Years ago when sport was good, you didn’t have optics. You just had what happened. And what happened was what you had seen happen.
Things are different now. If you haven’t lent into optics when discussing your underperforming team, then you’re missing out. One dictionary definition for you: Optics (1) “The way in which an event or course of action is perceived by the public.”
It appears you do want a coach or manager who doesn’t care about optics. But at the same time, optics are important, because it is all we have to work with when results aren’t in your favour.
But it’s a fine line between the perception of the event, and the event itself. The other optics – Optics (2) “The scientific study of sight and the behaviour of light” – seems like a posh way of saying what you’re looking at, whether you’re watching England’s top order fail to deliver again, Spurs having an xG of 0.000001 or Celtic losing four in a row.
Certainly one way to prove you have no interest in optics is to tweet a Venn diagram when trying to change your WhatsApp profile picture. Not enough Venn diagrams in football, Brian. By all accounts Wilfried Nancy didn’t mean to post two overlapping circles. THINGS THAT MATTER. THINGS YOU CAN CONTROL. A little shaded bit. WHAT YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON – and an arrow pointing to the shaded area.
The diagram does lead to some existential questions. Does football matter? And does a football manager really have any control over the football match that’s happening in front of him?
Perhaps Nancy has been brought to Glasgow to incontrovertibly prove that this thing we invest so much of our time and money in is of no material importance. Like quite a lot of the elite LinkedIn diary of a self-improvement performance movement, when you take away all the bullshit, very little remains. But what if the Venn diagram is right? Take a look at your life, work out what matters, work out what you control, and focus on that.
Do I matter? Does this column matter? Do I have control over it? Or does it control me? Does anyone have control over anything? Would Nietzsche play wing-backs against St Mirren? And if we don’t have free will, do I even have the power to focus on the shaded bit in the Venn diagram telling me to get on with this column?
One thing missing from almost all of your be-the-best-you Venn diagrams is luck. None of your successful “I’m-really-good-at-life-be-like-me” podcasters ever like to include the incredible amount of fortune anyone needs to succeed.
Certainly Nancy hasn’t had a whole lot of luck. Daizen Maeda missed a header my colleague Barry Glendenning would have scored with his eyes closed late on at Tannadice Park. Frankly Celtic could have been well ahead before Dundee United equalised in the second half. He’s unlucky to have followed an absolute legend of the club, who did well and then said he would have stayed on.
Nancy has been unlucky. But he has also been not good. A win percentage of zero is testament to that. By all accounts he had a 15-minute handover chat with Martin O’Neill. At least do a free 40-minute Zoom call, Wilfried. Think of the optics.
Where does a tiny tactics board sit on your bad optics list? It seems churlish to criticise a manager for using something that might make the top five answers in a Family Fortunes round of “Things a manager might use”. Is tactics board there, Les? Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep. Fourth answer! You’ve won a set of garden furniture.
But in the memeable age – Ruben Amorim in the rain at Grimsby, and now Nancy giving the impression he’s looking for a pickup game of travel Othello. Things that matter. Things you can control.
“I think I am in a good direction with the players,” he said after the game at Tannadice. Well, there’s almost nothing you can say post-match that’s going to help. He can’t say he’s in a bad direction with them – despite the evidence suggesting such.
As Ewan Murray tweeted post-League Cup final: “A two-minute glance at Celtic’s squad tells you they don’t have guys to play the system Nancy wants. Sticking with that system just because that’s ‘what you do’ isn’t single minded … it is outright daft.”
Celtic have had success in the recent past with a “plan A” manager. Nancy should look at the floor and reply “It is what it is, mate” after defeat against Aberdeen on Sunday.
The fact remains that 14 days and four games is no time to judge any manager, but if a left-field appointment starts badly it soon becomes just a nonsensical one.
Michael Nicholson, Celtic’s chief executive, said Nancy was “our No 1 candidate when we began the process of appointing a new manager”. How did a man who won 14 of 34 games in this year’s MLS regular season surge to the top of Celtic’s list?
It may be more complex than this, but Nancy’s longtime assistant is Kwame Ampadu (father of Leeds’s Ethan). Ampadu managed Exeter’s Under-18s when Paul Tisdale was the first-team manager. Tisdale gave Ethan his debut. Tisdale is now Celtic’s head of football operations.
Again, none of this matters if the appointment works. It’s good to appoint (good) people you know. And the timing is mad: before playing Hearts, Roma and a cup final. Dundee United, well not so much. Wednesday night was their first win in eight.
As a “give the man time” ultra, I hope Nancy proves everyone wrong. And as all those far more well-versed on the situation at Celtic have stated, the problems go way higher than the manager.
But in the meantime, if he’s still in the dugout at Celtic Park on Sunday, I hope he unfurls a giant Venn diagram tifo, focuses on the bit he can control that also matters and grinds out a gritty one-nil.
