Callum McGregor on the tough 33 day Wilfried Nancy reign

Callum McGregor was Celtic’s silent man during Wilfried Nancy’s hugely damaging 33 days in charge after the ‘world class in everything we do’ decision by Michael Nicholson to hand over the reigns to the rookie Frenchman from the MLS, a league where it doesn’t matter too much if you win or not.

Nancy soon found out that it matters in Glasgow and rather than leave Martin O’Neill in charge the Celtic Board led by Michael Nicholson opted to throw the Frenchman in ahead of a title showdown with Hearts – after Martin O’Neill had wiped out their early season lead. That was lost as were further league matches against Dundee United, Motherwell and theRangers and a cup final on top against St Mirren, plus a real embarrassment of a performance against Roma at Celtic Park.

Twelve points were lost in that month of torture of the support and probably moreso for the Celtic players led by their captain. If McGregor couldn’t back Nancy publicly he had to stay silent so there were no media interviews from him. You can bet though that he was vocal behind the scenes and when it came time to end the nightmare his opinion would have been sought and given for the benefit of the football club.

Today Callum McGregor discussed the Wilfried Nancy experiment for the first time in an exclusive interview with Sky Sports. The Celtic captain is candid and while choosing his words ever so carefully there is enough there to indicate that he was never a convinced in what Nancy was trying to do, with the timing all wrong for a start.

Had he come in the summer with a pre-season and a transfer window to bring in players who were familiar with his philosophy and his modus operandi then perhaps it might have worked. Callum explains why in his view it didn’t.

Appointing Nancy and throwing him is with the fixture list Celtic had at that time is  up there with the crazy decision for Celtic to fly the entire squad to Dubai in the January of the covid lockdown only for players to catch the virus meaning so many negative stories, players sidelined and Neil Lennon left sitting beside two big piles of snow as more points were dropped in a doomed season away to Livingston.

If that was Peter Lawwell biggest folly that you’ve got to hand it to Michael Nicholson for blowing that out the water with his hiring of Wilfried Nancy based on the recommendation of Paul Tisdale who sold it on the basis that he’d be a better manager than Brendan Rodgers to work within their business model.

A shambles that one Michael, one that no future Celtic CEO will ever be able to surpass, hopefully.  The worst decision to appoint the worst ever Celtic manager at the worst possible time who ended up with the worst record of all our managers!

Read everything that Callum McGregor had to say about the Wilfried Nancy period in charge of Celtic – on the next page…