It’s been 11 days since Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic sacking, but the scars from his disastrous reign will last much longer. Liam Scales has spoken about the Frenchman’s 33-day tenure, struggling to adapt to his system, and fatigue hampering performances.
Nancy was the number one candidate on Celtic’s radar, according to CEO Michael Nicholson. His style was “the kind of football which we know Celtic supporters love to see”, Peter Lawwell said.
What fans didn’t realise, but would learn very quickly, was that Nancy didn’t have the personnel required to sustain his new-look system. He arrived in the thick of a title race, with a cup final to come in his third game in charge.
The writing was on the wall for the former Columbus Crew boss rather quickly. 18 goals shipped in eight games, and a style of play only really maintained for 45 minutes, at best. It’s true that, if he had a quality striker at his disposal, games could’ve been put to bed early on.
The Herald’s Stephen McGowan revealed that players passed judgment straight away. They are not blameless, as their performances mirrored that of a relegation-threatened team.
Liam Scales, who has cemented his place in the heart of defence, has spoken about being coached to play a new role and how tiredness would creep in during games and impact his performance on the pitch.
He said (The Herald):
“I just feel like in the last few years, the majority of my games have been played as a centre-half in a back four.
“Even though I’ve played in a back three before at different clubs, having played for a couple of years here in the same system and having the same sort of tactics, I suppose I’m comfortable in that.
“I think it [Nancy’s system] involved a lot more running than what I had been doing. Personally for me, and this isn’t going to be the same for everyone, I felt that as I got tired in games, it was harder to bring quality in that final third.”
Then came the League Cup final defeat to St Mirren, as the Hoops squandered their chances at picking up the first piece of silverware of the season.
Scales added:
“I felt good in the first half of the cup final, but as the game developed, I nearly ran out of steam. I think that was just out of not being used to playing in that position and doing more running at high speed and covering more distance. It’s not an excuse, it just takes time to get used to that, what’s being asked of you physically. I think that was for me the difference.”
Seeing Scales overlap Kieran Tierney regularly at Hampden was certainly an interesting sight. The Irishman was so high up the pitch at times, leaving the Hoops wide open at the back.
For all the confusion Nancy’s instructions brought on the squad, should it be a concern that a professional football player is feeling so fatigued during a game? Perhaps mental fatigue played a factor, too.
But if tiredness played such a big role, then the training regime must be brought into question. Players made up their minds about Nancy early on, which would’ve impacted their on-pitch performance.
The manager tried to change too much, too quickly, and paid the ultimate price.
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