IS JOE HART THE GUIDING VOICE WILFRIED NANCY NEEDS AT CELTIC?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 8 minutes ago
- 3 min read
There are few highlights to bring up in a positive sense from last night’s humbling at home from Roma.
The one good thing to come out of last night’s coverage however was the absolutely heartwarming words from our former goalkeeper Joe Hart.
He was in equal measures direct and yet comforting in his post-match analysis and opinion.
For a guy who was not raised on Celtic in any way, he has absolutely bought into our way of life. He gets Celtic, he gets what the fans are about and what we expect. He embraced us and we embraced him as one of our own.
So, I ask, is he the man to help Wilfried Nancy and his backroom make that same step, and fully grasp the task that is ahead of them?
Joe Hart Could be the “Celtic-Minded” Missing Link in Our New Management Team
We’ve seen in the past week just how ruthless and cutthroat Scottish football, and those who carve out a living writing about it can be. Wilfried Nancy probably hasn’t even unpacked his cases yet, and already our tabloid press are doing their utmost to drive him away.
Sadly, some of the more reactionary elements of the Celtic support seem to be helping them in this regard. They’ve also been caught up in this hysteria that the press has actively sought to whip up and toxify since our manager arrived just over a week ago.
Ahead of Nancy’s initial arrival, there was talk of “someone with a Celtic background” being part of his background team. The two most obvious candidates for this role, interim coaches Shaun Maloney and Mark Fotheringham have both, seemingly ruled themselves out.
Then Joe Hart said something last night that really resonated with me. Speaking about our new manager he said: “It’s not about what’s in his head. It is about what is in his ear, of people letting him know what it is, because it’s not his fault that he doesn’t understand,”
Hart, speaking with Celtic heroes Johan Mjallby and Stilian Petrov elaborated further. He added: “I don’t know about you boys (Petrov and Mjällby), but I didn’t walk in and just understand what it was to be Celtic. I needed the people around me; I needed to have conversations with the likes of you.”
In other words, Joe Hart is in a position to offer something to Wilfried Nancy and his backroom team that few other “Celtic-minded” coaches or former players can: empathy derived directly from personal experience.”
Joe Hart has been on the same journey that Wilfried Nancy and his backroom team are just beginning. He learned exactly what it means to be Celtic. He learned exactly what a club of our size and stature demands in terms of results, performance and overall effort.
Like Hart says, its not Nancy’s fault if he doesn’t currently understand that. Nobody, regardless of how much prior experience they have (and very few players have joined Celtic in recent years with as much prior international, elite level experience as Joe Hart) could be expected to know just how massive Celtic as an institution is, until they are immersed in it.
Even then, as Joe Hart says, he still had to rely on the counsel of other players who had been through it before.
I am not saying Celtic should offer Joe Hart a full-time role on the bench. He’s clearly very happy with his media work, and from what I’ve seen, he’s doing a great job so far.
But even if it was just spending a couple of days a week on the training ground, focusing not on tactics or strategy, that’s the manager’s job, but instead making sure that every Celtic player is as fired up and bought in to our culture as he was during his playing days, I think it could work wonders.
Most importantly though, he can be that Celtic-minded counsel that Wilfried Nancy and his staff need. Joe Hart has been through exactly what our new manager and coaches are going through now.
I can think of no better spokesman for the Celtic cause at this moment in time than him.
At the very least, I hope someone encourages Wilfried Nancy to give him a call.