{"id":619559,"date":"2025-12-08T07:14:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T07:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/619559\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T07:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T07:14:16","slug":"wilfried-nancy-defends-radical-celtic-formation-change-and-insists-he-wont-hit-the-panic-button-after-nightmare-bow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/619559\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilfried Nancy defends radical Celtic formation change and insists he won’t hit the panic button after nightmare bow"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hoops operated with a new 3-4-3 set up that Nancy has deployed at his previous clubs<\/p>\n

18:32, 07 Dec 2025Updated 20:26, 07 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n

Wilfried Nancy insists he’s not ready to hit the panic button after a nightmare Celtic<\/a> bow.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman crashed to a 2-1 defeat to league leaders Hearts <\/a>as Celts fell three points adrift of the Jambos. Nancy<\/a> pulled off a pre-match shock by ripping up the system and adopting his favoured 3-4-3 formation.It backfired as Claudio Braga and Oisin McEntee scored in each half to stun Parkhead, with Kieran Tierney’s stoppage-time consolation coming too late. However, Nancy is adamant that the Hoops – who have a game in hand – can claw back the deficit.He said: “Listen, the season is long. There are many games coming. Okay, they have three points ahead. But for me, let’s control what we can control. Today, if I talk about the results, we conceded two goals because we could have done better on the first goal. So it’s on us.<\/p>\n

“And the second goal, we could have done better. So this is what I call the performance. If we do better on this one, maybe they don’t score. So, again, for me, this is more about what we need to improve. And the season is so long. This is really, really long.”Nancy’s team selection raised eyebrows as he reverted to a back three of Auston Trusty<\/a>, Liam Scales and Kieran Tierney, fielding Yang and Seb Tounekti as wing-backs. But the Frenchman defended his radical change, saying: “To be honest, in the first half we changed the system, I would say.”In the second half it was the same system. After that, when we wanted to push, it was not the system that we started with.”So for me this is more about how we can deal when teams are really low. I think that we were in between to play through the middle.”We had opportunities to play through the middle, or to go wide, or the opposite, go wide and go through the middle. I think that this is the kind of nuances that can be better.”So the centre-back, when they had the ball also, recognised the moment to play a little bit quicker, recognised the moment to play in between.<\/p>\n

Celtic manager Wilfried Nancy reacts <\/p>\n

“The intention was here. These are now nuances that we need to improve.”Nancy was given a grand welcome by the sold-out home crowd before kick-off.But the atmosphere soon turned when Hearts took the lead as seething diehards once again directed their fury towards the director\u2019s box.The Celtic Fans Collective staged a protest before the game as around 2,000 punters marched from St Mary\u2019s church – where the club was founded – to the stadium.But Nancy was reluctant to get involved in the off-the-field issues.He added: \u201dI focus on the pitch, what I can do for my players to get better. And after that, the fans, they want to push us. They want to help us and sometimes to push us.”So, challenge and support all the time. So, for me, it doesn’t change.”I’m focused really on the pitch, what I can do better, what I can do to help the team to have better performance and what can I do to give confidence to the team?”But again, it’s only one game. They did well previously in terms of results. I showed them that we could have done something better and it’s going to be the next time.”The next time is going to be the same too. But again, me, my job is to be really focused on the pitch. And after that, the fans, I am with the fans and they’re going to push us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hoops operated with a new 3-4-3 set up that Nancy has deployed at his previous clubs 18:32,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2628,47959,192921,1638,7081,79,16,15,179997],"class_list":{"0":"post-619559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-celtic-fc","9":"tag-hearts-fc","10":"tag-paul-tisdale","11":"tag-scottish-premiership","12":"tag-scottish-professional-football-league","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wilfried-nancy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115682716519689635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619559","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=619559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}