In an alternative universe, Wilfried Nancy took over with Celtic having two in-form strikers to make the most of the bounty of chances his radical new formation creates. Yesterday in this domain, he had to watch seven good chances passed up in the first half, while the woodwork was struck four times in the second period. A game which could have matched the legendary 9-0 win over Aberdeen in 2010, came within minutes of ending in stalemate. These are strange times.
After the equaliser, Insightful Kevin paraphrased another Frenchman by saying, “Give me a lucky general”. Bonne chance has been in short supply since Wilfried breezed into town.
The second goal courtesy of an 88th minute Kieran Tierney header. It felt familiar. Four years and six days earlier, Kieran’s right-sided colleague Anthony Ralston, rose even later in a game at Ross County to put Celtic 1-2 ahead, and orientate Ange Postecoglou’s side in the direction of their first league title. Special mention to the guy behind me who couldn’t cope with the prospect of Colby Donovan replacing Anthony, and left before Colby’s match-winning cross for Kieran.
Everything is relative and this Celtic team is weaker than any since 2021. It can still be a league winning side. Yesterday’s win, coupled with the result at Tynecastle, gives the title race more of a two than three-horse race feel, with Hearts unmatched ability to close-out a season the biggest impediment to our success. If you fancy the title going to Ibrox, you can get eight times your money back in five months.
Those of us who have watched Celtic all season might find that a bit generous. I would not be daft enough to put money anywhere near any of the title aspirants. What I know for sure is that every game right now is crucially important. Yesterday’s win was celebrated lustily; rightly so.
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Back the Board and Wilfried Nancy petition
https://c.org/7zMNYQ7SWp
New phone, who dis?
Sionnaigh on 22nd December 2025 12:01 pm
Back the Board and Wilfried Nancy petition
Absolutely in touch with reality…..
If you use Twitter, this is a good analysis of the progress in recent matches of our approach to attacking: https://x.com/johnwalker_1986/status/2003061581622473144?s=20
Lots of positives lately.
It’s the Bonkersball approach to defending that keeps the lights on for everyone else in the league. We have a back one when we are in possession of the ball, and a Back FFS! when we lose it.
After the weekend, it’s a two horse race for me. This is a title that is there to be won. And fairly easily won imo.
P67 appears willing to give WN some slack rope because of our lack of strikers – I don’t recall BR getting the same leverage despite his summer long pleads for striking reinforcements.
These games are must wins and under WN our defence is shockingly exposed. We will drop points to almost any team in this league if this is not rectified.
Livi up next and heaven help us as we try to defend set pieces and long balls with Trusty the only recognised CB.
Ralston is a ridiculous weak link in this set up, we’re dropping plenty of points in the time ahead.
“First and foremost, we must acknowledge the unwavering dedication of our Board of Directors and the significant impact made by our main shareholder, Dermot Desmond. Their strategic vision and commitment have been instrumental in maintaining Celtic’s legacy and ensuring our competitiveness, both nationally and on the European stage”
from the petititon….
was chatting to a young guy about mushrooms yesterday…maybe…
If we get recruitment right in January (early January) we win this league. Hail hail
MTT
Willie Miller, who always seems to be a pretty fair pundit, thought Celtic’s play yesterday was as good as anything we’ve produced in recent years.
He thought double figures yesterday could well have been a possibility, such was the pressure.
Last month showed Hertz will fold IF (!?!?) we can apply pressure.
Reflecting Mick’s point above, we’ve got Motherwell and The Rang2rs back to back next week, after which Dundee Utd and Falkirk before a trip to Tynecastle on the 25th January.
Getting good business done with capable strikers in the door in time to tune them up and field them effectively against Hearts is surely an imperative. That means players in the door in the first fortnight of January.
Late signings won’t make any difference to our league prospects before mid February, by which time those prospects might well be greatly diminished.
PTB – aye he was way more positive about Celtic than Pat Bonner!!
This weekend has an interesting fixtures card.
We’re away to the bottom club in the league while our two closest challengers are away to Hibs and away to Rang2rs.
The Blogger Formerly Known As GM on 22nd December 2025 12:28 pm
PTB – aye he was way more positive about Celtic than Pat Bonner!!
Green hun…
Laxalt FYI
Transfer fee = buying a player’s current contract.
Training compensation = rewarding the youth academies that developed the player.
Good article. Reasonable and realistic
We have failed to adequately strengthen (or even maintain squad depth) in recent transfer windows.
We need to start getting this right
No excuses. No shifting the blame around
I am sure we are all hoping the great result,against a form team,and one we were sort of dreading,was not a flash in the pan.We absolutely murdered Aberdeen,and Willie Miller is right,could have been 10.Misses,woodwork,keeper,and Kenny.All combined.
