Glasgow in this campaign after beating theRangers at Ibrox, they will strongly fancy their chances after scouting Celtic’s match against Hearts.
Celtic manager Wilfried Nancy reacts during the Premier League match between Celtic and Heart of Midlothian at Celtic Park on December 07, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Next up is Sandman’s Definitive Ratings…
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That was a disaster.
After 30 min CELTIC chucked it !
Then the manager obviously watched another match going by his interview s
But at least he kept his eyes open ( I think )
Then tells Roma and St . Mirren we going to play the same way !!!!!!!!
Ffs 1 game, of course he’s going the change things, give him a bloody chance, the team has been shit under Rodger’s and O’Neil and were lucky to get some of the results they got
The timing factor was always going to be an issue, with the changes and handover to Nancy.
Many will claim that getting Nancy in ASAP, to assess the squad, is the right option?
My own preference would have been after the cup final imo?
Regardless of the timing involved, we are still nowhere near to becoming a respected CL team, which has been the case for months now, and still a long way away, from becoming one again, any time soon anyway imo?
Got no real issues with trying to change to a back 3 approach.
Again timing, without AJ and CCV available, along with no proper defensive midfielder within our squad?
So only potentially 4 defenders from the 8 named within our European squad, who could form a back ?
Wouldn’t class ralston or Donovan as options in a back 3 set up, along with Saracchi when he becomes available again imo?
So massive risk factors involved, when any team aren’t set up defensively properly, especially ours with a lack of options available to ourselves?
Regardless, we were still able to play some great one touch, build up play early doors. Yet again the most vital point, of the final ball with the finishing, is a combination that we are still struggling to find, on a regular basis.
Confidence is still a fragile issue within our squad sadly. MoN did a fantastic job in raising the likes for ourselves, yesterday came back to haunt ourselves yet again.
Showed up badly, when conceding 2 very poor goals, and nothing more than confusion on show, with trying to chase a game imo?
There’s no denying that an enormous amount of work is required, possibly even more so now, with such a lack of options available, to imply such changes into our team set up imo.
Again no Paulo used, so can’t help but think he has become top of the list, wanting to head for the exit door?
Doubtful he is alone either, so can we really afford to lose both Maeda and Yang if this is going to be our new team set up?
Can kelchi or Kenny develop into the striker role, in this new set up, especially with no Osmand available? Same could apply to shin also, but going to take longer with the amount of changes involved within our club already, for him to be dealing with at present imo?
Seb and balikwisha aren’t settled whatsoever within our club at present, but doubtful either will adapt to more tracking back, with the new system on show yesterday?
Overall, I think with Nancy, it’s looking like a very forward thinking game, is going to be his objective, within our playing style imo?
Will require some amount of surgery within our squad, to even adapt for the remainder of this season. Especially with such a lack of options available to imply the likes properly.
European football is going to be a big ask for ourselves, especially with the 2 remaining games after Thursday, where results are still going to be required, later in January. That is going to have a big knock on effect for the January window regardless for ourselves, whether we like it or not?
So adapting to the changes involved, is going to be our biggest issue to contend with imo?
Not as many changes will be forthcoming in January as we would like?
Trying to find the potential solutions in January, with an injury list as it currently is, along with the potential want away players in place. And could be looking at the prospect of only 3 changes allowed to our current European squad in operation?
A minefield is already in place for finding the solutions come January. Especially with potentially needing more, than what is going to be available for ourselves?
Expectations have already been massively reduced this season already. But the thought of losing the cup final remains as unthinkable, or so it should?
The SPFL title still remains within our own hands, despite the setback yesterday.
The europa league is only complicating matters for what is required within the team building process that’s required imo?
David Faulds, in writing your post, I can only guess you either your plan is to stir the pot or you have never watched Celtic play, especially this season!
“If it isn’t broken” really? If it wasn’t broken we wouldn’t be in the position we are in! We would be scoring goals for fun, as we normally do, we would be water tight at the back, as we normally are, and we would be unbeaten, and unbeatable at the top of the table, AS WE NORMALLY ARE!
Of course it’s broken!
In the games you clearly didn’t watch recently, we scraped through against a very weak ibrox club in the semi-final of the cup, after extra time, and we had a man advantage for much of that one! We narrowly defeated Hibs, Dundee and quite literally STOLE a game from St. Mirren, even with our saviour MON leading our charges!
After Rodgers and his deliberate attempts to cause serious damage to the club were called to task by the board, his resignation was almost certainly forced to allow him a dignified departure he did not deserve. He was toxic.
MON and Shaun Maloney helped us, yes!
But make no mistake, WE ARE BROKEN!
Neither Nancy nor anyone else has a magic wand to fix that in a single game!
THE SO CALLED FANS SHOULD GROW UP TOO.
SOMEONE NEEDS TO TELL THEM THEIR MOTION WAS VOTED ON AND WAS DEFEATED.
He should have picked up from where MON left off. He ended up coaching two highly experienced players from the sidelines. Hearts were there for the taking. We’ll never know but many will reckon Martin O’Neill would have won that game. Getting off to a good start really helps a manager and Nancy could have implemented his changes after he had fully explained what he was after to the players at Lennoxtown.
Nygren and Hatate don’t work well in the same midfield. No surprise that both had poor games yesterday, Reo has been getting back to his best game in the past few weeks. We’ll see on Thursday night if anything changes.
A new formation does not excuse crap defending. Calmac was shoved off the ball by Braga like he was a little child- he should have put his foot thru it and got rid. The second goal just typifies our crap defending- you just can’t allow an opposition playe4 a free run and jump at header – zonal marking or taking a player instead. Two poor goals ro concede then the same old crap up front- trying to pass the fecking ball into the goal instead of having a BLOODY SHOT. . We lack fight, creativity and a proper finisher. Why do we have 4 left wingers and no one on the right. The board have let us done by letting 80+goals leave without being replaced but you cant blame Nancy for basic defending mistakes that we have been making for MONTHS. This season we have been crap, the team needs a lot of very good players to be brought in and for Christ’s sake can we please have a target man up front-???
It was broken already. Relied on
wonder goal to beat St Mirren. We were bad in the majority of games under MON. No team ever uses a tactics board? The rubbish about this is laughable Who are we going to get if he goes? Back to the nonsense re Knutsen again?