F1 2025 Predictions Recap: Did Nancy Steady Celtic?

It's the lights out and away we go! Gonzalo Montiel, 25 years of age, his first ever World Cup.

Podcasting from Studio 2520 somewhere near Akron, Ohio, bringing you all of the latest talk in motorsport soccer.

This is Tackling the Chicane.

All right, here we are, um, post-Christmas, pre-New Year's. This will be our final program of 2025 and get rid of the perhaps the greatest tongue twister in tackling chicane history with your outro. It should become a lot easier next year. Yes. The '25, '20, and 2025, which I'll let the listeners go back and mine that gold for when I couldn't do it.

I wish— I'm sure it's at least a half a dozen times. And frankly, yeah, it was happening before 2025. But this year certainly did not help. So I think heading into 2026, it's gonna become a lot easier. Yeah, maybe I'll just take the date out of the copyright.

Yeah, well, you know, whatever you see fit. But yes, this is, this is gonna function in, in 2 ways. This show on the soccer side, it's kind of be gonna be more of a a catch-up and where we're at sort of deal. Um, but, and we will of course with the holidays at this point basically being over, um, be on a regular recording schedule. When was our last show date?

I think it was 2 weeks ago. Uh, I don't have the exact date in front of me. December something or other. 14th, 15th. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's been about 2 whole weeks.

We were gonna do one, but you know, it was— you know how it goes. It's— there's a lot of moving parts on that week. Yeah. Um, and now that you're no longer residing here at the studio, that, that adds another element. December 10th, Actually.

So it's been almost 3 weeks. Okay. Well, we'll get back at it here. And I think I'll wait till the end of the episode, but I want to talk a little bit about what you would like to see in the offseason for F1 and possibly IndyCar talk.

I had mentioned before that I'm going to try to do appointed segment in the offseason that talks about this upcoming campaign and what the, what this new car is going to offer. I think we could do that probably just topically. Um, cause we really, we only have, I don't know what, 8 weeks or so. So, you know, half a dozen episodes or, or so before we get cranking again. So.

Yeah, this, this season, or this offseason, will kind of feel especially abbreviated just because the new regs, the new regulations, and Cadillac is joining. And I believe their car release date is like mid-January, so there will be stuff to talk about pretty shortly. Um, although of course we've— the last show we did was basically the Norris's champion episode. So we've already, we've already skipped past a few weeks of complete dead offseason, which is probably a good thing. Um, but for the purpose of this episode, we're gonna kind of put a bow on, on the 2025 season as a whole.

Each, uh, beginning of the season, we go through some predictions that we make or, or we find and then put our own commentary on. Um, and we're gonna run through those again this episode and kind of see how, how off base we were. I, I happened to draft a predictions list for the constructors and top 10 drivers and I surprised myself with the Drivers' Championship. We'll get into that, but I know we have in your hand some documentation of, of predictions that we, we talked about at the beginning of the year, uh, via, I, I believe, F1 article, an F1 article. So I'll let you sort of emcee this segment and yeah, from there and There's a lot of color in this document here.

So there are, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, about 5 or 6 categories here. I think it looks like, but we'll lead off with, uh, who will be the top 3 drivers in 2025?

And I guess we'll alternate. So I'll start. And I actually had a rather poor prediction. Well, we'll get into that. Okay.

And my 3 in this order, top 3. Number 1 was Piastri. Number 2 was Russell. Number 3 was Hamilton. Okay.

So obviously the Hamilton one was a dud.

Right. Um, that, that clearly did not work out. Hamilton was, uh, had his worst season since like 2007. Um, but I, I had mentioned throughout the year that when you initially made the Piastri championship prediction, I thought it was, you know, sounding harsh, but maybe like one of the silliest things you'd said at the time. But for what, 15 races, he was leading this championship and you were not very far away from looking like a genius.

Well, I don't know about a genius because I think I purposely, purposefully left Verstappen out of the top 3.

Russell does end up 4th, albeit several points behind the 3rd position. And that seems like his charge in life is to be number 4. Yeah. I mean, that one's not really, I don't think is a super egregious prediction at all, actually. But yeah.

So just before we get to your predictions, James Hinchcliffe, his predict— 3 predictions were Verstappen, Norris, Piastri. So he had them there, just not in the right order. Yeah. And then there's a bunch of other ones here, but we don't need to dive that deeply. So what did you have?

I was clearly very high on Ferrari heading into this year. I think I had bought in a little bit into the Lewis Hamilton hype. So my 3rd place is Hamilton, much like yours. I thought he was going to be a lot better than he was. The Ferrari team was pretty bad this year, just all around.

And because I was so high on Ferrari, I had Charles Leclerc finishing 2nd. Hamilton and Leclerc were right next to each other, but in 6th and 5th respectively, not 3rd and 2nd. So I totally missed the ball on the Ferrari thing. But this is where it surprised me, and I didn't realize I had predicted this until literally about 5 minutes before we hit record. I picked Lando Norris to win the, uh, Drivers' World Championship, and, uh, that is what ended up happening.

