“I only have 13 practices with my team, usually we have four weeks of preseason.” That’s what Wilfried Nancy said on Friday, before the weekend’s capitulation at Celtic Park. He added, “It’s totally normal that my players need a bit of time, it’s totally normal that my players could be confused at certain moments.”
The Gods of XG back up Wilfried’s belief that Celtic have been unfortunate in not picking up more points than they did. The defeat to Hearts falls into that category, but the second half turnaround by Dundee United and Newco, and entirely inept performances against St Mirren and Motherwell, deserved nothing better.
“New players, a bit of time” – elements the manager suggests will help. True. Spending many millions on players to beat St Mirren and Motherwell will almost certainly work. This is Scottish football. Read the Uefa league tables, if you want to check the standard. Our player stock is already vastly superior to anything most of our opponents can acquire, adding even more £1m salaried pros will inevitably help.
We can agree that without a preseason to practice, it is normal that players look as confused as they appear to be. The concern many have expressed, is why, when the required practice time was not available, or the squad not suitable, did we cast off in this direction?
My suspicion is, Wilfried looked at our history of winning practically everything, and perhaps the Uefa tables, and thought, “We’ve got this”. He surely did not expect Motherwell’s new manager to win so comfortably at home to Celtic.
Five weeks into the job, it is too late for the manager to revert to the system Martin O’Neill used to get Celtic consistently over the line (and little more). Wilfried’s reputation has been staked on this being the correct path. He will continue until it works or he is relieved of his duties. To be fair to Wilfried, this is probably the only way he knows to win, so he has no choice.
You and I have no experience of defeats arriving at this rate, so the impact is bound to be profound. That we are here due to a tactical change which has not had the required practice, points to poor decision making.
At that presser on Friday, Wilfried said, “Do your job”. The lad is bold, if nothing else. Having the best plan in the world is worth nothing if you allow the foundations to burn around you. It is time to get the job done, Wilfried.
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I thought when I saw the headline that it was a demand that the board do its job and sack a key employee who was clearly a mistaken appointment and who is set to severely damage the business.
Man Utd in a ten way fight for a champions league place sacked their inflexible manager and will give the new guy the window to get them into the top 4.
We should be in a one team fight for champions league qualification round. Instead we have a manager who may not get us into the top three or four.
This is the last chance to get rid and give an interim or new guy the chance to bring in some loans or a couple of good SPFL players to get us the league and take stock in summer. Take that chance now Celtic. The dogs on the street know WN has to go. Waiting till 5 Feb to sack him, when league will be gone, is the worst of all possible options.
If only those who suggested him and those who appointed him had done their jobs, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Ignore the bleeding obvious.
“The defeat to Hearts falls into that category, but the second half turnaround by Dundee United and Newco, and entirely inept performances against St Mirren and Motherwell, deserved nothing better”
Don’t agree with this Paul.
Here’s a statistic of limited value.
Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic have won every game in which they’ve gone 2 goals ahead
(Both of them ! )
If we’d gone 2 up against Dundee United and R2ngers?
… and by jiminy, the xG Killer’s team had real chances to do so
… we would have won those games.
In the cold light of day though?
Coulda, would, shoulda stuff.
St Mirren and Motherwell? Yip, agreed.
And, regardless of full time scores …
… playing so badly in two domestic games from seven (28.57%) is, perfectly understandably, just not good enough for many.
b2b
so thats 5 league games, 1 cup game and 2 euro games…
what mixture of results would be acceptable…
Yes, he seems to be guilty of underestimating the competition and poor decision-making.
He has been more successful in demoralising the players and fans and demonstrating complete insensitivity to his work environment. Also in perfecting waffling filibustering in his second language. Chapeau.
He was the Board’s number 1 choice. They told us. So he’s their boy. They own it now. No excuses.
Dublin advice? Trying not to think of our current situation.. was hoping for some advice if anyone has any on places to drink / eat. In Dublin from Thursday to Friday with work , American colleagues booked a tour of the Guinness brewery St James(?). For 4pm, I don’t know Dublin , any pub recommendations and or traditional restaurants / music afterwords gratefully received, tha in advance HH
“Do your job Wilfried”.
