Daizen Maeda of Celtic arrives prior to the Premier League match between Celtic and Aberdeen at Celtic Park on December 21, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Q: He sounds like a very important player to the way you want to play. If a club wants to come in in January, do you have a message to the board? Do you need to keep this guy for what he wants to achieve?
Wilfried Nancy: “Yes, for sure we’d like to keep him. And he knows that. And I hope that he’s going to stay.”
Q: You talked about assessing your current players. How long do you think that will take to have? Because obviously January is quite soon.
Wilfried Nancy: “Until the last day of the window! No, because again, sometimes, yes, we want to do things. But there are certain things that we cannot control. Because we are not the only club. There are many things. I’m going to tell you, I like you, I want you as a number six. But maybe we’re going to be in competition with other clubs and so on. So again, yes, there is a desire to get players, like every window. And it will not change with that. But after that, the idea is not just to add players for the sake of adding. So yes, just see what we need in terms of quality, yes. But in terms of personality, because we need personality players to play in this club.”
Wilfried Nancy talks to Daizen Maeda,, Dundee Utd v Celtic, Scottish Premiership. Tannadice, 17 December 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)
Q: There’s obviously a lot of games going on at the moment. How much time have you got to dedicate to looking at different players who may come in?
Wilfried Nancy: “It’s a day-to-day job. Because we know that there is a window. So again, there is no timeline with that. Every day, practice, I see my players. And after that, I also watch other players. And after that, there is also department work for that. And it’s about communication.”
Q: I’m sure when you came into Celtic, the recruitment staff at the club here had done a lot of preparation for the window and a lot of homework on potential targets. Have you been able to say to them, players that you are interested in, that you know about, or are you led by them and the work that they have done?
Wilfried Nancy: “No, no, it’s both. There is communication. Communication is important. We discuss about players, coming from them, coming from myself, coming from everywhere. So the idea is to find the good one if we need to add someone, and to see what we’re going to do with that.”
