Wilfried Nancy insists he isn’t thinking about his future at Celtic despite the team’s home defeat to Rangers that continued a poor run of results since his arrival.
The hosts took the lead in the derby at Celtic Park and led at half-time but conceded three goals in the second half and suffered their sixth defeat in eight games under the new manager.
The result, and the manner of the loss, piled further pressure on the Frenchman, and triggered protests outside the ground after the final whistle, but Nancy believes he sees reasons to believe the team is improving and is not concerned about losing his job.
“I don’t think about (my future),” Nancy said. “I think about finding ways to help my team to be good on details.
“I saw enough (to have faith in improvement), except the fact that we didn’t score more goals. And again, the level of… I know that we lost, but I also have to be objective and the level that we had at a certain moment was really, really, really high.
“This is a reality. And I will not talk like that if it wasn’t the case.”
The manager said he understood fan anger but said his side was failing on “details” and are on the brink of showing an upturn in performances and results.
“This is the way it is for the moment,” he said. “And when I say this is the way it is, it doesn’t mean that I am a defeatist, no.
“What I mean is, we are really close, really, really close to turning things around. Again, I repeat myself, but I understand this situation.”
Explaining his confidence despite having lost momentum in the title race and also lost a cup final and European match during his month in charge, he said: “Because I saw… I watched every game and I saw many, many good things that we did, like today again. But now it’s about consistency.
“So my narrative would not be the same if it was not the case. But this is the case for the moment. So that’s why I am a big believer that we will be able to turn things around.”
When asked about whether he thought he still had the backing of the Celtic hierarchy, Nancy said: “We are together with the board”.
Coming off the back of a difficult night and defeat to Motherwell in midweek, Celtic had started brightly against their rivals, with Yang scoring after 20 minutes and the hosts pinning Rangers back with energetic attacking play. However, after the break Youssef Chermiti drew the visitors level and then scored to give Rangers the advantage before Mikey Moore added a third.
“The first half was outstanding, offensively but defensively also, “Nancy said. “The commitment to win the ball back, the intensity that we put, we should have scored more goals.
“After that, second half, we wanted to do the same and we conceded one goal on throw-in, after that the second goal was on throw-in and the third goal was on throw-in. So this is the reality actually.
“I think my players deserve better, for sure, because of what they did in the first half and also the way they started also in the second half, but the details killed us today.”
He added: “When we lose, when someone loses, the confidence is going to be low. It’s clear.
“But we have also many things that I can show, and we already discussed about that with the players, that the confidence could be high. And now it’s all about finding the balance with the details. This game today, was about details.
“So we can concede goals. We conceded so many goals. And the goal that we conceded, we know that we can do better.
“So that’s why for me, we are there, but not there yet. And yes, we lost again. And nobody is pleased with that because of what we did, because we deserved better.”
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