Is word from within that he’s staying,
and Paul67 is tasked with rolling the pitch?
Who knows?
But 48 hours of silence from Celtic, and counting .
Of course we can outplay teams in the SPFL,we have far better players.The first half performances were only what we have watched for years.The problem in every game,bar one,when we came up against a real tactical manager,who had us sussed from the KO,is that normal managers tweaked at HT,and he had no answer.Blaming the players is not on.They have no idea what to do except what they were doing before,most of the time,well.
His tactical changes,substitutions,were eye popping on Saturday.If you’re determined to force a new system on players,surely continuity in team selection would be paramount?No,he chops and changes line ups nearly every game,starting and during games.Yang on Saturday,prime example.
We don’t have the time,and this Board have no intention of providing the cash for the rebuild he needs.What is the point.
I’ll say it again: we need a change in employment culture. It’s high time bosses were made responsible and accountable for their crap appointments.
Too often, we see this, throughout our society, where people totally unqualified are promoted way beyond their capabilities. They are often sacked, especially in football, but those who employed them escape Scott free.
And, btw, this latest Celtic car crash all started with Tisdale’s appointment.
What other senior team would have gone a year without at least a couple of recognised centre forwards?
Please don’t count Kenny & Iheanacho. One is a tit and the other a post deadline crock.
We should have had a couple in on Jan. 1st. But, no.
Scunnered.
1. He has taken a team set to win the title and blown it.
2. He has lost 6 out of 8 which no Celtic manager (certainly in living memory) has done.
3. He has allowed the worst team ever out of Ibrox to move from 9 points behind to parity.
4. He has a system that doesn’t work.
5. He has no other system.
6. His system has no defence and is lucky not to have shipped more than the whopping total conceded so far.
7. The players don’t understand what he wants.
8. He has demoralised the players.
9. He has lost the players who have no rapport with him.
10. Players are now implicitly criticising him in public.
11. He succeeded a semi-retired guy in his 70s and has destroyed the success he built.
12. He took no guidance from this coach during the handover and was called out for it by MON.
13. He did no research on the league or teams he was coming up against.
14. He is incapable of changing tactics during a game.
15. He is incapable of raising players’ morale if the team suffers even a minor setback in a game.
16. He lost a cup final to a team with a fraction of his resources.
17. We were outclassed by Motherwell, probably for the first time since the 1950s.
18. His coaching sessions seem amateurish.
19. In press conferences he has no understanding of the mess he is in.
20. He has made the club a national and international laughing stock.
Any one of these would get a lot of managers sacked. How many more reasons does our Board need?
The new winger we are signing.Who is behind this?Who decided?.We have now 4 left wingers,and 3 right wingers,to play in a system that does not really play wingers.Unless we are going to have 2 players in some kind of Limbo every game,out wide.
For the love of God,end this farce now.
Wake me up before Kyogo
The complexity of the stock exchange leads to more delay, Brendan Rodgers “ resignation “ gives a clue what a listed PLC is by law required to do. Little chance any Desmond’s or Wilfried Nancy in Parkhead at the weekend IMO, there will be active actual investors there though, 50,000 approx.
Ironic, that ‘this weeks’ boardroom get out clause for the appointment WN will be football results, factual and inescapable. An unexpected but unavoidable diversion from their own ineptitude in choosing WN , in the first place?
A comedy of errors, that began with Celtic at the top where they normally are purely by default and the faithful. A depleted squad no striker, no hot water, a slap down too, just for good measure. The anti establishment football club with supporters acting all anti establishment. We’ll show you our development guy the antidote to ambitious Brendan and wannabe, entitled customers.
Now look what they’ve done.
We can still salvage what’s left of this season, but chase him now……but that would take the Board admitting some kind of responsibility, there’s the problem, they already have a fall guy in Tisdale, just do it…
He needs to go but the Board are taking incompetence to a new level.
Hope collective request a boycott on Saturday; we will certainly support it and would continue to support it until Nancy is gone. We need to bring DD and the Board to their senses. There are no winners here only losers.
