Wilfried Nancy’s spell as Celtic manager has ended after 32 days.
Nancy was fired as Celtic manager, the Scottish Premiership club announced Monday. The former Columbus Crew head coach was hired by Celtic on December 3, taking over for Martin O’Neill, who was serving on an interim basis.
Nancy endured a tough start in Glasgow, losing his first two matches in charge, becoming the first manager in club history to do so. Celtic would lose four matches in a row for the first time since 1978, which included a Scottish League Cup Final loss to St. Mirren.
Despite watching his team defeat Aberdeen and Livingston, recent back-to-back losses to Motherwell and rivals Rangers led to Nancy’s firing.
In addition to Nancy’s firing, Paul Tisdale has left his position as Head of Football Operations at Celtic, the club also announced.
“The Club thanks Wilfried for his efforts and wishes him and his family well for the future,” a club statement read. “Wilfried’s assistants, Kwame Ampadu, Jules Gueguen, and Maxime Chalier, will also be leaving the club and they take with them our good wishes.”
Celtic sits second in the SPFL standings on 38 points, six points back of league-leading Hearts.
They are also 24th in the Europa League standings with two league phase matches left to play this winter. Clubs ranked 25-36 will be eliminated from European action this season.
Its not that complex to be honest. He has more than enough time to implement a system that is very similar to what Poch has instilled. But a move to the Eredivisie is probably a good shout out for him.
I’m not sure what’s more naive. That you think a manager who just managed in the Champions League and has won an MLS Cup would be interested in the Olympic coach job, that you think Poch’s system (which he said he had to simplify for the USMNT) is not that complex, or that you think Nancy’s system isn’t that different from Poch’s.
Sorry Europa League
I wonder what Julian Araujo thinks, just got there on loan and now the manager he thought he was getting is gone.
Wow!
When I read they loss yesterday I wondered if he’d survive. This seems crazy to me. I think he coached eight games in 32 days. That is like the most ridiculous managerial start I’ve ever heard of.
You would’ve certainly thought he would’ve gotten more time. But I guess not.
Seemed like a really odd match from the start. I don’t watch much Celtic, but I had the impression they do not play anything like what Nancy did with the Crew. Did the club not realize this and understand they were undergoing a fairly massive change? Thirty days is not enough time.
“Thirty days is not enough time.To be fair:”
In American sport your are right but in Europe??
And on top of that, you know how they say that if you really want to compare two managers, you compare:
1. Same number of games
2. Same opposition
3. Same players for you
Unfortunately for Wilfried that is exactly what happened to him.
ONeill had Celtic as the caretaker and handed it over to Wilfired.
Martin O’Neill (Caretaker)
Games Played 8
Wins 7
Losses 1
Win Percentage 87.5%
Goals Conceded 6
Wilfried Nancy (Manager)
Games Played 8
Wins 2
Losses 6
Win Percentage 25%
Goals Conceded 18
Seemingly the results speak for themsleves. It looks like O’Neill had better results with the same players vs the same(more or less) oppositon in the same amount of games.
He did not need any time to get results.
Like Amorim at Man U, Wilfired ent in there determined to implement his style , which did not fit the existing player pool.
O’Neill, a great veteran ( he signed Kasey Keller at Leicester City and won the League Cup with KK as the starter), stabilized the team and just let them play to their strengths. They’ve rehired ONeill until the end of the season.
You can argue that Celtic should have made it clearer to Nancy that installing your style of play is one thing but losing 6 out of 8 is another thing. MLS fans will tolerate that but SPL fans and most fans in Europe will not. Fans seem to have more sway in Europe than they do in Columbus. I don’t think Crew fans are a violent threat.
That could be why MLS managers are at a disadvantage in Europe.
V: pragmatism, O’Neill got them organized, kept it simple. He was also fortunate to play the bottom half of the table in the league matches. Martin had 2 big wins Feynoord in Europa League and Cup match with Rangers. Feynoord is 1-5 in Europa League. The matches with Rangers and Celtic had basically the same shooting stats in terms of shots and shots on target in both matches. In the Cup match Celtic finished their chances and Rangers didn’t. For Nancy it worked out the opposite. Celtic won every stat just not the one that mattered. Of course that’s what Wilfred’s style produces, plenty of possession, plenty of chances, and two or three breakaways the other way. Look at 2023 CL, took out Monterrey and Tigres, then got blown out by Pachuca. His teams can be world beaters or look like amateurs if their opponents finish their chances. His Crew teams were never out of matches because he instilled belief in themselves, and the fans fed into that they never gave up on Wilfred or the team. Celtic fans didn’t support the team that way and Nancy didn’t earn the time to instill belief.
JR,
All good points. However, I did note elsewhere that the average rabid Celtic fan is unlikely to be as unbiased, sober and nuanced in their view of the situation as a solid Crew fan like you. MLS is simply not that intensely competitive. No pro/rel. Compared to what he was used to Nancy must have been immediately blindsided and he never got off the ground.
Celtic fans will see ONeill making chicken soup out of this chicken shit; and then they’ll see Wilfried spilling the soup. These so called big clubs, the has beens like Celtic, and Manchester United have the same problem.
They have enough money and power to just keep up but not enough to really get over the hump and get back to the good old days of dominance. And they have an entitled fan base that won’t accept the pain that would probably have to accompany a real resetting of the team.
I think you’ll see the USMNT become a World Cup contender before you see Celtic or Man U become Champion’s league contenders.
So Celtic and Man U. will likely be condemmed to their own special kind of Ground Hog Day. Some day I’ll bet Nancy will be on to bigger and better things and be happy to have Celtic in his rear view mirror.
