“It is a completely different level at Celtic,” Mulgrew warns Wilfried Nancy

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The Celtic Star

·18 November 2025

“It is a completely different level at Celtic,” Mulgrew warns Wilfried Nancy

Wilfried Nancy’s arrival at Celtic looks like taking a little longer than the expected few days that seemed to be the anticipated timeline after the Daily Record seemed to have been given an inside briefing by the club last Friday…

With the Celtic AGM this Friday and with significant fan unrest a factor, you can see why Dermot Desmond and his executive staff running the club on a day-to-day basis would have liked to have the new man in situ to get a former welcome to Celtic at the Celtic PLC annual general meeting.

Yesterday the club moved to dampen hopes of an imminent arrival in the course of this week by confirming that the interim team of Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney would remain in charge of first team affairs until the recruitment process has been completed. The club’s short update stated:

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“As Celtic Football Club continues with the process to appoint our next permanent manager, we can confirm that Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney will continue to manage first-team matters on an interim basis, until this process is complete. We will update supporters further as soon as possible.”

This doesn’t look like an issue with the deal to me, rather it’s about the timing and perhaps Nancy, as we suggested a few days ago, will be in the director’s area at St Mirren Park on Saturday evening to get a look at his new team ahead of taking charge.

As a coach Nancy will of course be doing his own homework on Celtic, watching games and getting a feel for his players but he’d be reluctant to be anywhere near the dugout with limited knowledge, no time to prepare or adjust tactics and would probably have suggested himself that Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney stay on for a forth domestic match and look to extend their 100% record with a third consecutive Scottish Premiership win on top of that delicious Premier Sports Cup semi-final win over theRangers.

Charlie Mulgrew and Shaun Maloney of Scotland celebrate victory after the EURO 2016 Group D Qualifier match between Scotland and Republic of Ireland at Celtic Park on November 14, 2014. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

I half expect the announcement to come on Friday at the AGM with the new manager entering the room to great applause before saying he’ll be in the audience at St Mirren on Saturday night.

Like probably all of us, Charlie Mulgrew know next to nothing, or maybe even nothing at all about Wilfried Nancy, but he certainly knows what is expected of a Celtic manager and what any incoming boss is going to face at Celtic.

“It is a completely different level at Celtic,” Mulgrew stated in Daily Record. “He is now coming to a pressured environment, where he will never have witnessed that intensity. I can guarantee that. You never know what that is going to be like until you are actually in the job. It is something that he will have to learn how to handle because everyone in Scotland knows the demands that come with being the Celtic manager.

“I didn’t know anything about him when he was linked at first. I then went away and did a bit of homework on him. He looks to be a good manager. He talks very well and is big on how he likes to treat and manage people, which is very important in the modern day.

Charlie Mulgrew of Celtic celebrates after he scores during the Scottish Premiership League Match between Celtic and Dundee United, at Celtic Park on August 16, 2014. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

“The formation that he seems to prefer is a 3-4-3 and he likes his teams to attack and score goals. It’s important to play good, exciting, front-foot football at Celtic. It looks to be a very attacking style and at times his teams have been caught on the counter-attack. Celtic fans will want attacking football because that is the Celtic way.

“Hopefully he brings a brand of football that is different, exciting and forward-thinking. I want to see his team play forward passes with the ball that gets the fans off their seats. Whether he would stick with that formation and style or changes that, time will tell. It is something different and it is exciting times.”

Hamish on Celtic AM has also done his own research and provides a great summary of the imminent new manager of Celtic. If you’ve not seen this, which was posted on Monday morning, here it is…

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