Wilfried Nancy set his sights on Premiership table-toppers Hearts after claiming his first win in charge of Celtic at the fifth time of asking.
The Frenchman hailed the resilience of his players for digging deep to secure a much-needed victory over Aberdeen that relieves some of the pressure which had been ramping up on the new Celtic boss.
Nancy came into the weekend having lost each of his four matches in charge in all competitions – including last Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final against St Mirren – with some sections of the support already calling for him to be relieved of his duties.
Late goals from Kieran Tierney and James Forrest sealed a vital 3-1 win for the defending Premiership champions, who looked to be heading for another damaging result after conceding an equaliser to ten-man Aberdeen with 16 minutes to play.
The win leaves Celtic six points behind Hearts with a game in hand and Nancy was buoyant after finally getting the result he feels their performances have warranted.
He said: ‘We chase anybody. The idea is to compete with ourselves. After that, the standings, we’ll see.
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
Aberdeen manager Jimmy Thelin was frustrated that his team could not hold on for a draw
‘I’m really proud of what they did because they had so many big chances and suddenly against 10 men you concede a goal like this.
‘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.
‘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.’