It’s a certainty Nancy will be fired this season just a matter of when. The longer he stays the attendances will plummet which will impact season ticket sales.
As DD alienates the support he knows he will never recover it. No more strolling into Finnegan’s in Rome to catch the game. He is detaching himself from Celtic without realising it and is pushing the fans further away.
Someone mentioned is it a billionaire thing — well I have seen it happen to a German billionaire worth 6x Desmond. His son (Henrik who developed a soft spot for Celtic) missed out. The Ukrainian blonde has the lot now.
So, when all is said and done one 75 year old man is holding Celtic in his hand and not even Ross will know what he is really thinking.
We can all speculate but nobody knows what the end game is here — not really. That’s the scary thing for all of us whatever our opinion is.
Maybe Dermot doesn’t know yet either….
What if he doesn’t know how to do his job or, at least, not one hugely important part – ie set up a defence your players can work with and protect a lead?
A job such as his is one , it seems to me, that all the pre-appointment theory and interviews in the world don’t give the complete picture. It’s only once he starts and the performances and results come in can you really judge.
I’m staggered that no-one at Board level appears to see that he simply isn’t good enough.
His awful in-game management and failure to adjust his tactics, at least initially, to suit his players are , separately , a huge issue. Combined they are catastrophic.
Motherwell ought to have been the last straw but had he had the nous to counter Ruhls half time changes and seen the game out there might have been enough to buy him time. Of, course , he didn’t and we got battered.
Diomande was warming up on the pitch, fully stripped , for the whole of half time .
Was anyone on his coaching staff ( and I’m at a loss to understand what they have been doing generally ) aware of this and pass the information on?
If so ,did he or they even have a plan to counter that move ?
Even if they didn’t have a plan during half time and wanted to wait to see how it worked on the pitch, did he have any plan when it became clear, as it did pretty much immediately , that Rangers were going to shore up the midfield ?
I fear that the answer to all 3 of those questions is a very clear and resounding no.
In a Bobby Ewing in the shower world, Martin and Shaun have been there for the 4 league matches Nancy has lost. We’re 15 points ahead of the Huns and 9 ahead of Hearts.
He is an arrogant clown who pays no attention to anything the opposition do, the results prove it, we are in for more for the duration of his time in post, every team including Auchinlek can beat us, process that.
I’m on Day One of being off the drink until Wilfried is relieved off his duties and then we will all be relieved.
To be honest , I thought I’d be downing a pint by now.
In summary, no real tactical nous or switches required to play against us , just wait for 60 minutes gaps appear , press , you know the rest.
Makeitfastcfc
THE BADA BING
A good board would have did that, but instead they sacked Rodgers, sacked the Celtic supporters and dug themselves deeper into a hole.
EKBhoy on 5th January 2026 1:51 pm
I’m on Day One of being off the drink until Wilfried is relieved off his duties and then we will all be relieved..
——
😁Here’s hoping you are blootered tomorrow.
Our board have created a team/squad that matches their wee ambitions.
They are jersey shrinkers.
The accounts overdue as well, just can’t quite figure out why that could be?
World class in everything we do though.
Hedge Fund CSC
BBhoy.
Dublin…Kilmainham Jail museum is worth a visit but tickets sell out in advance.
Fallons pub in The Coombe (near corner of Patrick Street) is a nice old style pub (not a million miles from Guinness Brewery)
Peadar Brown’s in Clanbrassil Street is a good Celtic pub with lots of pro Palestinian events and plenty of “Irish Republican” customers.
The Cobblestone Pub in Smithfield is famous for its Traditional Irish music sessions.
Avoid Temple Bar unless you want to pay €10 a pint (That said The Palace,in Fleet Steet near Temple Bar is a genuine pub)
Doheny and Nesbitts and Toners in Baggot Street are good,
The Long Hall in South Great George’s Steet also
The Swan in Aungier Street and Kehoes of Sth Anne Street all good pubs
I won’t tell you.my own favourite though
Three points on Saturday Bhoys.My “we will win the league” belief still stands.Come on the hoops.No wee men in white coat jokes please….has to change…has to change.
