David Martindale backs Wilfried Nancy after early criticism at Celtic

Livingston boss David Martindale has backed Wilfried Nancy to make Celtic stronger after a nightmare start for the Frenchman at Parkhead.

The former Columbus Crew boss took over from Martin O’Neill and Shaun Maloney after the interim management team had gone on a five-game winning run as they stabilised the club in the wake of Brendan Rodgers’ departure.

However, Nancy lost his first four matches to Hearts, Roma, St Mirren and Dundee United which had many frustrated fans, amidst ongoing protests against the Hoops board, wanting him sacked. Their anger was assuaged by a 3-1 win against 10-man Aberdeen at Parkhead on Sunday.

Martindale, whose side are bottom of the William Hill Premiership ahead of the visit of Celtic on Saturday, said: “Martin O’Neill went in and did an incredible job, with Shaun and Fozzy (Mark Fotheringham).

“It should have made that transition a little bit easier but when you’ve got a club legend going in and doing so well, it puts a wee bit of pressure on the incoming manager.

“The manager is available, so why would you not bring them in?

“It’s all hindsight. Everybody’s great with hindsight these days and social media is full of hindsight expertise.

“So you had to bring Wilfried in, he’s going to be the manager.

“So Wilfried comes in, a bit of a rocky start. Roma, wee bit different, the League Cup final, I think St Mirren were the better team over the course so I’m not going to say he was unlucky there because I do feel they deserved the victory.

“The Dundee United game, I think Jim (Goodwin, United boss) alluded to this himself, I think they could have been 3-0 or 4-0 down in the first half.

“And in the Aberdeen game, they’ve played a lot of the game against 10 men but I think they’ve hit the bar and the post five times in 15 minutes so I’m not really buying any of that narrative of poor Celtic, poor Wilfried.

“The plethora of players that he’s got available to choose from and the longer he’s going to be in the club, I think the stronger they are going to get.”

Some of the criticism has focused on Nancy’s immediate switch to a back three.

And Martindale added: “You bring a coach in with not really any coaching experience in Scotland and I think there’s always going to be that adaptation period.

“And then you probably throw in there a change of shape, it means it’ll be a bit more difficult again.

“But if you’re a coach and your philosophy has a certain style of play, why would you wait to implement it? Because surely the quicker you implement it the better you get at it.

“So for me, I find some of the comments I’ve seen on social media and some of the comments I’ve heard on television really extreme and really disappointing but it’s the modern-day game. I am not really surprised by them.”