The Three C's

The evidence that needs to be seen to gain confidence in the Nancy experiment.

The three Cs may be what some label our podcast, but lols aside, let’s get down to the serious matter of Celtic in 2026.

In the podcast James shared hosted by Jamie Hamilton, the hiring of Wilfried Nancy was positioned as an “experiment”. I think that is fair, but probably not how the club would have envisioned it.

Meaning, given the conservative and risk averse nature of the club, I am sure they did not intend to make a “risky” appointment. They appear to have acted “bravely” indeed, potentially recklessly. But that probably speaks to the internal command and control structures more than to a specific strategy of innovation and future proofing.

We have a likely maverick Head of Football Operations working with assuredly non footballing “board” members to source a relatively inexperienced US based coach with a distinctive but narrowly focused style of play.

That style of play is of interest to Jamie and co precisely because it goes somewhat against the grain of convention in a post Pep Guardiola (juego de posicion) and Jurgen Klopp (gegenpressing) footballing landscape. This allows space for the strain of extreme intellectualisation of footballing tactics in which he excels.

Bit rich for me, but life’s rich tapestry and all that.

In short, Nancy seeks to combine elements of positional play with elements of relationism – that is, the less positionally constrained seeking of space by players given license to exploit opportunities as they unfold.

It’s all a bit theoretical, although I accept there is probably a spectrum of positional to relational play upon which all clubs could be plotted with the vast majority in the middle.

No team has no structure – i.e. plays like small children in the street experiencing a football for the first time. And for most teams, football is a game played without the ball for half the time. And all professional sides will have an out of possession structure.

So anyway, this isn’t the rabbit hole I wanted to go down.

In the spirit of New Year, this is intended as a “what I want to see in 2026” piece.

In the here and now, for Nancy’s Celtic tenure, such as it is, I am looking for the three Cs.