The Frenchman\u2019s appointment was confirmed less than an hour before kick-off against Dundee on Wednesday<\/a> as Celtic brought down the curtain on the interim reign of Martin O\u2019Neill and Shaun Maloney with a seventh win in eight games.<\/p>\nScales was asked after the 1-0 victory whether he had been doing his research on the 48-year-old Nancy, who has arrived from Major League Soccer side Columbus Crew.<\/p>\n
“No, I haven\u2019t had time,” the defender said. “It\u2019s been so busy. Obviously we know bits and pieces but we can\u2019t get ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n
“We need to focus on the games that we have and now is the time where we\u2019re going to have to really focus on the tactical changes and whatever he wants us to do.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s hard to do homework on someone you\u2019ve never met because you don\u2019t want to create a false idea of them. It\u2019s better just to wait and really learn from them in person.”<\/p>\n
Nancy arrives ahead of a crucial run of games. Celtic will go top of the William Hill Premiership if they beat Hearts on Sunday. They then host Roma in the Europa League before facing St Mirren in the Premier Sports Cup final.<\/p>\n
“It doesn\u2019t get much bigger than the week he has come in,” Scales said.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s probably ideal. You want to come in and be part of massive games and he has a chance to win a trophy early on.<\/p>\n
“If you come in and do well over the next three games, it\u2019s the best way you can start a job. We\u2019ll be doing our best to make that happen for him because we want to be successful as a team.”<\/p>\n
Scales has been one of Celtic\u2019s most consistent players this season and continued his excellent form under O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
In a video posted on social media, the 73-year-old hailed Scales in his final post-match address to the players. The former Republic of Ireland boss described Scales\u2019 season as “phenomenal”.<\/p>\n
Scales said of O\u2019Neill: “He\u2019s been really good. It\u2019s been a positive four weeks or five weeks. We\u2019ve won a lot of games.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve obviously won a cup semi-final and won an away game in Europe as well. They were big wins. It\u2019s just been really enjoyable and positive.<\/p>\n
“In the game now, the defenders are on the ball a lot and you need to link play. But to go back to basics and just be told that you need to win your headers, you need to win your duels, I\u2019ll keep that with me.”<\/p>\n
Scales could be set for a modified role given Nancy\u2019s preference for a back three.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve played in back threes, I\u2019ve played in back fives, I\u2019ve played in back fours,” the 27-year-old said. “I just want to be in the team. That\u2019s all I care about.” <\/p>\n
Watch the draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026 on Friday from 5pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow a live blog on the RT\u00c9 News App and on rte.ie\/sport. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland international Liam Scales has been too busy playing and preparing for games to do much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-175588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}