Yes. And, um, That honestly surprised me. I, I usually am pretty high on Verstappen. I actually have Verstappen in 5th, which wouldn't have been that off base had he not suddenly found his normal form the last, oh, 7 or 8 races of the year. But I, I'm— I surprised myself with the Lando Norris thing.

So I guess I'll take credit for that. And Ferrari, you have failed me. Well, nice job on that one.

Shall we move on to the next prediction? Yeah. Who, which will be the top 3 teams in 2025? And I'll let you go ahead and tell me what your top 3 predictions are. Looking a little silly here with this one.

Um, again, I bought into the Ferrari hype. I had Ferrari winning the Constructors Championship, and I believe they finished 2nd in the championship in, uh, 2024. So I, I was kind of hoping that they would actually build on that, and clearly that did not happen. Um, they finished 4th and a distant 4th at that. So that was a complete misfire.

I then had McLaren 2nd, um, and they were the dominant force by far, obviously. And I had Red Bull 3rd, which, um, they end up finishing 3rd. Um, so I guess I, I predicted that they would not be sort of the, the sharp— on the sharp end of the table, but I don't want to take that much credit for it because I definitely missed the boat on the top 2. So yeah. So interestingly enough, Lawrence Barreto and James Hinchcliffe both had Ferrari in P2.

Yeah. I mean, I think Ferrari just completely missed on all expectations this year. And I had McLaren 1, Red Bull 2. Ferrari 3. So 2 out of 3 in the wrong order.

Well, one's in the right order, but there were, I think there was quite a bit of expectation for Ferrari to finish really strongly this year and they didn't. 4th, which isn't horrible, but for Ferrari, that's pretty piss poor. I think it's interesting that nobody really noted, at least in these predictions, how well Williams would finish. So I will jump in here and say that because I did the full top 10, I actually had Williams in 5th place. Oh, well, again, that is my— that's my Carlos Sainz fandom showing.

I was really on the Williams hype train. I, I thought Albon and, uh, Sainz together at Williams was gonna work, and it did. What was weird though with Williams is the first half of the year Albon was, was far and away better than Sainz, and then in the second half Sainz ends up on the podium twice and seemed to have figured it out and was actually ahead on performance more often than not with Albon. I wonder if they can get both of those drivers firing at once next year. I feel like they could turn some heads for sure.

Yeah. And, um, with the Sauber team going away and Audi coming in, that'll be interesting to see how— what that adds to the mix. Yeah. And I'll finish off my top 10 because I'm actually I think I really did pretty damn good, uh, past the top 4. Williams 5th, which happened.

I then predicted Racing Bulls 6th, which also happened. And then I flip-flopped Haas and Aston Martin, and I flip-flopped Alpine and Kicksalber. So they were all sort of in this— the general area where they needed to be. I just didn't have the order right. But what, 3 out of 10 in the correct position?

That's not too bad. Yeah. Well done. I'm not buying into the Ferrari hype anymore until they prove otherwise.

All right.

Next prediction. What will be the biggest surprise of the season?

And I rather optimistically said that, um, the Haas team will move up in the Constructors Championship, which in this case they didn't. I believe they finished 6th last year. Um, I mean, look, it was a big— it was a big year for, for them. They finished 7th on 58 points. And this year They did not finish 7th.

They were 8th. They were 8th. They might have scored more points. They did, 79. Yeah.

So take from that what you will. Um, they didn't move up, but they did, and everyone scored more points. Yeah. It seems points were more evenly dispersed outside of McLaren. So I, that's not, it's not a, I don't think a bad prediction out of you.

And, you know, Let's remember, Bearman had that 4th place finish, um, in this season. I, I think there is some, some promise with that team. It'll be interesting to see with another team coming into the fold how that affects points, uh, the dispersion of points. Will Cadillac be a back marker and it won't matter, or will they really be fighting for points? Hard to say now, but, um, I guess to be determined in 2026.

But I would say, you know, that's, that's pretty— that was a, that was a good prediction, even if it didn't quite come true.

All right, and so yours? I don't know if I actually wrote it, wrote down what mine was going to be. I think just speaking from the season that we just witnessed. My biggest surprise would have to be, man, I, I'll go twofold here. I did not think Piastri was going to be a serious contender for a championship.

Um, I sort of figured that McLaren would potentially be the team to beat, even though I predicted Ferrari to, to win it. But I thought Lando Norris was going to be more similar to like a Max Verstappen where he's very clearly the top dog at McLaren. But really, Piastri was in the lead for 15 rounds and, you know, a couple things go a different way and we could be talking about him being a champion. So I would say that was my biggest surprise for this year. Um, I also really did not expect Alpine to be just so unbelievably dreadful.

