{"id":676973,"date":"2026-01-06T05:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/676973\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T05:07:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:07:24","slug":"wilfried-nancy-sacked-as-celtic-manager-after-eight-matches-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/676973\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilfried Nancy sacked as Celtic manager after eight matches – reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warning signs there from day onepublished at 17:49 GMT 5 January<\/p>\n

17:49 GMT 5 January<\/p>\n

\"\"Kheredine Idessane<\/strong>
BBC Sport Scotland<\/p>\n

The signs were there right from the first team-sheet that things could go spectacularly wrong for Wilfried Nancy.<\/p>\n

I remember scratching my head at his decision to field just three defenders for the visit of league-leaders Hearts.<\/p>\n

Not just three defenders, either. An back three comprised entirely of left-footed players, one of whom – Kieran Tierney – is a more natural wing-back.<\/p>\n

As for the wing-backs that day? Two forwards whose defensive attributes are not their best qualities: Yang Hyun-Yun and Sebastian Tounekti. <\/p>\n

All subsequent selections looked a variation on a theme: players not deployed in their natural, favoured positions in a system the side didn’t look like it fully understood. <\/p>\n

Celtic were unable to stop conceding goals, which came as no great surprise given the roles players were being asked to fulfil. Luke McCowan as a wing-back. Anthony Ralston as a centre-back. <\/p>\n

Wilfried Nancy was apparently not one for round pegs in round holes and it has cost him his job in just over a month. <\/p>\n

In fairness to the Frenchman, not having a reliable striker also doomed his system to failure. The amount of glaring chances created but missed was another feature of his short spell in charge. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning signs there from day onepublished at 17:49 GMT 5 January 17:49 GMT 5 January Kheredine IdessaneBBC Sport…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-676973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115846423805660701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676973","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=676973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}