While that final touch remained elusive, the final straw moved closer.<\/p>\n
There was no festive cheer at Celtic Park – certainly not pre-match – as boos echoed around the amphitheatre which is more toxic than a tonic for most these days.<\/p>\n
Before the game, a large fan protest took place, engulfing much of The Celtic Way outside the stadium. Ironically, such supporters don’t think their club – and its hierarchy – are operating the way Celtic should.<\/p>\n
While the anger is far from directed solely on Nancy, his dreadful start has not helped matters. Taking a team which won seven of eight under an interim manager who was a club legend and turning them into the butt of jokes will do that.<\/p>\n
The hard-fought win over a 10-man side who played in Prague on Thursday – as deserved as it was – will not banish the concerns some have over his credentials. Nor will it paper over the start to his tenure. <\/p>\n
Still, the manager stuck with his preferred 3-4-3 formation, with only one out-and-out central defender – Trusty – starting between two full-backs. <\/p>\n
Had things gone wayward here, the clamour to cease such approach would have been deafening.<\/p>\n
“That was unbelievable pressure he was under,” former Parkhead goalkeeper Pat Bonner said on Sportsound. “He does give himself a bit of time [with the result].<\/p>\n
“It’ll be really interesting who he brings in this January. He’s just got to tighten up those defensive qualities and he might bring in a player to consolidate that. <\/p>\n
“I’m sure they must have their homework done to bring in a couple of players that can actually enhance this way of playing and this team. <\/p>\n
“If they don’t do that, then there’ll be more questions asked.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While that final touch remained elusive, the final straw moved closer. There was no festive cheer at Celtic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-328791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}