CELTIC’S new manager Wilfried Nancy has made it clear right from his first interview that he does NOT consider himself as a boss.
The 48-year-old Frenchman will take charge of the champions on his dug-out debut against Hearts at Parkhead on Sunday afternoon.
Nancy has signed a two-and-a-half year contract as he takes over as the long-term successor to Brendan Rodgers who resigned abruptly in late October after back-to-back Premiership losses to Dundee and Hearts.
Martin O’Neill, of course, answered the call to take over in an interim role and led the club to seven wins – including five successive league triumphs – in his eight outings.
WELCOME TO LENNOXTOWN…Wilfried Nancy makes his debut at the training HQ.
The charismatic 73-year-old Irishman took his final bow in the 1-0 victory over Dundee in the east end of Glasgow in midweek to leave the way open for Nancy.
The coach, who quit MLS club Columbus Crew to move to Scotland, arrived at Lennoxtown yesterday and said: “The brand of Celtic fits me really well.
“I don’t consider myself as a boss, I am a leader. The definition of leader is to put a good environment to help and to give the possibility, the people that I work with to express themselves.
“My style of play is about the way I live. I like to be proactive in my life, I like to discover things. I like to try things.
“Football is about relations between players. We don’t play tennis, we don’t play golf. We need, I call it non-verbal communication. We need to run together to score goals, we need to run together to defend the goal.
Nancy, speaking to Celtic TV, continued: “We want to take care of the ball. I want proactive football.
“I want the idea to manipulate the opposition to gain speed and attack the box. When we have difficult moments, we have to be strong together and resilient.
“We all want to win. We have to prepare ourselves to be able to find solutions when we’re going to face problems.”
GETTING SHIRTY…new man Wilfried Nancy proudly holds a Celtic top. Images courtesy Celtic TV.
Explaining what we can expect from his long-term assistant Kwame Ampadu, Nancy insisted he will “challenge” and “support” the players and stated: “He’s wise, for me this is so important.”
Speaking of Martin O’Neill’s influence, the new man added: “I just met Martin. I didn’t know him, obviously, personally.
“I knew of him as a coach and what guy, simple as that, what a guy; humble, genuine and also we had a really good discussion.
“I wanted to ask him advice on certain things and we shared some stuff.”
Nancy worked with CF Montreal’s academy, eventually moving up to assistant and then head coach before becoming Columbus Crew head coach.
He won the Canadian Championship with Montreal and the MLS Cup and Leagues Cup with Columbus Crew.
Nancy has the opportunity to win silverware at Celtic a week on Sunday when the holders take on St Mirren in the Premier Sports League Cup Final at Hampden.
It will be only his third game after Hearts on Sunday and AS Roma in the Eurpa League at Parkhead on Thursday.
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