ZIGGYDOC1 on 5TH JANUARY 2026 1:55 PM
EKBhoy on 5th January 2026 1:51 pm
I’m on Day One of being off the drink until Wilfried is relieved off his duties and then we will all be relieved..
——
😁Here’s hoping you are blootered tomorrow.
…..
Not sure , I’m getting use to it !
HH
Pubs and a jail, is that Dublin?
Do Your Job!!
If I was to coach and prepare my high school teams the way that WN is doing right now, then I would expect myself to fire me!!!If all of us at the game and watching all over the world can see that the Rangers, and every other SPFL team he has played so far has sussed out his tactics, and Gavin Strachan can’t help him with that, then what chance have we got. As someone said, we keep signing or are interested in signing wingwers, but we never use them as wingers. If we do, we do not have a recognized striker in the box to finish. My daughter said to me after the game, why are you not mad or why were you not shouting at the screen like you normally do, and to me that was a telling admission that, like many of you, I just feel broken about my team. We moved our best attacking player in the first half, yang, to the opposite side and he was nullified. I mean for God’s sake!!!! There are too many problems right now, including the lack of fight from our players, all the way up to a Board who don’t give a feck about how our reputation all over the world is in tatters. This is not an easy fix, even if a new guy comes. Keep the faith, keep the heid.
Sean
Dessybhoy
What more could a man want….
Bhoys Town on 5th January 2026 1:19 pm
—–
Perfect summary of his failings, sadly.
No it is not an easy fix,its impossible, we have an intransigent major shareholder who is demonstrating that he is the boss ,and only he will decide what gets done to address anything . We are going down the plug hole when the cash surplus runs out and when income falls we will be on a par with mid level SPL teams, I hope the execs salaries also fall in line with income, best if he sold out but he appears so intransigent and acting as if he hates Celtic and its support who knows who he would sell to. One thing what is happening will never be forgotten by the grassroots support nor will the people who supported this be forgotten.
WITS
Drink first then the jail
You go a year without seeing huns at the gym then 3 come along at once.
Fortunately it’s seasonal and they should be gone in a few weeks. 🤞
What is the Starz, that’s excellent, thanks very much , will look into those, looking forward to the visit. much appreciated, HH
There was a big fat hun at my gym this morning, no-one even made eye contact with him even the women, he was looking around do you see my trackie top, tosser. And it was a mixed audience with various football tops on view.
Turkeybhoy 1:24…
I believe this is the “exciting” winger with whom we are being linked for Nancy’s second signing.
I did wonder why we would be signing a player who is at the AFCON with the Ivory Coast team to fix an immediate problem in our team, but it turns out he’s not even in the Ivory Coast squad.
Check out the “highlights” video below. He does look like he’s grown up watching Ronaldinho videos on YouTube and practicing the trickery in the somewhat soft Saudi league…
https://youtu.be/fuJI1ds9AEk?si=oLoYLh-LkfOM4Zxb
…but count how many of the goalscoring chances he has, and creates, actually result in a goal being scored, and how many times he should have passed to a well positioned teammate but preferred to carry on showboating, ultimately with no end result.
He’d be fantastic to watch playing on a perfect surface in perfect weather conditions against lightweight opponents. But I doubt this trickery would transfer to playing in windy, rainy conditions on heavy, cut up Scottish pitches in November thru March against your typical SPL thumping defenders.
He’d likely get injured by an agricultural tackle on his debut, be out for a few weeks, get brutalised again immediately upon his return, then take his bat home and wither away into his shell. He’d eventually be sent out on loan to the Spanish 2nd division then be sold at a loss.
Apparently he’s out injured at the moment, so he wouldn’t be available as a quick fix in any case!
I’m sorry Monsieur Nancy, but
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWBSmfZTi4s
The January 2026 Transfer Window – it’s that time again already
IN
Julián Araujo 🇲🇽
on loan from Bournemouth till end of season no option to buy
OUT
Hayato Ianmura 🇯🇵
on loan to FC Tokyo till the end of season no option to buy
That “Do your job” header should have been aimed at the Board.