Wilfried Nancy didn’t hold an official press conference on Friday.
This isn’t because he’s been sacked, as some fans will be disappointed to hear. It’s simply due to Celtic’s busy schedule of games.
But there probably aren’t many Celtic fans who look forward to Nancy’s press conferences at this point, given that his comments don’t tend to soften the blow of results.
Especially when results are as poor as they have been. The Hoops manager has lost all of his first four matches – the first time Celtic have lost four on the bounce in almost 50 years.
It’s not often that Alan Shearer speaks about Celtic, but when he does, you know that something quite significant is happening.
Can Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic spell be salvaged by a good transfer window?
Alan Shearer on Celtic boss Wilfried Nancy
Nancy’s problems are exacerbated by the success of Martin O’Neill before him.
The 73-year-old won seven of his eight matches after replacing Brendan Rodgers on an interim basis, revitalising a Celtic squad which was low on confidence.
READ MORE: What Jim Goodwin said about Celtic behind the scenes as ‘mental’ decision exposed
Speaking about the Celtic boss to the Daily Record, Shearer compared ‘stubborn’ Nancy to his predecessor.
He said: “Well, in hindsight, yes Celtic should have stuck with O’Neill over appointing Wilfried Nancy.
“I’ve spoken to Martin O’Neill and worked with Martin and his simplicity is genius. He’s a great people person. He’s great at putting square pegs in square holes and keeping things very simple.
“But I think from looking in from the outside, what Nancy has done in going in there, he’s changed the system.
It’s a similar situation to what to what is happening at Man United, I guess, that the manager has been stubborn and is not going to change after losing four out of four. He has put himself under huge pressure.
“And it is more difficult because of what Martin did, trying to go in there on the back of what he’s done.
“But I think as a manager, you always want to go in and try and stamp your authority straight away. But there’s ways of doing that.
“Just ripping everything up that was relatively successful for seven or eight games for Martin, and then going in and completely changing the system, which he has done, was always going to be a big gamble.
“Now he’s saying – I’ve read his quotes – saying ‘trust the process and we’ll get it right.’ But it’s an unforgiving place up there. And if you don’t get it right pretty soon, then you know what’s going to happen.
“The noise is already loud. If you don’t get a win in the next one or two then you know what could happen.
“You can’t have five or six defeats on the spin up there. I don’t care whether you’re a new manager or an old, experienced manager.
“That’s just a no-no and it can’t happen. And you know what will happen if it does.”
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Martin O’Neill’s interim Celtic spell
O’Neill’s results from his interim spell certainly back up Shearer’s ‘genius’ label.
He had barely been in the job for 24 hours when he led the team to a 4-0 win over Falkirk, before beating Rangers at Hampden that Sunday.
A late victory at St Mirren and a hard-fought win at Easter Road were also highlights, but the best moment was undoubtedly that 3-1 win over Feyenoord in Rotterdam.
It’s quite staggering how much the team have dropped off since then.
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