Celtic 'not about winning or losing right now' as Wilfried Nancy reacts to sore Hearts loss

New Parkhead boss says season is long after Jam Tarts inflict loss on managerial bow

Wilfried Nancy stressed that it is not about losing or winning so early in his tenure after his coronation fell flat at Celtic Park against title rivals Hearts.

The Celtic manager watched as his new side tasted defeat for the first time domestically since the same opponents inflicted a 3-1 defeat at Tynecastle in October.

Much has happened since then, including the return of Martin O’Neill for a successful interim period. It meant the pressure was on Nancy even more than normal as his side sought to take outright leadership of the Premiership.

Goals from Claudio Braga and Oisin McEntee in either half proved a dose of reality after O’Neill’s run of seven victories in eight games. Despite Kieran Tierney’s stoppage-time finish, Hearts held on for a 2-1 win.

“Listen, I'm not about losing or winning. I'm about having a good performance,” said the Frenchman. “I want to win but for me it's about individually what we can do better. The most important thing for me is if we give everything as a player individually. What can we do better when we attack and when we defend. What can we do better in terms of mindset and if we are better on that and if we do good things we'll see the results. For me this doesn't change anything and this is more about the way we're going to keep going to work and then, step by step, I think that will be interesting."

Nancy elected to play a 3-4-3 formation, which is how he preferred to set out in the MLS with his last club Columbus Crew. Hearts seemed to expect this and managed to negate the hosts’ threat to go three points clear at the top, although they have played a game more.

Celtic boss says season is so long

“Listen, the season is long,” said Nancy. “There are many games coming. So, OK, they have three points ahead. But for me, let's control what we can control. Today, if I talk about the results, we conceded two goals because we could have done better on the first goal. So it's on us.

"And the second goal, we could have done better. So this is what I call the performance. If we do better on this one, maybe they don't score. So, again, for me, this is more about what we need to improve. And the season is so long. This is really, really long."

He refuted the notion that Celtic switched off at the first goal, which was scored by Claudio Braga after he had looked to have returned from an offside position. Replays showed Arne Engels playing him on. The unmarked McEntee then thumped in a header from Harry Milne's corner after 64 minutes.

“We were still in the game after the first goal,” said Nancy. "The second goal, again, I need to know a little bit more, from my players also. We played with urgency but sometimes we played with panic at the same time because we missed many passes.

"But again, because there is a good intention, good desire to go forward. Obviously, the first goal is disappointing. But when I look at the second goal, the way they scored, it could have been better. But again, this is part of football. Now, how can we come back from that? And I think that we can do better on this."

It doesn’t get much easier for Nancy. AS Roma are the visitors in the Europa League on Thursday and then there’s a League Cup final against St Mirren three days later.

“I've learned a lot," he said. "As a coach, again, my players did everything. So me, if we didn't have the performance that we had, but we had a good performance at certain moments, it's because I need to help them a little bit more. And I learned a lot of things today.”