Wilfried Nancy takes aim at Celtic 'back-five myth' and responds to Rod Stewart after Martin O'Neill rumours

The Celtic rumour mill was beginning to crank into gear. The mere thought of O’Neill shunning appointments in Glasgow and Kilsyth to make another sensational return to the dugout for Saturday lunchtime’s Old Firm clash with Rangers had some supporters excited. And why wouldn’t they be, given his interim spell as boss yielded seven wins from eight.

His successor Wilfried Nancy will hit the eight-game mark this weekend. The previous seven have not entirely gone to plan. Two wins, five defeats, a lorryload of critics and cynics. He has ripped up the previous playing style and implemented his own system that so far isn’t going very well.

O’Neill isn’t coming back. Not yet, anyway. The “unforeseen circumstances” leading to postponed commitments were down to personal reasons rather than professional. But the clamour for the 73-year-old club legend is only going to intensify should Celtic lose to Rangers in their first game of 2026.

Nancy knows this. His pre-match press conference on Friday afternoon at Lennoxtown was pretty spectacular as he embarked on an astonishing seven-minute monologue to defend his so far underwhelming tenure as Celtic manager. The long and the short of it was that he “needs time”.

When axed Rangers head coach Russell Martin started the season so limply, it was pointed out that you don’t get time in Glasgow. Nancy is well within his rights to plead for some more wriggle room, more opportunities to provide evidence that his discombobulated players can get to grips with his ways. Rome wasn’t built in a day, although having a pre-season probably helps. The timing of Nancy’s arrival has been so detrimental to what he is trying to achieve.

But that begs the question as to why Nancy decided to make such drastic alterations in the first place. The ‘my way or the highway’ mantra is biting the 48-year-old on the bum. The armchair tacticians have waded into his fluid 3-4-3 formation. We are unlikely to see him move from it against Rangers.

Nancy sticks by his Celtic system

“I think about changing something every time,” was Nancy’s response to any prospect of a switch. “But again I do also my job to analyse what we can do. I have a look at all the goals that we conceded and you are going to tell me this is about the system. So I did it and it's not the case because we conceded a lot of goals on set pieces.

“The only moment when we had an issue with the system, and this is something normal, is when we played against Roma, the second goal. But after that it was not about the system. All the other goals that we conceded was we had many players inside the box and sometimes it was a ping pong game in transition.

“Sometimes we had to go to score a goal and we got caught in the transition. Offensively we had a really good moment also. We watched with the players all the chances that we had since the beginning of the season and I know that you know it could have been different in terms of wins.

“But I'm not a guy with a ‘could have – should have’. This is a fact that at this moment in terms of results this is not what we want. But at the same time I see a lot of things that I really like and this is the direction that I like to take.”

Nancy - who will be able to call upon new signing Julian Araujo in his backline - seemed particularly irked by the suggestion that he likes his team to play with five in defence. “I want you to understand that I don't play with a back five,” he stressed. “So this is useless to talk about this. I don't play with a back five. The way we defend most of the time this is a back four or it could be a back three.

“What I want is to be good with the concept and this is for me the most important. For the moment again, this is only the beginning. I want to see certain things with that and after that I will analyse.”

Celtic fans want to see results. It is what O’Neill brought them, albeit in a pragmatic fashion. One exalted supporter is worried. Rocker Rod Stewart took to social media during the week to vent. “Everybody can talk,” said Nancy. “I know who I am and I know what I want to do. Again, I came in during the middle of the season so this is the reality and I am pleased to be here. But it’s a famous club so everybody can talk.

“I have nothing against that and I can understand it also because of the results. But if we go deeper, like I said, I see what we need to do and I can see the improvement. Not everybody can see that because they are focused on results. That is totally normal because when we win we are happy and when we lose this is difficult to accept. I am not saying I am happy with that. But we are working on that and I know we will be able to reverse that.”

Nancy was asked if the Rangers match is the biggest of his career. “No. The next game is always the biggest game because this is always the next game that I have to prepare for. I know that this is a rivalry. I know what it means this kind of game because I've been following this kind of game for many years, but I'm really excited by that.”

Make no mistake, this is the biggest of his nascent Celtic tenure. Three points off leaders Hearts, and with Rangers breathing down their necks, defeat would cause mutiny at an already fractious Celtic Park - and spark more pining for a certain Mr O’Neill.