Obviously I predicted them 9th, and you'll remember Jack Doohan was in that seat for 6 rounds and then it went to Colapinto. That team just never really got going this year and looked like maybe they'd sort of packed it in for the new regulations, but I'm a little shocked at just how bad they were. Yeah. And I'll say this about Aston Martin. I didn't think that they were going to end up where they are.

Alonso just, he was 9, 10, 9, 10, 9, 10, 9, 10-ish every finish. It was enough.

Stroll had a couple of lucky points here and there. But yeah, for Salber to finish over Alpine by a pretty large margin. Yeah. And they were, and they were actually competitive. I mean, the whole midfield was very competitive.

So, you know, unlucky. Usually a team that scores 70 points does not end up 9th. Right. And they had, let's not forget Hulkenberg finished on a podium this year. So yeah, every— everyone seems competitive at the moment.

Well, and that will all come to an end with this thing next, with this new car and some new regs next year. Uh, okay, I'm just looking at the, the pundits here to see if there was anything Big improve. Hinchcliffe says big improvements for Haas from Haas, Williams, and Alpine will close the gap, which he was wrong about Alpine, but obviously correct about Williams.

Carlos Sainz is mentioned here.

And obviously he had a great season with Williams as well. So yeah, not too far off the mark here on the prediction list.

I think this maybe— no, there's 2 more. We have which of the rookies will impress the most? I remember my answer for this, but go ahead. I said Ollie Berman. Okay.

And looking back on the campaign, I would say that he did improve. I thought he was, you know, competitive. Yeah. I wouldn't say the most. That's the key word here.

I think we're looking at an Isaac Hadjar probably. Yeah. I mean, Hadjar sort of came out of nowhere for me. I didn't think we would be talking about him even being close to the best rookie, especially after the first— well, yeah, where he shunts it on the formation lap. But again, he was on the podium this year.

Um, Antonelli was on the podium this year. My answer was Kimi Antonelli, and I, you know, he finishes the highest of all the rookies, granted with pretty easily the best machinery. 150 points in 7th place for Mercedes. George Russell got the lion's share of points for Mercedes this year, 319. Antonelli was about as good as I expected him to be, which at the beginning of the year I thought would be enough to be the best rookie.

He was definitely in play and impressive. I think Hadjar blew away expectations. Mercedes doesn't get a lot of the hype that the Red Bull team gets and that obviously McLaren was getting this year. Although no rookies on the McLaren team, but still, we can't really look past the fact that this kid was around and he was, he was in, you know, he was a bit of a threat in qualifying in a lot of the GPs. And then, you know, I think it, if I had to choose again for who will be the biggest surprise or no, who will be the best impressive rookie, I think he's got to be up there.

Yeah, I, I just think from a pure pound for pound, who was the, who was the best rookie? I, I gotta go at Isaac Hadjar in a, a car that's much inferior to a Mercedes on the Red Bull Junior team. I would argue of the 4 Red Bull family drivers this year, he was pretty easily the 2nd best driver on the grid. Lawson was about what you would expect, uh, 38 points. Nothing that just blew you away.

Remember, he did lose the, the senior team seat after 2 races, for better or for worse. Um, but I think we can say for worse. Yeah, I wish that they had had a little more faith and maybe stuck with him a bit. Well, that Red Bull team is going to be a lot different next year and already started to look different. Obviously no Christian Horner anymore, which happened this year.

Uh, Helmut Marko is gone, which is going to be a good thing because he very famously has a short leash with rookies. Um, I think Hadjar will have the ability to settle into that team a lot more than Yuki or Lawson ever did. Yeah, I'll say this about Helmut Marko. Um, I was very unimpressed with his reaction to Hadjar exiting that first, uh, GP and how much he— it really meant so much to him to be starting as an F1 driver. And I— everyone, everyone else in the world felt for this young man as he walked back to the pits, um, in just complete and utter disbelief that he had done that, you know.

And then you could, you could see it. And I believe the reaction from Marco was, you shouldn't do that on TV. Uh, yeah, about him crying. Yeah, but it proves that these guys are human beings and they're kids. Yeah, he's a kid, 18 years old, 18, 19 years old.

So Helmut, uh, I'm not— oh, he certainly has a helmet. Yeah, not, not sad to see him go. Yeah, it feels like Red Bull had maybe trimmed the fat, uh, off of that team, that operation, a little bit this year, be it because Horner had some nefarious text messages or Helmut Marko just gone. Um, I, I would think they're looking to turn a new leaf in 2026, and that'll be interesting. Verstappen and Hadjar, I think, makes a, a very compelling driver lineup for 2026.

So someone to keep an eye on. Yeah, uh, definitely Hadjar, the way he performed this year. Look for this kid to come back with a vengeance, I think.

All right. Our last, our final prediction here is one bold prediction for 2025. And I'll let you lead with that. Yeah. So again, I don't think I wrote mine down, but My bold prediction was probably, uh, predicting Ferrari to win a driver's championship and putting faith in that team to do anything, uh, competently.

