Celtic were told to let Wilfried Nancy cook but he served up the inedible and had to go
Stubborn Nancy saw method in his madness but players did not
Let him cook at Celtic was Thierry Henry’s advice on his mucker Wilfried Nancy as the doubts surfaced just a few weeks into his tenure.
Henry may have been a wonderful striker but he didn’t hit the target this time. The conclusion of the Celtic board is that had Nancy been allowed to stay on as head chef, he would have burned the ingredients.
Statistically the worst manager in the history of Celtic Football Club, Nancy is now toast. After 33 days in charge of first-team affairs, the beleaguered Frenchman was sacked by the Parkhead board on Monday.
They had no choice. What a spectacularly bad appointment this was. In eight matches at the tiller, Nancy won two – against Premiership bottom club Livingston and ten-man Aberdeen – and lost the other six. Within that was a top-of-the-table clash with league leaders Hearts, a Premier Sports Cup final against St Mirren and an Old Firm clash with Rangers. You don’t survive such a wretched run at Celtic.
Nancy was given the Celtic job on December 3. It was at his request that he started midway through the season amid a draining and demanding run of fixtures. Rather than build upon excellent foundations laid by the wily Martin O’Neill in his caretaker role, Nancy tore it all up and imposed his own philosophy. He saw method in his madness but his players did not. They could not adapt, not take on what he was asking them to do.
Tactics bordered on negligence
Some will argue that there were flickers of promise. Celtic displayed some strong 45 minutes of attacking football and Nancy will lament the at times desperate finishing of his forward players. Yet they were so ragged in defence, so open and easy to score against. The tactics bordered on negligence.
After building up his reputation with Columbus Crew, he has torched some of it with his work at Celtic Park. It was folly in the first place to make sweeping changes to a winning team so quickly, but what he must really take responsibility for was his decision not to row back when it was clearly not working. Too stubborn to admit that he was doing things wrong, the 48-year-old – who had never set foot in Scotland until landing this job – never altered his 3-4-3 ways.
The crux of the Celtic squad had their reservations early on. Nancy and his trio of coaches in Kwame Ampadu, Jules Gueguen and Maxime Chalier were unable to turn around early perceptions. An honest yet quite astonishing press conference from Luke McCowan in the wake of losing to Rangers at the weekend merely emphasised that all was not entirely right between players and manager.
Celtic powerbroker Dermot Desmond and his fellow directors had to act. The failed Nancy experiment will cost them millions in compensation to Columbus and then severance to the coaching staff, but failing to win the league and having a shot at the Champions League riches would be far more expensive.
Such is the gravity of the situation, the man who identified Nancy has also gone too. Head of football operations Paul Tisdale was also axed on Monday. Most Celtic fans will not miss him given his recommendation of the coach and also his patchy transfer record. Desmond and Co have shown no mercy in making sure that everyone knows who is to blame for bringing Nancy in.
Deciding to gamble on Nancy at this stage of the season, given where Celtic find themselves right now, was fundamentally a bad call. Poor Tisdale will also be remembered for the Sky Sports cameras catching him nodding off during Nancy’s first match, a 2-1 defeat by Hearts.
Being asleep at the wheel is also a criticism that is being flung at the Celtic board. They continue to be at serious odds with some supporters who want more blood to be spilled. This season already, we have seen Brendan Rodgers resign as manager and Peter Lawwell stand down as chairman. Celtic have not been in so much flux this century. “When has it ever been this bad?” was McCowan’s comment after losing to Rangers.
Celtic can still have successful season
Celtic are six points behind Hearts in the title race. They have allowed Rangers to draw level with them after their own catastrophic start to the season at Ibrox. Yet Celtic still have the strongest squad in the league, have enough time in the transfer window to bring in new players and there are still 18 games to navigate in the league. One more win in the Europa League, either against Bologna or Utrecht, should land a Europa League play-off. The Scottish Cup hasn’t even started yet. There is enough road left.
The Celtic board knows this. That is why O’Neill is back with his band of merry men including coaches Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham. This is not the time for harebrained schemes. This is the time for strong leadership and decisive, correct decision-making. O’Neill brings that.
In one of his final press conferences, Nancy went on a seven-minute address to say that he needed time to get things right at Celtic. He accused the media and critics of “killing him” and that his team weren’t far away from coming good.
In the end, he was the wrong man in the wrong movie. He did not understand the landscape, nor his squad, and he did not see the error of his ways. A cringeworthy faux-pas after losing to Dundee United caused alarm bells. When asked if he had underestimated Scottish football, he replied: “No, I know Scottish football. I know the way it is. I come from France. I come from Europe. I was close when I was a player to sign with Carlisle.”
Celtic’s problems do run deeper than him but there was no evidence to suggest that he was going to turn this around. Even Rod Stewart knew. The rocker posted an Instagram video celebrating Nancy’s demise and said he was off to the pub to raise a glass to his dismissal. Glasgow football is a mightily cruel world. Nancy wasn’t cut out for it. O’Neill is. Now he has to cook up a storm again.
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