Celtic<\/a> will need to shell out compensation of up to \u00a32million to land him.<\/p>\nAnd Caldwell, an MLS analyst for TSN, told MailSport : \u201cHe\u2019s impressive. A good football guy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a student of the game. He\u2019s dead focused on tactics and patterns of play. He\u2019s a sort of total-football kind of guy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had great success in MLS. Winning the MLS Cup is huge. Basically that\u2019s winning the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo do it with a team like Columbus, even though they had good players, was quite an achievement.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore that, his Montreal team had a lot of Canadian internationals like Alistair Johnston. They had some great success.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s certainly one of the best, if not the best coach in MLS. And he has been for two or three years.”<\/p>\n
However, while Nancy has proved himself on the other side of the Atlantic, ex-Burnley and Newcastle defender Caldwell has warned fans that the huge jump from Columbus Crew to Celtic Park would come with no guarantee the Frenchman would be a hit in Scotland.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIs he ready for Celtic? I don\u2019t know. My personal opinion is it\u2019s a big jump, especially where the club are now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s going on there, what\u2019s gone on with recruitment? Does he have the absolute best players?<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it a great time for the club? I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got his work cut out. But he feels like he\u2019s been chomping at the bit for a big European club. It feels like this is the one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodgers departed Celtic almost three weeks ago after the fall-out over a turbulent summer transfer window reached a head.<\/p>\n
Nancy has never worked with the kind of budget the Parkhead board could potentially hand him.<\/p>\n
Hoops chiefs are understood to believe he will be able to work within their transfer policy.<\/p>\n
Caldwell said: \u201cNancy has never had the luxury of buying the biggest designated players in the league, which is essentially a European-style transfer format where you just buy whoever you want.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo he\u2019s had to wheel and deal in the league. I don\u2019t think you could claim he\u2019s been right down the bottom of the order but it\u2019s been challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether Nancy has the character to handle the Glasgow goldfish bowl is another matter. He would be taking over at a time when the Hoops trail Hearts in the league too.<\/p>\n
Caldwell said: \u201cIs he ready for the pressure? I really don\u2019t know. I mean, who is?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a shock. You can tell people what it\u2019s like in Glasgow but until they\u2019re there, they\u2019ll never understand it!<\/p>\n
![\"Celtic](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_Celtic-v-Kilmarnock-William-Hill-Premiership.jpg\")
Celtic Interim Manager Martin O’Neill (Image: SNS Group)<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a private guy. I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll get in much bother.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t seem to have a massive ego. He won\u2019t be saying controversial things or getting involved with the politics. He\u2019ll diffuse things not put petrol on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope he\u2019s a success. I like him. He\u2019s a good guy. I used to speak to him when I had a Montreal game. His teams play good stuff and he has great ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys who play under him really like him as a coach and he gets the best out of players.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlayers want clarity and they know exactly what\u2019s expected of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a distinct style. He always plays 3-4-2-1. So while there\u2019s movement and fluidity, he rarely plays four at the back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat will be interesting because I know Celtic have never really been a back-three team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hoops are in advanced talks to make Nancy their next manager after the MLS season 22:43, 15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[2628,115919,94,139568,1638,79,16,15,179997],"class_list":{"0":"post-573369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-celtic-fc","9":"tag-dermot-desmond","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-peter-lawwell","12":"tag-scottish-premiership","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wilfried-nancy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115557407309788405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_JS387913160.jpg\")
Wilfried Nancy<\/p>\n