That was stupid, uh, especially now with hindsight. That's very stupid. Um, man, I wonder if I predicted like someone crazy to win a race or something. I mean, I think it would have been funny uh, to have predicted that like Hulkenberg would have been on the podium. I don't think anyone expected that.

So that was a wild card. Yeah, certainly a lot of surprises with, with this season. So, um, be interested to hear what your bold prediction was. Before I get to my prediction, and you're gonna have to help me with the particulars, but, um, let's see. Chris Medlin, who was a contributor to this list, said that Seitz will pick up some form of trophy, which he did twice.

Yes, so well done there.

And Hinchcliffe said that Antonelli would hoist a trophy in this campaign. Also did. Yes, there were 2, 2 guys that Colthart also said that Antonelli would be on the podium. I feel like that— I don't know how bold of a prediction that actually is. The Sainz one is, but Antonelli, granted, you know, he's a rookie, but a rookie on Mercedes is not the same as a rookie on any other team.

Yeah. So I don't know. Like, you're basically just saying, will he eventually in 24 attempts get his car to at least 3rd place? A Mercedes. He did once, but so I guess that ended up being kind of bold, but certainly a little more of a wild card prediction with the Sainz thing.

Yeah, I think my prediction could have been one of the boldest and incorrect. Uh, and I'll get to, I guess I'll say after this, but my prediction was, is that Kimmy Antonelli would lead the Destructors Championship, which I didn't actually see that yet, but usually there's some pundit out there that puts the Destructors list together. With that being said, we didn't have mass carnage this year. Not really. Not like we've seen in the past.

And I mean, it was a thing in the past where you could tally up the damage to specific cars and specific teams, because in the, in some of the other campaigns that we've seen, we were watching cars be split in half. We didn't see that kind of mass destruction this year. Yeah. Okay. So into the wall is one thing, right?

But we didn't really see the this chassis is no longer usable type of crash. Yeah, I actually have it pulled up. First off, do you want to take a shot at what team crashed the most shit? And this is totaled by amount of money cost, so it's not technically how much shit they wrecked, but the cost of said shit being wrecked. Um, I'll say Sauber.

No, um, but you're not super far off. The team that, uh, costed themselves the most amount of money this year was Alpine. That was totaling $4.3 million US dollars in damages. Split between 3 drivers. Now this I didn't realize, so, you know, I, I thought that Doohan maybe got a tough shake.

He competed in 6 races and costed the team $1.5 million, hence his, uh, dismissal. Yeah, which was less than Gasly, who ran the entire year. Yeah, um, The driver though that costed the most was Gabriel Bortoletto, uh, $2.7 million for Sauber. So you weren't too far off. Interestingly enough, Charles Leclerc costed Ferrari $2.2 million and Lando Norris costed McLaren $2.3 million.

Uh, so they, you know, it's not always the the worst driver, uh, causes the most amount of damage. But, um, driver that kept the cleanest whistle was George Russell. $1.1— sorry, $125,000 in damage. So next to nothing. Yeah, that speaks to his consistency as a driver.

Being the guy that's always 3-4, 4-5 in position, um, smart, uh, knows how to control the car. I'm sure we, we could go back and see many times that he saved a possible, you know, accident or, you know, a place where he could destroy something.

Um, but as I said before, I, I think this year was probably one of the least damaging years as far as, you know, we've seen in the past some campaigns where complete chassis had to be scrapped. Yeah, that's where the money comes, is when the car is not rebuildable.

Um, and we'll see, maybe, maybe with the effect of this new vehicle coming next year, it's either going to be a lot less of that type of thing or a lot more. I know that's kind of a stupid sentence to say, but, um, just didn't quite see the, the horrible things that we have seen in the past with some of these cars being destroyed. So no, there you have it, uh, with predictions. And I'm assuming that we'll do predictions for next, for next year, um, coming up soon. I'm trying to figure out, I think I got that, I gleaned that from F1.

So They will have the same, hopefully, as we transition here in the States from the F1 app, quote unquote, to Apple TV.

There's all kinds of things floating around out there, but to my knowledge, we're going to see the same feed, or you're talking about Sky Sports. It will be the Sky Sports sports feed, which is the world feed. F1 TV is F1 TV. So yeah, I just wonder if we'll have the same, um, control potential for what you can do. Although I admittedly this year I didn't use it as much as I had in the past where I would have— we would be watching, or I, you know, be watching a race.

That really only works if you are using more than one screen. Correct, which is never the case here, but I would do it sometimes if I was watching. I would honestly, I would usually do it on replay when I already know what happens and I get bored, so I'll just click around and see what's going on through the driver cam. Yeah, the, the biggest feature of that was you could, you could get all the radio call. You could choose whatever driver you want, you could get all the calls, not just the calls that the broadcast deem as important.

And there's a lot of, there's a lot of information and a lot of nuggets of how these races play out if you can go from car to car.

