‘Absolute gobbledygook’ – Pundits deliver damning verdict on Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic

Wilfried Nancy’s position as Celtic manager is under severe threat following a humbling Old Firm defeat to Rangers – and various pundits haven’t been afraid to stick the boot in.

Nancy was appointed at the start of December, but has lost six of his eight matches in charge as Celtic consistently give away cheap goals to the opposition.

Fans are protesting against both the manager and the board in an increasingly toxic situation. We’ve rounded up exactly what high-profile Scottish football pundits are saying about Nancy.

Chris Sutton

Sutton said Nancy will be lucky to survive as manager and called for Celtic to be decisive after the club’s Old Firm derby defeat to Rangers.

Speaking after the match, Sky Sports pundit Sutton said: “I didn’t think this was a Rangers team at their very best. But for Wilfried Nancy – one way, Wilf! It’s not working. I think he’ll be fortunate to survive this.

“People say, ‘well, it’s not Wilfried Nancy’s fault’, and maybe it isn’t, but the club have to be really decisive.

“They can’t hang around in terms of getting players in, but if they want to stick with Wilfried Nancy, and I’m not so sure that they should, because there’s probably a guy out there where they’d stand a better chance of winning the Premiership with.

“If they’re going to stick with him, they have to back him with players who can play the roles which he wants them to play. (Anthony) Ralston has struggled desperately. Celtic need a new goalkeeper; they need a couple of centre-halves.

Sutton pulled no punches on Nancy – but admitted he should not shoulder all of the blame for Celtic’s slump.

“I do have a bit of sympathy for Wilfried Nancy,” Sutton said.

“They were struggling under Brendan Rodgers. They weren’t playing well, and they weren’t playing brilliantly under Martin [O’Neill]. I don’t care what anybody says, but he was finding a way to get results.

“But Wilfried Nancy’s justification in playing this way was always going to be if he was getting results. It’s okay playing for patches, but to lose six out of eight is embarrassing for any Celtic manager.”

Kris Boyd

Former Rangers striker Kris Boyd thinks Celtic should be patient with Nancy, instead calling out the players.

“Nancy pleaded for time,” Boyd told Sky Sports. “I think right now it does look as if there’s an atmosphere here, but I wouldn’t be making any kneejerk decision if I were Celtic. Patience is a virtue.

“I might be wrong, but I look at the way from the very first minute Wilfried Nancy arrived at the football club, bringing them over, the tactics board, calling over the captain every 15 or 20 minutes in a game, trying to go through things as if he’s treating them like schoolkids.

“It was too much too soon, with a limited amount of time on the training pitches.

“That’s an insecurity in a manager. If he had gone in there and said I’m sticking to my principles. This is the way I play.

“He should have looked at that group of players and thought, I can’t play this way. He’s probably getting to the stage, in my opinion, where he must be thinking, I need to change a little.”

Pat Bonner

“Every manager has to be given time,” legendary goalkeeper Bonner said before the Old Firm match.

“I have been there myself. You can’t find a win, and suddenly you get a win, and you are away.

“He has had two wins now. But he has gone. This was a poor, poor performance against Motherwell, and there will be doubts.

“I have asked people to give him a bit of time. Will the board allow him to bring in players? He has to have wins alongside that to get trust from everybody.

“Let’s see this weekend how the game is going to turn out. If they don’t put on a performance, and they don’t believe, then they are in trouble.”

Stephen McGowan

Renowned journalist McGowan saw the warning signs as early as Nancy’s first match, a defeat to Hearts in the Scottish Premiership.

Plenty of outlets picked up on Nancy using a tactics board mid-game, like Ruben Amorim during Manchester United’s defeat to Grimsby in the Carabao Cup.

“Wilfried Nancy will survive to fight another day — so he should — but I think if he had been clocked, shall we say, moving red and blue magnets around a whiteboard and won the game, he would have been hailed as the new Carlo Ancelotti.

“I think when you lose the game it looks dangerously like a man fiddling while Rome burns.”

Brendan Rodgers was appointed Celtic manager in May 2016. His fourth league defeat came two years later, in May 2018.

Wilfred Nancy was appointed on December 3rd.

His fourth league defeat has come on January 3rd.

— Ross McCafferty (@RossMcCaff) January 3, 2026

Michael Stewart

Stewart has a reputation for being a no-holds-barred pundit and has picked apart Nancy’s tactics at Celtic.

The Premier Sports man was on punditry duty in Celtic’s defeat to Motherwell and absolutely eviscerated the Hoops boss as he said the Steelmen ‘schooled’ Nancy’s team.

“He talks about having clarity, talks about being clear in what he wants. Yet on the park, you’ve got a team that looks, as I just said, the polar opposite of Motherwell.

“They are a side that does not know what is expected of them. And he talks so much, yet doesn’t actually say anything.

“I mean, I’m at a loss as to what it is that he’s looking to try to do.

“And Tom was just pointing out that in the interview, he’d suggested that the shape and the system was only to blame for one goal in his time at the club. That is absolute gobbledygook.

“That is total nonsense of the highest order. And if you’re a player, you’re in the changing room and you’re hearing the manager coming out with stuff like that.

“I cannot see this team having any belief in the manager.”

Stiliyan Petrov

“Certain managers have certain ways of working,” former Celtic captain Petrov said after the Premier Cup final defeat to St Mirren last month.

“Managers these days have their own styles; they want to create their own identity.

“But it seems like Wilfried Nancy, having realised what he is facing, maybe he thought there was enough quality there, and the players could react.

“It seems like the players don’t react in the right manner; they don’t play the way they played a couple of weeks ago.

“This is a big concern for Celtic, especially before these three games.

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Charlie Mulgrew

“I think that it could be time up,” former Celtic defender Mulgrew said in December after Nancy lost his first three matches.

“I don’t know how he comes back from it, that’s my whole thing.

“It’s only 12 days – my feeling I got standing just behind the dugout was I don’t feel there’s a connection.

“There’s not a connection between the fans and the board at the minute, there’s a bit of disconnect in the club.”

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