CELTIC CRISIS: RUMORS OF HEATED ARGUMENTS AFTER CUP FINAL LOSS
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- Dec 15, 2025
- 4 min read
Some consider managing Celtic to be one of the easiest jobs in world football. You’ll start each season with a massive financial advantage, an unrivalled fanbase, and rivals who seem to continually stagger from one false dawn to another.
I once heard being the Celtic manager described as “Like playing FIFA for the PlayStation, with all the cheat codes on.”
Unfortunately, yesterday, Celtic looked more like a team being played by someone who forgot what all the buttons do.
And if the rumors doing the rounds this morning turn out to be accurate, this could get a lot worse before it gets better.
Celtic Crisis Deepens: Has Manager lost the Dressing Room Already?
In one sense, Wilfried Nancy’s calm, yet clearly frustrated demeanor after yesterday’s match was understandable. He’ll be hurting, though probably not as much as the rest of us are today.
However, coming out after losing a Cup Final 3-1 to a team who, with the greatest of respect to St. Mirren currently sit in the bottom half of the league, and saying that there are “good points” to take from the performance is not what Celtic fans want to hear.
It is still only 3 games, and there’s plenty of time to turn things around still. But the early signs are not looking good.
As the camera panned around various points in the wake of St. Mirren’s decisive third goal, the look of abject defeat on the Celtic player’s faces said it all.
Even the usually stoned faced Celtic Chairman Peter Lawwell had his head in his hands.
Rumors emerged overnight of heated exchanges between club captain Callum McGregor and his new boss Wilfried Nancy in the changing room at full time. I don’t know if these are accurate, but I expect more will emerge in the next day or so.
There is enough negativity emanating from Lennoxtown over the past week that tells me there is something to this. For whatever reason, our new manager has not been able to get the players onside as quickly as Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney could.
Some say it’s the apparent “disrespect” shown towards long serving and popular members of the backroom team. The leaked story of goalkeeping coach Stevie Woods reportedly resigning turned out to be false, but Nancy wasn’t exactly going out of his way to emphasize the importance of this member of the backroom team at his pre match conference either.
Word is that all coaches at the club have been given 6 months to prove to the new management team that they deserve to be retained beyond this season. If that’s true then it’s extremely poor man-management.
You’re either good enough to do a job or you’re not, Arbitrary time limits only create unrest and disharmony, as well as brewing resentment.
Speaking of time limits however, the manager himself is now facing one himself. Wilfried Nancy came in as the first manager Celtic’s long history with the opportunity to go top of the league, claim a major European scalp, and put a trophy in the cabinet in his first 3 games.
In the space of only a week, that has all evaporated. We are behind Hearts in the League, the treble is gone, and our European ambitions rest on probably needing to take at least a point away to Bologna, if we can take care of Utrecht before that.
It’s far too soon to be talking about sacking the manager, but some are starting to do so anyway. And those voices will only grow, the longer this winless streak continues.
We don’t just need a win in our next game, we need a big win. A confidence booster, to give the manager some momentum and to show to any players, fans or press who doubt him that his system can work.
Honestly, at this point I think it’s 50/50 whether Nancy can turn this around or not. He seems totally out of his depth, and even after I spoke admiringly of his seeming humility in altering his stance, he then threw that out the window and doubled down with his line up yesterday.
He might have got away with it if Kelechi Iheanacho hadn’t got injured. Celtic lost all control of the play once he limped off.
Again though, that is bad management. Even if we had gotten away with it yesterday, making a player just back from injury and lacking match sharpness the lynchpin of a tactical set-up most of the squad still don’t understand isn’t a good look.
I want Wilfried Nancy to succeed, and for as long as he is Celtic manager I will support him. However, this whole scenario, and the backdrop of fan anger and boardroom ignorance is beginning to look like the ultimate slow-moving car crash. This Celtic crisis may just be getting started.