Yeah. So we'll see how that plays out next year. I'm sure it'll be fine. It's just moving the cheese. So to speak.

Yeah, I— yeah, I don't know, I'm indifferent towards it, to be honest. It's going to be basically the exact same product, um, barring the fact that you will be forced to listen to Ted Kravitz the entire year, as opposed to, um, uh— I, I happen to quite like the F1 TV TV crew much more than Sky Sports. Um, I, I really can't— I, I loathe the British bias of Sky Sports that they don't do a particularly great job of disguising. So, um, I'm not super duper looking forward to that, but that, that's sort of a minor gripe as long as— yeah, I don't think you're incorrect though. I mean, I we had discussed this before and I didn't really bring that point to light until you mentioned it, but you're, you're 100% correct in that, and that F1 was covering the sport global, you know, as a global view.

And with Sky Sports, you're going to have just like here in the States with NFL or whatever, you've got certain broadcasters that cast their view on games and they cast their view on races. And yeah, I mean, and really, we're— this is a podcast that deals with Scottish football, which is one of the most partisan leagues in the world, and they'll have guys that just played for one of the teams in the booth. And you want to talk about bias, I mean, that there's just no effort to disguise it there. So we've seen that many times. It's, uh, not really— it's just not— it's, it's just a little gripe I have.

I, I think it's a little silly that the world feed is Sky Sports, but no one wants to pony up the dough in the US to actually produce their own or have their own booth and shit like that, which I've always I thought was a little strange given the fact that only recently has F1 really exploded in popularity. So, um, just the last 5 years or so. Yeah, because like, for example, you watch the Premier League here, that's a US-based production. The studio is in the United States. You're only watching pundits that you can only view in the United States.

Most of the— a lot of the commentary, uh, is, is— it is specific for the United States broadcast. So I don't really know why that's not a thing in F1. You would think they would have done that by now because frankly F1 is pulling similar ratings to the Premier League here. So I don't understand why They haven't done that, but whatever. And I think if they had, if they were going to, it would be in this upcoming season.

And clearly there, there isn't the interest or capital. Yeah. To, to do 100% US broadcasts. And when Apple bought the rights to MLS, they completely overhauled everything. Studio show.

Brought in pundits, did all this thing, all these things, and it didn't really work, which is why they've, they've backed up on having a league pass thing. Because that's when originally when Apple bought the rights, I was worried that they were going to charge a subscription, like a, a pass, a season pass fee, because that is really kind of a waste because you're only getting that property and not actual Apple TV, but we know now it's just a subscription to Apple TV gets you F1. Yeah, they, they— these things work out to where they've been negotiating probably for a year or 2 with F1 for these rights. So part of me thinks they probably used MLS as a sort of a dry run to see how it would work. And clearly the pass situation was a fucking complete fuck-up.

So that isn't a thing anymore. Yeah, I think it's different though, in that you can cover the ML or the Premier League with a United States-based team that's not going to every match. Yeah, they don't put people, boots on the ground at every match. In racing, you have to fly around the world. You have to have a huge production staff.

You have to have massive equipment and they, you have to be at every track and you have to be at every track for 3 days and you're flying from continent to continent with the soccer. With the Premier League, you can be based in the United States in a studio. Yeah. And you can bring that in and it works. It wouldn't work if you weren't at the track.

It's too important to be at the track in the paddock, you know, shooting garages and, and having people on the ground. You would need reporters. That's about it because the feed is Liberty Media produces the actual feed. If you watch an F1 race and just flip between World Feed and F1 TV, the actual picture never changes. It's just the people that are talking.

So, and all of the ancillary stuff like the pre-race show and the warm-up and the— which you would produce, you know, you just have your crew there, your crew of one camera or 2 cameras and then the actual reporters. Yeah, I, I don't know, it just feels like if you're gonna spend so much money to get the rights, what's another few million? But seriously, yeah, we're talking Apple here. What's another few million to have your own crew at the race? And it could be they're gonna dip a toe in the water, see what kind of viewership they get.

See what kind of interest they get. And this is all in flux. We could see a potential cover— new coverage if, if the numbers are correct. I worry about the ratings, and I'm not actually worried because it's not like F1 is gonna really feel the hit of, oh, the US ratings are down. But, um, MLS, when they went pretty much entirely to Apple TV TV, people weren't watching unless they were a die-hard fan.

So now that— and granted, there are a decent amount of people with Apple TV already, but they're, you know, we're talking about a million, about a million per race of people tuning into ESPN to watch F1. I wonder the percentage of those million that are going to buy Apple TV or use Apple TV to watch the race? I think you'll see a major deficit there because it's already— people already have ESPN on their streaming feed already. Yeah. It didn't cost them anything to turn on the feed.

But in this day and age of you have to have this app or this feed to watch this program or, or, you know, this sport. Um, anything can happen. And I think Apple is a brand that's probably a, you know, it's a juggernaut enough that perhaps people who already had the app will stumble upon the series. It's hard to say. I really don't know.

