Celtic fans are hoping normality will return at the weekend against Dundee United.
To witness Celtic lose six from eight games is crazy enough, but that’s what Wilfried Nancy cooked up during his 33 days as manager.
Thankfully, Martin O’Neill is back, and that winning return isn’t far away, but what about the mess that Nancy has left behind?
Gordon Duncan covers Scottish football for Sky and is also seen presenting Clyde 1 Superscoreboard, and he was told a few interesting things about Nancy.
What the Martin O’Neill team thought of Wilfried Nancy’s system
Yes, Celtic were winning games under O’Neill, but even the ardent fan knew it was papering over the cracks, and a makeover of this squad was needed.
Speaking on Clyde 1, Duncan shared that somebody ‘very close’ to O’Neill knew of the ‘limitations’ of this Celtic squad.
However, Nancy took it to another level and made things worse because what he implemented meant that they had, at a minimum, ‘four problems.’
“Someone very close to the Martin O’Neill era, the Martin O’Neill team, shall we say,” said Duncan.
“Told me, a couple of weeks ago, that they felt what they had at that time was a system that limited the number of issues within the Celtic squad.
“Did Luke McCowan play wide right towards the end of Martin O’Neill’s first spell? Would that be right? So, they felt that they acknowledged those injuries. They acknowledged that the squad wasn’t as strong as they would like it to be.
“But that system maybe left them with a problem on the right-hand side. And you have to put one square peg in a round hole.
“They then observed, from whatever distance you choose to come up with, that the Wilfried Nancy system gave them four problems, minimum. Four square pegs in round holes. Rather than one.”
Three of Nancy’s biggest mistakes at Celtic
Perhaps Nancy could have pushed back against coming in straight away and asked for O’Neill to stay on and keep the wave going.
But that probably falls more on the lap of the Celtic board, who clearly got the timing of this all wrong, and the ugly results are there for all to see.
However, looking back on Nancy’s ill-fated reign as Celtic boss, what were his three biggest mistakes?
Changing the system
Not sitting down with the likes of Martin O’Neill for longer to understand what this Celtic side is about
Adding another coaching staff or two from O’Neill’s set-up, and keeping them on board
But they felt that their system meant that there was only one problem, and that was on the right flank, for one reason or another.