Wilfried Nancy is eyeing a showdown with league leaders Hearts after securing his first victory as Celtic’s manager on his fifth attempt.

The French coach praised his team’s tenacity during a crucial win over Aberdeen, which alleviated some of the mounting pressure on him since taking the helm at Celtic.

Prior to this weekend, Nancy had endured a difficult start, losing all four of his matches across various competitions. This rough patch included a loss in the Premier Sports Cup final against St Mirren, leading to some fans questioning his position at the club.

With this recent win, Celtic now trails Hearts by six points, although they have a game in hand. Nancy expressed optimism, believing the positive result reflects the quality of their performances thus far.

“We’re competing with ourselves first and foremost,” Nancy remarked. “The standings will take care of themselves.”

Celtic boss Wilfried Nancy celebrates their first goal in a 3-1 victory against Aberdeen

James Forrest and Kieran Tierney scored the two late goals that earned a much-needed win

He continued, “I’m very proud of the team’s efforts. They created numerous chances and, even when reduced to 10 men, managed to hold on despite conceding a goal.”

‘Their heads could have gone down but they didn’t do it. They kept attacking.

‘(It was) attack, attack, attack, attack, waves, waves, waves. The two goals we scored were the reward for the grit and the resilience that they showed.

‘The fact that we had lost so many games and they were still able to come back was something I really enjoyed seeing.

‘I don’t believe in luck but since I’ve been here I haven’t had any. It’s true because when we played Hearts, I think about the way they scored the goal, and then after that against Roma we missed a penalty.

‘We have hit the post in almost every game, but the most important thing is the resilience my players had.

‘If you watch the first goal that we scored, we lost the ball and after that three, four, five players tried to win the ball back. After that we won the ball and we scored. It’s important to see that because it’s the spirit I like.’

After watching his side struggle to put together a complete 90-minute display since he replaced Martin O’Neill earlier this month, Nancy was delighted to see his players fight hard for the three points.

‘I had seen a lot of improvement in every (previous) game,’ he said. ‘We just didn’t have the outcome.

‘We didn’t have a full performance, but in all the games we had at least one really good half and today we had a complete (performance).

‘When I talk about personality it’s about showing it in the difficult moments and today my players did that. 

‘They did it in the past, they did it two games ago, they did it three games ago but they didn’t have the outcome.

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin was frustrated that his team could not hold on for a draw

‘Today we have the outcome.’

Aberdeen boss Jimmy Thelin was frustrated not to come away with a share of the spoils, but had no complaints over the final score.

‘We were a little lucky in the first 10-15 minutes of the second half,’ he admitted. ‘After that, I think we did a quite stable performance.

‘We were more mature, closed the gaps and waited for that transition to happen. We kept them to crosses and shots (from outside the box) and did quite well.

‘The goal they scored (Tierney’s) was maybe a bit easy, so it was a difficult one in that moment, but it’s a fair result.

‘Our players worked really hard and showed team spirit. We wanted to grab the point but didn’t today.’