I'll— it'll be interesting. It will be interesting to see how it works for F1, uh, at least in the States with Apple TV, who have— I would say, you know, the, the effort, the thought process was there with MLS, but I don't know if you can really call that a success. So try trial number 2 for Apple in, in a major sporting competition in 2026. So let's, uh, shift here into the world of soccer. Um, probably not, uh, a whole 30-minute segment this time around, but Right now we're in the, the sort of the festive fixtures period where they're playing like every 2 days anyways, so always something to chat about.

The last time we recorded, uh, when we left you speaking from a Scottish football perspective, um, Celtic were coming off of a 2-1 loss to Hearts. Wilfred Nancy, who managed the Crew, is in charge of Celtic now, you'll remember. And he fired off 4 consecutive losses to start his career at Celtic. Which sent a shot across the bow in the Celtic nation and ended up with a resignation of one of the higher-ups in the Celtic organization. I, I'm not familiar with the way all this works.

You can probably add some color to that, but this guy was basically driven out of his job. Uh, at least that was the impression that I got. Yes, yes, sorta, yes, kinda. There's always politics involved. But, um, yeah, backing up a little bit, obviously we know Brendan Rodgers resigned back in— well, that must have been October now.

Martin O'Neill takes over and does, all things considered, pretty damn good. Steadies the ship. Hearts were dropping points and Celtic were not. Looked like maybe that title race for that title chase for hearts, that, that bubble had burst. And then Celtic appoint Wilfred Nancy to the helm.

And frankly, this is where I, I kind of— this is problem number one I have with, um, the way the board went about this, this hiring process. With Wilfred Nancy. You want to talk about throwing a guy to the wolves. A new, a brand spanking new manager who we know plays a completely different system from Rodgers, who we know is dealing with, on paper, this is the worst Celtic team we've seen in a while. 5 years at least.

Uh, no real depth at all. We've got Maeda who looks like a shell of himself. All of our best players have regressed. The new signings are terrible besides Benjamin Negren. Um, then your first 4 matches that you put him in charge of— Hearts, League leaders, 2-1 loss.

Then Roma in the Europa League. Roma are currently in 4th in Serie A, which is probably the 3rd best league in the world. Um, and that title race in Serie A is like very competitive between, I would say, 4 or 5 clubs. Uh, 3-0 loss. Then a cup final, League Cup final against St. Mirren, uh, which was a loss, 3-1.

St. Mirren are, you know, never a pushover, and then you add the fact that it was a cup final, 3-1 loss. Dundee United away, not usually not going to be easy, 2-1 loss. They had the lead until the 58th minute. So talk about, you know, it's like putting a rookie driver into a car that you know sucks and just going, well, good luck, and giving him no other instruction or guidance. Just, uh, yeah, win.

I'll say this about that. What I've seen from a strategic point of play with this guy is so, so much better. I, I really like his style of, of coaching. There's much, much more movement on the ball. There's much more, we're playing with more space, which granted will put you in a vulnerable position, but it's a position that I would rather watch.

I would rather watch this Celtic team play the way that they've played the last 4 or 5 matches than ticky-tack back and forth, preserve the lead, fuck around. Don't score, you know, score one, get up by a goal and then play, you know, defensively. I love the fact that we're actually seeing goals in these games. And yes, it does open up the opportunity for the opposing team to score as well. But at the end of the day, we just need to be one goal up.

Yeah, I do agree with you. Nancy was always going to produce more exciting soccer than Rodgers. And I think what— where I was getting really frustrated earlier in the, in the season was not only were the results bad or just not very good, the football itself was horrible to watch. It was mind-numbingly— not even bad, it was just Boring. Here's my barometer for what is a good soccer match.

If I pick my phone up 8 minutes into the match because I'd rather be surfing or checking out my feed than watching the game because it's just that goddamn boring.

I would, I'll take the fact and we have notes here on, on this past game. Yeah. There's a lot of goals being scored. And I think a lot of the defensive frailty, it's twofold.

One is a brand new system, a back 3. 2 is the only defender that has ever played in a back 3 for an extended amount of time is Austin Trusty, who played that at Sheffield United. These other guys, it's not really a stretch to say they don't really know what the hell they're doing, um, and that isn't entirely their fault. But Nancy does not even close to have the correct personnel for his system. And obviously he's not going to change that system.

Um, he would have done that already. He would have done that during the, the 4 losses in a row. We've seen an uptick in form. They've won the last 2, but really it, it is sort of the back line right now is Austin Trustee and, and hope to God that, uh, Ralston doesn't get fucking burnt because they're gonna concede. And that happened against Livingston twice in 10 minutes and they scored both times.

