Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic Nightmare: Does He Need More Time Or Is Pressure Mounting? | OneFootball

Wilfried Nancy has an unwanted record to his name so early into his Celtic tenure. The Frenchman, brought in from Columbus Crew, has lost his first four games in charge of Celtic. In the club’s history, no one has ever done that.

Funnily enough, he also shares a record with the great Jock Stein. But again, it’s not really a record he’d want, as Wilfried Nancy is the first man to lose four consecutive games in charge of Celtic since the great man himself did so way back in 1978.

Whilst not everything that is wrong with Celtic Football Club in this moment is his fault, the pressure is certainly starting to mount on his shoulders and his possible future at the club. But should that mean he gets time to rebuild the below-par squad, or is it too little too late already?

The beginning

Wilfried Nancy was named the permanent successor to Brendan Rodgers on the 3rd December. This followed after Martin O’Neill brought stability during his interim spell in charge, winning seven of his eight games.

For Wilfried Nancy, it was the perfect foundation for him to build from. Whilst the general quality of the squad at his disposal isn’t exactly fantastic by Celtic standards, he walked into the building with a group that at least felt happier and more confident with themselves in comparison to what it would’ve been like after Brendan Rodgers resigned.

However, there is an argument to be had that there was already an issue from the moment he walked in, where he had three massive games against Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts, a Europa League clash with Gian Piero Gasperini’s AS Roma and a cup final at Hampden Park against St Mirren. All those games were in the space of a few days of each other, and those fixtures aren’t easy either.

Wilfried Nancy, like most modern-day coaches today, has his set ways and principles and a clear ideology of how he wants his teams to play.

Nancy clearly likes a 3-4-3 with wide centre backs pushing really high, the goalkeeper sometimes playing as that extra centre back in build-up, one of the wing backs coming inside and the forwards thriving with the space that would be vacated in those wider areas. This has been his way his entire career, from his days in MLS with Montreal and Columbus Crew to where he is currently today at Celtic. Particularly in the MLS, he also proved successful with his methods.

But when you do consider those tricky games in Celtic’s schedule, you’d think either that he’s totally mad to try to embed his system so early with little time to properly train and with a group of players clearly not capable of playing his way, or you’d think that the Celtic board have totally screwed him and the team over by bringing him in with that kind of schedule where it would’ve been hard to find the correct outcomes whilst trying to also implement his methods with such restricted training time. Both could even be true too.

What has Nancy got wrong?

Wilfried Nancy would’ve known just before being officially announced as Celtic’s new Head Coach that this period of games would have been very tricky. So, he had a choice to make in terms of how to approach these three tricky games. He could either maintain the foundations laid by Martin O’Neill whilst slowly drip-feeding small details of his ways, methods and system, or he could’ve stripped the walls back and gone fully in on his way.

Understandably, having confidence in what he’d done up to the moment he arrived in Glasgow with the success he had in MLS, he chose that latter method of doing things his way and implementing his style on things. From the first three games, despite losing all three, you can definitely see what his idea is, which highlights how good a coach he is because even with restricted time training-wise, he has established a clear idea.

But then there’s an issue with that. This is Celtic Football Club; winning football matches and trophies comes second to nothing. Whilst he has put in place an idea, Celtic haven’t won football matches. That’s where the debate then comes from, where people start asking whether he was actually better off sticking to the foundation Martin O’Neill put in place and then gradually putting his ideas into place. Then, he would’ve got at least one win, possibly two, from those three games, which would’ve bought him more patience among the fanbase.

Looking back on those games against Hearts, Roma and St Mirren, Wilfried Nancy probably changed too much too soon despite being able to establish an idea. It’s worth mentioning that, to be fair, that is in hindsight to say he got it wrong in those games. But considering he also had such little time to make the changes he’d like, he got it wrong by stripping all the walls back, and he should’ve kept the Martin O’Neill foundation.

That Dundee United game at Tannadice

A game of two halves, from total dominance for Celtic to then hiding in a shell. It was arguably the most bizarre performance from a football team across 90 minutes in recent memory. How you can go from being so dominant and in so much control in the first half to being totally bullied and outfought in the second half is just totally baffling and bizarre.

Celtic had a sensational opening ten minutes; just the number of chances created and the quality of those chances was brilliant. There was intensity, there was aggression, fight, desire, and real quality. They had lots of joy, particularly down their left side. Then they’d get into the final third, and it was just dreadful.

So many moments, so many chances, yet so many of those opportunities were wasted. Johnny Kenny had a big chance shortly after Daizen Maeda broke the deadlock but somehow missed from about four yards. Unfortunately for Wilfried Nancy, there’s nothing he could do about that. But Celtic should’ve been at least four or 5-0 up at half time.

The 2nd half kicks off after halftime. Obviously Jim Goodwin wasn’t happy with how his Dundee United team played in the first half, so he made a halftime change with Bert Esselink being replaced by Vicko Sevelj. But it wasn’t really specifically that change which saw the game change. What we saw was the total reverse of what happened in the first half. Celtic still looked like they were in the dressing room, still eating their oranges and drinking water at halftime.

In the space of 18 minutes, not only did Wilfried Nancy’s men throw away the lead they had, but they also got physically bullied and were totally outfought in every single battle and duel. For Celtic, when simple basics aren’t even done correctly, that’s asking for trouble. It’s like they just don’t know what defending is, how to defend, or what to do in certain scenarios. It was unbelievably shocking.

Wilfried Nancy did try changing things with his changes. Shin Yamada, Arne Engels, Liam Scales, James Forrest and Benjamin Nygren all came on. But all of them just failed to make any impact whatsoever. What it also highlights is that the bench Wilfried Nancy had to turn to really lacks any quality. For example, since joining the club last summer, Shin Yamada has only played seven matches in all competitions, with five in the Scottish Premiership, where he’s scored no goals. That just simply isn’t good enough!

But of course it isn’t just Shin Yamada that’s not good enough for Celtic. Johnny Krnny started up top, missed that big chance in the first half and ultimately, in general, had very little impact on the game. He joined Celtic in January earlier this year, has played a total of 20 games in all competitions and has only scored 6 goals.

They are the two options Celtic had to rely on against Dundee United; that’s totally unacceptable, and Wilfried Nancy can’t really do much about that because that’s what he has inherited. The fact the attacking options are so bad, it’s no surprise why supporters are angry with the board.

The tools he has been given are just quite simply dreadful by Celtic standards, and in order for Wilfried Nancy to change that and to bring in the necessary profiles to have his team tick over the way he had at Columbus Crew, he’ll need that time and patience from not just the people above him at board level, but also from the supporters. To change a bad situation into a good one, particularly when the bad situation has dragged on over a long period, it requires time and patience to change it.

But on the flip side of all that, if you don’t find ways to maximise what you’ve got to work with and fail to win football matches, then you’re basically asking for trouble. Wilfried Nancy must win football matches to earn the time and patience, particularly from the supporters.