My moan,I said it before the game,is,Big Dale and Pusey., Nancy has two right sided CHs available,why play Ralston?.Cant fathom it.
Apart from that,a wonderful display,which I am hoping was down to the manager.
See some rag linking us to some striker from Germany.1 goal in 16 starts !!!!!!!!.
Get Munteanu in.He wanted to come in the summer.No young projects.
Sionnaigh,
Multiple hits to the head from that Breadboard I think.You are making Burnley sound neutral.
The Living pitch 100% better than the old Axminster .Showing in Livis results.Not supplying the home points it used to.
Livi, FFS.
A petition backing Nancy fair enough………… but a petition backing the board!?
File it alongside:
Ally McCoist for Celtic DOF
Donald Trump for Dalai Lhama
How do we know it’s not hearts or sevco fans signing the petition ?
Opposing fans have been quite vocal lately in support of our board…
I have very little faith that we will get our recruitment right .
Tisdale has been a disaster .
We are wide open at the back .
Yesterday’s performance against a 10 man Aberdeen .
An Aberdeen returning from a gubbing away in Europe on Thursday night .
Has not given me more confidence in Nancy’s open attacking style of play .
In fact , I’m even more concerned.
I don’t think that we will get more than 4 points from our next 3 fixtures .
TT
If anyone interested,Bologna,our next Euro opponents,play Napoli tonight in Italian Cup Final,in Saudi.7 pm Premier 2.
Tinytim,
Vying for Optimist of the Year Award.
😀
Anyone mentioning the fact Aberdeen were down to 10 men,obviously ignoring the battering they were taking with 11.Should have been 4 or 5.Best performance off the season.
RC…never heard either of your points before.
A transfer fee is buying a players contract?
Development fee….Money automatically goes to the club’s academy?
Not sure about any of that but we’ll agree to differ and leave it there.
I certainly wouldn’t discount the huns just yet …if we get 2 wins away to livi and Motherwell I’ll be stunned happily stunned but stunned nonetheless.
If I’m happily stunned then beating the huns on the 3rd might just might be a hammer blow to them.
Genuinely we could have battered yesterday BUT even with 10 men they played through us a lot
How many signings do we need ?….a lot
What we need is PACE and POWER……….oh wait where have I heard that before?!!
An Dun
For clarity Rodgers I gerited and treble winning team playing the best football of my Celtic supporting lifetime of 57 years and destroyed it.
He reduced the team to playing boring football against a self harming 1 team opposition league and scraped into the last 32 of a CL despite the easiest draw ever.
Nancy is 5 games into a role and has had no window to work in. Let’s hope he does strengthen quickly and give us a chance.
I would rather see all out attack and 5-3 wins than what we endured last season by any stretch. It does need proper resourcing.
At least we don’t have an impasse of a guy working his own agenda vs the interests of the club now.
I don’t know if you ever ran a business where a key guy had made it obvious to all he was leaving and then started working against you as an employer ? I have an it is not easy place to be in and in my case it was not public facing as this was. DD botched it and should have acted in March.
We are where we are now and in time things will be made clear I hope.
We can agree to disagree for now re Rodgers 2nd coming. No issue re his first 2 years here btw. They were really good.
Give Nancy a chance. Personally I loved the energy yesterday and the commitment from the team. Really only poor Liam and perhaps the goalie were not at their best. I never even noticed Reo was missing.
Huge 3 games now which we will hopefully be prepared for better than the first 4. Livi maybe haven’t won but since we beat them they haven’t lost by more than 1 goal either.
agree playing with our current back 3 personnel it is a bomb scare when we lose the ball in a forward or midfield position and always FFS attack from the opposition as is any set piece into our box.
Burnley78 on 22nd December 2025 1:56 pm
Can you explain to me (assume I am not very bright) what you mean by
“Rogers was working his own agenda”?
Thanks
67ECW
Even before we rescued ourselves, those watching the game seemed to be softening on Nancy. They were coming to the conclusion that he was doing as much as any manager could with the players he was given. His system was producing chance after chance. Our forwards were just not getting the ball in the net. We go back to the terrible summer transfer window we had.
A petition to back the board? Who started that pish……probably someone on here….
We need 2 strikers next month not 1
A wee swatch at FF.I thought it was only some on here that believed in Santa.
“In the window,we need a Keeper,2CHs,a LB,a Striker,a no.8 or 10.”
The Yanks will be frantically searching as I write.
Bada,
It was me.I am outing myself 😮
Afternoon, all.
If you want more info on WN’s philosophy, check out Columbus Crew vs Atlanta match report.
We will need to score at least 3 to win games