So, and you, you can rely on your keeper to be a good defender, but when shots are coming in hard and heavy and over and over again, you, you, you don't blame the keeper for that. He can only, he's got to defend 18 square feet. Or probably more. I don't know what the dimensions of the goal are. It's a lot.

And it was Sinisalo in between the sticks for Celtic this time. No Schmeichel. I'm— what they said, you know, he had taken an injection of something for some injury, but I don't care to see Schmeichel again personally. I think he's been piss poor. Did you think Sinisalo played a better game?

He's just more— he can move a lot better. He's 24 compared to 40, so that helps.

Um, this wasn't really the game to, to say, wow, uh, you know, Matt, you, you played amazing. He faced 2 howitzers from Livingston in 10 minutes, and there goes the clean sheet. Only had the one save, but Really, after Livingston scored those 2 goals there, you know, they had, um, a decent amount of shots, but we're not really talking about a ton of great opportunities to score. Um, they only had the 3 shots on target. Yeah, 2 of our goals.

Let's get into this quickly. Uh, this— so Montano is a threat.

Obviously. Third minute, bang. And that, so now we're rocked back on our heels a bit. That was a classic here we go again moment because Aberdeen scored.

I believe they scored first or at least to tie in the game before. And when you can, when you can put a ball in the, in the net in the first 2 to 3 minutes of play, that always changes the whole entire look of the game. It just does. Yeah. Because I mean, we've— no team prepares to concede a goal in 3 minutes.

No. In this particular match though, we've got a barrage of goals. We've got in the 6th minute off of a set piece, Maeda to Negrin, now we're equal. And Negrin has been arguably the best player for Celtic this year, um, and was a new signing over the summer. He's basically the, the only signing that has worked in any capacity, um, from the summer.

He does take a lot of flack because he'll tend to disappear a lot in games. But he's the only one that showed that he can score with any real consistency this year. So good to see him in the score sheet twice in this game. And the booth was quite happy with this sort of circus-like play that we were watching. I mean, from a neutral perspective, it was awesome.

Yeah. 8th minute, Montano again.

We're 2-0 or 2-1 Livingston. And immediately after the second goal, the hat trick talk comes. Yeah. Which, you know, that early in a match, they're not wrong. They're not incorrect with that.

You're sitting on a hat trick and you have 82 minutes to get your third. So yeah. Yeah. So these things came fast and furious in the 10th minute. Yang scores for Celtic.

That was the, the pinball in the box goal. Yeah, Livingston just could not for the life of them clear a ball, and eventually Yang sort of just pinned it in. Uh, seemed like there were about 15 different attempts to score in that little scramble there. 2-all, and you're thinking, Jesus, like, what What are 2, 4 goals in 10 minutes is largely unheard of. So that's, that's, that was an insane start to a match.

Then the throttle gets backed off a bit. Uh, we wait another 21 minutes or so for, uh, the Negren goal off of the right post, which is one of those shots where it's either going or it's not. And it did. So 3-2 Celtic. And then the penalty incident in the 40th minute leads to Engels making it 4.

Wasn't super impressed by that penalty call. I thought it was a little soft. The VAR actually, I just thought it was soft. I don't think that was the penalty.

I'm learning about what, what's a handball and what's not a handball. And it was in the booth, they were torn. It was one guy said, absolutely. The other guy said, I don't think so. And, you know, so we end up with the goal give or penalty given and successful.

So, you know, at that point you were at the pub. Uh, what was the, What was the feeling for the first 40 minutes of this match? Um, a lot of, a lot of people were upset with just the frailty of the Celtic defense, which is, which is fair. And again, I think a lot of that comes down to running a back 3 when you only have one guy who knows what the hell he's doing. Uh, and the wingbacks, you have Yang who's supposed to drop back as a defender.

He— Yang is horrible. I'm sorry, he just has no game IQ at all. So asking him to do anything but score goals, it's a fool's errand. Um, I don't think anyone was really saying that was a stonewall penalty, so the, the celebrations were fairly muted for the 4th goal. But you figured by the time Celtic went up 4-2 that they were pretty firmly in the driver's seat.

Now the second half, which there were not any goals, it— the, the longer it went on with Celtic not scoring, there was— people were starting to get pretty pissed off, right? With opportunity to score and not being able to convert. Yeah. I'll back up just a bit. I thought that was a nice stutter step that he took to score that, and it was not a— it wasn't a rocket.

No, he made the— Nichols is a solid— yeah, he made the keeper go the other way. Solid penalty taker, which Celtic has lacked in years gone by. So both teams still stayed very attack, attacked a lot in the second half, but not with enough accuracy really to score anything. Yeah. And I think I came away from this one, you know, The second half wasn't exactly a barn burner.

It wasn't a classic, but I'm thinking, man, you know, Scottish football is looking not in European play, but just the domestic product by itself. This is as entertaining as it's been since we've started the show. Um, every team rocks up and I feel like they play. So often, you know, and you still get that, obviously you have to, teams will show up to Celtic Park and pack it in. But there seems to be more across the board desire to play with a certain system, to actually go and win a game.

