The Full Scottish Football Report – Dec 25
The Full Scottish - December 2025
Welcome to the Full Scottish Football Report – Dec 25 was a month of change in Scotland.
Served by Brian P. Dunleavy
Celtic FC Appoint Wilfried Nancy As Manager
That Wilfried Nancy will be the next manager at Celtic has been, perhaps, the worst-kept secret in Scottish football for weeks now.
Negotiations had been ongoing since before the most recent international break, but, reportedly, visa issues delayed the Frenchman’s arrival in Glasgow.
Now, with those matters resolved, the real challenge begins for the erstwhile Columbus Crew and CF Montreal coach, who has signed a two-and-a-half-year deal.
With “sack the board” chants still ringing around Celtic Park on Wednesday, as the Hoops hosted Dundee, and bans extended for the Green Brigade, the disconnect between the club hierarchy and its supporters is, well, pronounced.
Nancy will need to navigate all of that and retool a squad in desperate need of refreshing, particularly if it hopes to compete in Europe.
That interim bench boss Martin O’Neill righted the ship in the aftermath of Brendan Rodgers’ shock resignation says as much about the state of Scottish football as it does about O’Neill’s managerial acumen and the players at his disposal.
When he took the reins, Celtic sat eight points behind leaders Hearts. As of this writing, following Wednesday’s action, the Hoops and Jambos are tied at the top of the table (with the Edinburgh side ahead on goal difference)—and Celtic still have a match at hand.
Is ex-Columbus Crew boss Nancy up to the task at Celtic?
So, Nancy, at minimum, will need to maintain things on a domestic front and seek to grow on a European one.
From a purely footballing perspective, the Frenchman is most definitely up to the task. His history in MLS suggests he can recruit quality players and get said players to play attractive football.
Respectfully, though, where Nancy will encounter a steep learning curve is away from the pitch and training ground. Glasgow isn’t Columbus: There are multiple media outlets covering Celtic and Rangers, and not everyone can cope with the fishbowl.
In Columbus, the Crew are covered by one newspaper and are largely an afterthought compared with Ohio State University sports.
And, as well supported at Columbus and CF Montreal are, neither can boast the same intense relationship between the club and the terraces as exists in the East End of Glasgow (and beyond).
If Nancy is up to the challenge, he’ll almost certainly do well. If he isn’t, however, those “sack the board” chants will only get louder.
Wilfried Nancy learns about life as a Celtic boss
Before we begin, we want to make one thing clear: Wilfried Nancy deserves time to prove whether he can succeed as Celtic manager.
However, while we don’t want to join the cacophony of voices calling for his dismissal after one match in charge—a 2-1 loss to Hearts, with a scoreline that flattered the Hoops—because he used a tactics board with the blue pieces and made some questionable comments in his post-match remarks (his English is much better than our French, or even our English), we can’t help but wonder: Was he simply trying too hard?
Coming in with a reputation as a tactical genius from his time in MLS, Nancy opted to trot out a 3-4-2-1 formation in his first match in charge. It is, after all, his preferred formation.
That he made the switch after only two training sessions, though, seems, well, a bit strange, particularly given that he went with a back three of three left-footed players (American Auston Trusty, Irishman Liam Scales and Scot Kieran Tierney).
Notably, he left right-footed right backs Anthony Ralston and Colby Donovan on the bench. To be fair, it wasn’t the first time the team had played in that formation—erstwhile manager Brendan Rodgers resorted to it at one point earlier in the season when he quite literally ran out of fit left and right backs.
Nancy gets started
In this case, however, the tactical switch meant that Trusty and Yang Hyun-Jun were tasked with roles for which they may not be best-suited, the former as a facilitator and the latter as a defender.
Trusty made 112 passes against Hearts, not all of them of high quality. Conversely, captain Callum McGregor, normally used in a midfield role that connects the play, made only 94.
Celtic didn’t lose the match because of Trusty’s play on the day, but his increased role as a passer surely contributed to the Hoops’ paltry 7.4% crossing accuracy (27 attempts). Hearts’ crossing accuracy in the match, meanwhile, was 41.7%.
Yang, similarly, wasn’t culpable on either of the Jambos’ goals. But nor was he effective in the attacking third.
“I wouldn’t focus so much on the formation,” Tierney told the media after the match. “[Nancy’s] ideas are good about creating overloads, finding the free man. It’s only been a couple of days, so the manager’s just got a few messages across. It’ll be impossible to get every single detail across in a few days.”
Exactly. So why try?