They should have waited to hire a manager like Nancy in the summer. He needs time to implement. Well good luck to him in his next venture. Maybe he would like the US u23 job? That process should be starting soon.
I don’t think Wilfred’s complex system would be a good fit for a team that meets a few times a year a week at a time. A mean a group of professionals couldn’t figure it out in a month.
Makes you wonder who’s going to win the Wilfried Nancy sweepstakes. We know how good he is on this side of the pond…but Celtic’s gone and ruined his reputation for Europe. Which means whichever MLS team gets ahold of him this time around may have him for awhile.
Dude deserved better. Anybody that fires a coach a month into his gig with the kind of injuries and talent holes Celtic had is flat ridiculous, especially since he wasn’t even allowed the January transfer window to bring in transfers. I mean…wut? Who even made that call?
Q: they also sent the sporting director packing so it seems the board was fed up with the whole thing. Rodgers asked for better talent over the summer, Tisdale wasn’t able to recruit the players, the manager wanted/needed. Fast forward Rodgers is sacked and Tisdale pushes for Nancy knowing he needs new players too. Nancy gets off to the worst start ever by a Celtic manager. If you’re the board how do you not cut them both? You’ve got a director who can’t sign players and his manager who desperately needs new players because he refuses to be pragmatic and sticks to his tactics. Your interim and club legend was winning with these players a month ago and is just sitting around waiting for a call. Hate it for Wilfred, it’s probably not fair, but it’s also probably the right decision. Midtable Eredivisie maybe a better destination, fan bases with more tolerance for attacking football, players with more technical skill.
“Midtable Eredivisie maybe a better destination, fan bases with more tolerance for attacking football, players with more technical skill. ”
I’d love to be wrong but Nancy ‘s rep in Europe is poisoned. Why should anyone in the Eredivisie hire Wilfried now? Between him and Jesse, fair or not, they’ve done a good job of tainting MLS managers in Europe.
Notice, I said MLS. Pellegrino Matterazzo is now managing Real Sociedad who just drew 1-1 with the mighty Altetico Madrid in his debut match. Of course he is an Ivy Leaguer so maybe that makes him less of an American. But you won’t hear about that on SBI.
He should have been hired been at season’s end but a team like Celtic doesn’t give you that kind of pass. When Wilfried was hired Celtic still had about 28-30 games across all competitions left. That’s a lot of games to turn over to an interim and Martin ONeill, as good as he is, is 73.
This is not MLS. Celtic fans have their expectations and they don’t much care about logical, sober rebuilding attempts.
They expect results and they expect them now. SBI fans should not be surprised. Lots people on SBI wanted to fire Pochettino over his initial poor run of results and the Celtic fan base is far more intense than the USMNT fan base ever will be.
Wilfried and Celtic’s version of the USSF should have understood the difference between America and Europe in those terms.
Celtic should have started the rebuild a while ago. Wilfried is mostly guilty of bad timing, having been handed a shit sandwich in terms of a rebuilding job. ONeill’s results embarrassed Wilfried but even a fine manager like Martin can only take this crew so far.
Vacqui – I’d give scouting departments in Europe chance at seeing how bad the fit was at Celtic and see him for what he is. He is also French. Despite his MLS resume he is not American. Being French, having won while playing an attacking style will allow him a decent opportunity.
Celtic was never going to sit through a rebuild that would have been necessary for this work. Oh and as far as the last game against Rangers…the defense did him no favors – Trusty chief among them – was quite pooh-ahr (attempt at writing a Scottish accent a la Trainspotting)
Betinho,
I hope you’re right ; I wish Wilfried the best but he owes his coaching reputation to what he did in MLS not because he’s French. For better or worse he his claim to fame is MLS based.
MLS players have proven themselves in Europe, managers not so much.
V: I think Wilfred will be fine. Boards will take a losing coach over a coach with no experience almost every time. There are a lot of managers that were awful in MLS and have gotten multiple jobs in Europe (and been mostly unsuccessful) just because they have head coaching experience. Once you are in the manager club you are usually in.
JR,
“There are a lot of managers that were awful in MLS and have gotten multiple jobs in Europe (and been mostly unsuccessful)”
Like who? If they were foreigners and they went back to Europe or South or Central America I think most of them already had had managerial jobs back there before coming to MLS.
Most of them were managers who had MLS on their resume ( Tata for example) but that is not where they made their name.
Like Jesse De Canada , Wilfried Nancy is an MLS-bred manager. He began his coaching career in the MLS system and worked his way up to a head coaching role. He spent over a decade in various youth and assistant coaching positions within the CF Montréal organization before getting his first senior head coach job.
With perfect hindsight it’s obvious that Celtic, who are doing a pretty good USSF impersonation was the last job he should have taken. Hopefully he’ll get a shot somehwere, but I would not count on it.
2tone,
“The most recent publicly available data on the U-20 USMNT head coach’s salary is from the 2017/18 fiscal year, when Tab Ramos earned $345,297 as the U-20 USMNT coach and youth technical director. “
Wilfried reportedly made 1.5 million with the Crew. I was unable to find it but reportedly his Celtic salary was a significant pay raise Being fired he will probably be owed 1 years salary. At least in the short term he can proably still afford his SBI subscription.
Why would he want the US Youth team job? If he’s in it for the coaching which his system seem to indicate he is, then he won’t get a lot of time with the kids. He won’t get to build a team, not like what he did in Columbus and what he was attempting to do in Glasgow.