Celtic 1-2 Hearts: what went wrong for Wilfried Nancy’s team? | OneFootball

Wilfried Nancy has made his first big mistake at Celtic, but the fault ultimately lies with those behind his December appointment.

Sunday was supposed to be a day of jubilation at Celtic Park, as a victory would have seen the champions of Scotland reclaim their position at the top of the Premiership table.

However, Hearts of Midlothian had other ideas and inflicted on Celtic their first league home defeat since the Glasgow derby in March. Although Hearts are having a phenomenal season, the result came as a surprise considering Derek McIness’ men had failed to win their four previous matches.

Celtic repeatedly made mistakes

Things could have gone differently for Celtic if their play in the final third was more effective. Daizen Maeda messed up two early goalscoring opportunities and pretty much every final pass was off the mark. Arne Engels and Benjamin Nygren’s passing was particularly poor, while Reo Hatate let the game pass him by without making any impact.

Celtic’s play at the other end of the pitch was no better, as neither of the two goals Hearts scored were that impressive. The first was a shambles from start to finish, beginning with Engels playing the attacker onside with poor positional play.

Callum McGregor was then dispossesed in a dangerous area, but he seemed more interested in appealing for an offside call than recovering the ball. With VAR used to check every goal, any potential offside is checked, so there was no reason for the Celtic captain and his teammates to essentially stop playing in order to pressurise the linesman into raising his flag.

The second goal the Bhoys conceded was from a corner kick, with Oison McEntee allowed a free header. It was another instance of dreadful defending and Kasper Schmeichel never looked like he would come close to making a save.

Wilfried Nancy made big errors

Celtic’s new manager cannot be blamed for every mistake his team made on Sunday. After all, if Maeda had been more clinical in front of goal, the hosts might have got a result. However, Nancy made decisions which were void of any common sense. 

Firstly, the Frenchman selected a 3-4-3 formation which was never going to work with the players available to him. This saw Celtic waste a lot of time passing the ball around the back, in what felt at times like the unwanted return of Brendan Rodgers’ style of play.

Another problem was that Nancy put too much emphasis on strategy, despite only overseeing the squad for a grand total of two days. He was seen scrambling for a solution on his tactics board, but nothing he told his players bore any fruit.

This is in stark contrast to the way Martin O’Neill set up his Celtic team. The interim manager’s focus was less on specific tactics, but was about mentality and a desire to move the ball quicker and pose a threat in attack. He got one of the poorest Celtic squads in recent memory playing well, but Nancy attempted to employ tactics some are simply not good enough to deliver on.

Bad timing from the Celtic board

Many Celtic supporters would have liked to see O’Neill be given the managerial position on a permanent basis. Even though this has not happened, the Irishman could have been kept on until the Premier Sports Cup final next weekend, allowing him to oversee three important matches against Hearts, Roma and St Mirren.

Instead, the Celtic hierarchy brought in Nancy at the worst possible time. O’Neill’s winning run in domestic competitions was disrupted and everything he did to make the team tick again was torn apart in the space of a few days.

Celtic could have been top of the Premiership table, in a comfortable position in the Europa League and with another trophy in the cabinet by this time next week. However, with a new manager who needs time to adapt and who clearly wants to make instant changes to the system, there are fears it could be a very different story.

Nancy could have a successful future at Celtic

Just because Nancy lost his opening game, this does not necessarily mean he was the wrong person to appoint. Some of the more reactionary supporters of the club have already slammed the decision to bring in the ex-MLS coach as a bad move, but this is not a fair judgement.

Celtic did display some decent patterns of play against Hearts, even if the overall performance was disappointing. 

However, Nancy needs to realise that he does not currently have the resources to use the system he opted for against Hearts. In fact, any formation which involves three centre-backs should probably be avoided in domestic matches because Celtic will always look to play on the frontfoot in Scotland.

Nancy should attempt to implement his ideas gradually, but his primary focus right now has to be on getting a result in the Europa League and then winning the cup final. Anything he is trying to bring in for the long-term should be secondary to the main objective – which is ensuring Celtic retain their League Cup trophy for another year.