While Celtic and Rangers stol
St. Mirren beat Celtic in the League Cup, and the Market
St. Mirren’s triumph in the League Cup final at Hampden Park on Sunday continued a disturbing trend for Celtic, the losers on the day. By most every measure, the Hoops have by far the most resources at their disposal, financially and otherwise, in Scottish football. And yet, St. Mirren were the deserved winners on the day in the cup final.
Moreover, Hearts are, rightfully, at the top of the Premiership table as we enter the festive period. This despite the fact that, according to the latest Transfermarkt squad market value update for the Premiership, St. Mirren come in at €7.5 million and Hearts €21 million, the latter third in the league. Dundee United, which added to Celtic’s misery with a 2-1 victory on Wednesday, are valued at €10.43 million.
In comparison, Celtic have a squad market value of €126.5 million, by far the highest mark in Scotland’s top flight, with Rangers trailing at €94 million.
The results Sunday—and Wednesday—show that it’s not just about how much a club spends on its squad, but how much said players expend on any given day. It also speaks to the influence of a competent and confident manager.
Yes, it may be too soon to suggest that St. Mirren’s Stephen Robinson or United’s Jim Goodwin better tactically than new Celtic bench boss Wilfried Nancy, but we saw firsthand in Glasgow last Thursday, as the Hoops lost 3-0 to Roma in Europa League play, how lost the players in green and white now look attempting to adapt to their new gaffer’s system. (It was great to be back in the East End, in spite of the result.)
Liam Scales has had a terrific season as a central defender, but on Thursday, we repeatedly saw him just on the outside of the Italians’ box. He looked and played like a fish out of water. He was back there again on Wednesday, against a United side that hadn’t won since October 25th.
New Celtic boss feels the heat
Among the (many) criticisms of Nancy, just three matches into his tenure in Glasgow is that he has focused on forcing his system on Celtic’s squad, instead of being pragmatic and building on the work of Martin O’Neill, who performed miracles during his interim spell in charge at Parkhead.
Based on what we’ve seen, that criticism is valid. At least some of the blame rests with the Celtic board (now, minus chairman Peter Lawwell as of Wednesday) for having Nancy start in the role in the midst of a challenging part of the schedule.
Across the city, new ’Gers gaffer Danny Rohl has taken a more step-by-step approach, and it’s led to improved results.
“It was not always the nicest football, but we are finding a way to win games,” he told the press recently. “I’d like us to be more clinical, [but] for me it’s about winning games.”
Nancy and his high-priced squad should take heed. While they still have the chance.
How Much will Celtic Spend in the Transfer Window?
Elena Sadiku, erstwhile manager of Celtic’s women’s team, left her post for a similar job in her native Sweden. BK Häcken is hardly a step up in class in the sport, albeit one that takes her closer to home.
However, she only made the move after expressing frustration at the club hierarchy for its failure to invest sufficiently in the first-team squad.
“I feel right now that we are in a situation where teams are investing strongly, and you can see how tight it is every season,” she said in October. “Teams are getting better and better, and we need to push in the same direction as well. It is not about having a fear factor but the fact that other teams are investing really well.”
If that sounds familiar, it should: It’s essentially what her counterpart with the men’s team, Brendan Rodgers, said from about mid-July until the time of his surprise resignation in October, minus the car analogies.
Does it suggest an institutional problem at Celtic? It sure looks that way.
New men’s manager Wilfried Nancy may have secured his first win as Hoops manager—in five tries—on Sunday, but the performance (a 3-1 victory over 10-man Aberdeen) hardly did much to paper over the cracks in the squad, such as the lack of an experienced and ruthless striker.
Nancy looking to Rebuild at Celtic
Indeed, as the January transfer window approaches, Nancy and new women’s manager Grant Scott will both be busy rebuilding their respective squads (the women are currently seven points behind leaders Glasgow City). Or at least they should be—in fact, there is no guarantee the board will provide either with the resources needed to do so, in spite of public assurances.
“I met with Wilfried this week to discuss recruitment ahead of the January transfer window and also looking ahead to the summer transfer window because we know that we’ve got a project to support here,” chief executive Michael Nicholson told the BBC this week.
At this point, supporters will hold him to that. And, as loath as they may be to read the comparison, so will their counterparts across the city. At Ibrox, new manager Danny Röhl has improved results for Rangers, but Sunday’s 2-1 loss to league leaders Hearts once again showed there is work to be done.
Both Celtic and Rangers will need to spend if they want to catch the Jambos. And both know it. The only question is: Will either actually do it?
Mere days