Celtic are indeed close to appointing Wilfried Nancy, it seems.
A Celtic statement on Monday confirmed that Martin O’Neill will remain in interim charge until a permanent manager is appointed.
There has been plenty of reading into this, with some worried that it’s bad news for the pursuit of Nancy, with talk of the deal collapsing on social media and contradictory reports coming from the USA.
But in the European media, it seemingly remains the line that Nancy is still on the road to becoming Brendan Rodgers’ permanent successor.
Major French outlet L’Equipe have now said that an appointment could come this week.
Wilfried Nancy remains in ‘advanced negotiations’ with Celtic
Celtic have a busy week ahead regardless of the outcome of their manager search.
The club’s Annual General Meeting takes place on Friday, and the team returns to action against St Mirren in Paisley on Saturday.
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And according to the French publisher, Nancy is in ‘advanced negotiations’ with the club as they look to permanently replace Rodgers.
The report says that he could join this week if a compensation fee is agreed with MLS side Columbus Crew, with whom he still has one year remaining on his contract.
It says that Columbus are ‘open to his departure’ as long as the fee is established.
Previous interest from France is also mentioned. The outlet claims that Reims, Saint-Ettienne and Rennes have all recently approached the 48-year-old.
This indicates to Celtic that their top managerial target is highly-rated, and the Hoops could be about to pull off a coup.
His lack of experience outside of MLS remains an asterisk above all of this, however. We just don’t know how his style of football will translate.
If L’Equipe are right, we could see the beginning of that process on Saturday.
Celtic’s pursuit of Wilfried Nancy
Nancy wasn’t one of the initial favourites for the role – it was initially Ange Postecoglou, Kieran McKenna and Kjetil Knutsen being spoken about most.
However, it emerged last-week that Nancy was the front-runner for the job, partly due to his assistant manager’s pre-existing relationship with Paul Tisdale.
Nancy has reportedly been ‘on the brink’ of the role since Friday, with talks taking place over the weekend. The statement put a slight dampener on this in the eyes of many.
But the appointment is seemingly still a go – Celtic are just keeping us waiting as they so love to do.
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