“We’ve got nothing to fear,” Jim Goodwin tells Dundee United ahead of Celtic’s visit | OneFootball

Jim Goodwin believes his Dundee United players should approach their upcoming Scottish Premiership clash with Celtic in a confident mood as the sides prepare to meet at Tannadice tomorrow night…

Jim Goodwin looks on. Celtic Champions 2025. Dundee United v Celtic, 26 April 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star).

The encounter marks their first meeting between the two teams of the campaign after the original date was rescheduled to accommodate Celtic’s involvement in the Premier Sports League Cup semi-final.

The Tangerines come into the fixture on the back of a goalless draw with Motherwell at the weekend, while Goodwin also had the opportunity to study Celtic closely after featuring as a pundit during the Hoops’ 3-1 defeat to St Mirren at Hampden on Sunday, the third loss of Wilfried Nancy’s tenure.

“Your shape is always going to be called into question by Celtic,” he said via The Courier. “The discipline and organisation will be important again.”

“But we’ve got nothing to fear. Celtic certainly haven’t been performing particularly well in the last couple of games. They’ve got a new manager in who is trying to implement a new system – and we know how difficult that can be. So, hopefully we can get at them, cause them some problems, and get back to winning ways.”

Goodwin added: “It’s going to be demanding, but it’s no more or less demanding than for all the other teams that we’re competing with. The difficulty you have in Scotland, in comparison to some other countries, is that you don’t play a lot of midweek games at the early part of the season.”

Celtic players at Hampden. Premier Sports Cup Final. 14 December 2025. St Mirren v Celtic. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

“Your body is not able to get used to those demands, then we get to this stage of the season and we’ve got seven games in a month! But they’re professional athletes, and we just need to make sure we look after them; make sure we recover properly. We’ll have plenty in the tank on Wednesday.”

For Nancy and Celtic, it feels like a must-win game and if the Frenchman was to suffer a fourth successive defeat, he might be heading back to the MLS for Christmas. Martin O’Neill yesterday urged the Celtic support to give the new manager time but it hard to see that there will be anyway back for the Frenchman if he fails to get the three points at Tannadice.

It also looks like it’s not only the support who are thinking this way but judging by the body language at Hampden on Sunday, it very much like the players are thinking along similar lines. Celtic should have the best manager in the Scottish Premiership, yet at the moment it’s hard to pinpoint a candidate other than Nancy for the worst boss operating in our league. A shambles of an appointment from our ‘world class in everything we do’ board.

The Celtic Board. Premier Sports Cup Final. 14 December 2025. St Mirren v Celtic. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

At least their fan media ban saves The Celtic Star having to head over to Lennoxtown today to listen to the latest drivel from Nancy. Small mercies.

Conor Spence

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