No manager has ever had as negative an impact on a football club as Wilfried Nancy at Celtic.
Martin O’Neill handed over a seven match domestic winning run. A cup final place and a morale boosting win over Feyenoord.
The win in Rotterdam was on November 27.
By December 30 the same squad of players were being schooled by Motherwell. Given the runaround as the Lanarkshire side beat Celtic for the first time in a decade. Just as Dundee United had two weeks ago. Nancy is a hero to St Mirren fans.
Ange Postecoglou and Brendan Rodgers put a winning front on a club that is a shambles in every area.
CELTIC DECLINE ISN’T BEING MANAGED
Celtic’s UEFA co-efficient tells you everything you need to know. They are 58th.
Last season Rodgers worked a minor miracle. Celtic took 12 points from their Champions League campaign. Over eight matches they finished above Manchester City and Club Brugge.
The entire year of 2025 has been utterly horrific. A total of 17 defeats, 15 more than during 2024.
Nancy is an unmitigated disaster. The top of a perfect storm. From a chain of command that leads to Paul Tisdale and Michael Nicholson.
Straight after the League Cup Final defeat to St Mirren this site called for Nancy, Tisdale and Nicholson to be sacked there and then. In the four disasters since they have only added more evidence to the cases for dismissal.
For whatever reasons it seems that Dermot Desmond is content to let things go downhill. They’ll be pointing and laughing at him in the 19th hole but it seems that Desmond just doesn’t care.
WHAT THE CELTIC PLAYERS CAN DO?
Generally, as long as they get paid on time players don’t really care too much about what is happening around them.
They are passengers, passing through clubs, often going through the motions then onto the next stop in their career.
The situation at Celtic may be a bit different. Callum McGregor, Kieran Tierney, Tony Ralston and James Forrest care. Others have World Cup places to aim for- and a better escape out of Celtic in the summer.
It seems clear that McGregor isn’t happy with the turn of events. His post match interview at Livingston resembled that of a hostage.
There are two courses of actions that players can take.
- Firstly they can put in official transfer requests. Let Nicholson and his cronies know that they won’t be carrying the can for a shambles of a club.
- Secondly they can refuse media duties.
Neither course of action will directly affect Nancy but it would get the message across loud and clear. Even to the tone deaf in the Celtic boardroom, maybe even reaching a golf course on a far distant land.
Luke McCowan, Auston Trusty, Johnny Kenny and Paulo Bernardo have looked very uncomfortable in front of the cameras since Nancy arrived.
Reo Hatate and Daizen Maeda don’t do media duties. Why should McGregor, Tierney or McCowan be forced to answer questions defending a dud manager and a club that is a shambles?
What will Celtic do? Fine them and take it to PFA Scotland and the SFA?
Transfer list them? Make the team even worse to defend a failure in the dug out.
Drastic times call for drastic measures. Celtic are in a drastic state.
Only serious action will bring about change, it looks like that will have to come from the dressing room rather than the Club House that Desmond finds himself in this morning.
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