Livingston used to be sort of notoriously the ones that would just sit back 15% of the ball and just try and score with the one counter-attack that they would get. Um, and now, you know, it seems like they come out of their shell a little bit more. And across the league, it was a solid day. Hibs-Harts was really good, 3-2 win for Hibs. So if Celtic win their game in hand tomorrow, they'll be tied on points with Harts.

That was a really great game. Hibs did everything in their power. They actually were up 3-0 did everything in their power to throw it away, but they didn't. They held on. Uh, Motherwell have been really rock solid this year, interestingly enough.

Rangers are still hanging around, and we have a big derby match on Saturday against Rangers. Uh, meanwhile, we do play Motherwell tomorrow at 3 PM Eastern. Um, so I just think there's a lot of quality throughout the league that's making it interesting to watch. And I think some of that does come from the fact that Celtic and Rangers have been shit, but, um, it's made for compelling viewing. Yeah, so just to cap this one off, um, they put Muirhead in— Livingston put Muirhead in late in this match.

He has 19 goals last year. And they, you almost expected him to at least score a goal, uh, which didn't happen, but it kept the match compelling for me. I was like, okay, they're putting their gun in and we'll see what happens. But we managed to take this one away 4 to 2. And I guess we'll take it.

Yeah, a win is a win right now for Celtic. You can't get caught up in the performance. No, I think Nancy needs January to get the bodies that he wants in. We need to trim the fat too. I think Maeda goes in January.

I wouldn't mind seeing Yang F off as well, amongst a few other people. Hopefully Alistair Johnston and Jota come back from injury. Uh, here soon, and we could be looking at a revitalized Celtic team headed into the new year. Let's see what they do tomorrow too. Um, I, I don't— we won't have the, the privilege of viewing, but that's okay.

But, um, I, I'm interested to see away to Motherwell, who are playing, uh, well, no pun intended. Um, so that'll be a tough a tough test. And, uh, of course the Derby, uh, Saturday morning against Rangers. That's obviously a must-win. Um, and, uh, if Nancy— what time is that kickoff?

7:30 in the morning. They always— they intentionally make that one the early game so fans don't have all day to spend drinking beforehand. So that is a strategic play by the SF Niners. It's a horrible play for us in the States because that would be one, especially that this weekend where we could go to PJ's and watch the game and then head over to your new digs. I mean, still could.

Yeah. That's early. That's early. That's a, that's a 5:30 roll call for me, and then I gotta get in the car and drive. So Celtic actually don't have many early games for the foreseeable future.

A lot of 10 AMs. Uh, Sunday, January 18th at 12:30 start time in the Scottish Cup. So, uh, keep that in mind. But yes, the derby is always early. As fuck in the morning stateside, uh, intentionally.

So there is that. Uh, briefly, just briefly, uh, update on the Premier League. We're gonna be discussing that next timeout. Arsenal still in the lead, 42 points. Man City in second with 40.

Aston Villa, who took down Chelsea over the weekend with a comeback win, third place, 39 points. So Aston Villa well and truly in a title race here. That would be unbelievable, truly unbelievable if they won a title in, in the modern Premier League. Liverpool seemed to have recovered a little bit in 4th place on 32 points. Uh, shout out, little off-air discussion we had, but Archie Gray may be a name to remember for Tottenham.

Scored his first Premier League goal of his young career against London rivals Crystal Palace. He is, uh, just 18 years young, so maybe keep an eye on, on that bugger, uh, throughout— 19, sorry. Years old, valued already at $59 million. Yeah, that's, that's your British inflation tax there. But, um, we'll see.

It's really tight throughout most of the table. The top 3 have pulled away a bit. Not saying they are untouchable, but we're talking about 4th through, uh, 4th through, let's say, 10th separated by 6 points, and then you have 11th through 16th separated by 5 points. The bottom 3 look to be— oh, here's another before we leave. Uh, someone, if you want to follow some, a team for the wrong reason, viewers or listeners and maybe co-hosts, Wolves are currently well and truly on track to be by far the worst team in Premier League history.

And if they go at their current rate, it will not even be close. Will they get deregulated? They will get relegated. Or relegated. They, they will.

They— I would put every single dollar I have to my name on a bet that says they get relegated right now. They have 2 points. They've played 18 matches. Do you know how fucking horrible that— that's 1 point every 9 games. Yeah, that's not good.

To put it into perspective, the worst Premier League team ever was Derby County with 11 points through 38 matches. They had 6 points by this point. Yeah, Wolves have 2. So that's history in the— that's almost certainly going to happen. I really don't see a scenario in which they come back from— well, they're, they're getting relegated, but, uh, to not be the worst team ever is going to take a miracle in and of itself.

And we almost witnessed that with Southampton last year. They had 12 points. So, uh, the fact that it's happened 2 years in a row is insane. But the bottom 3 are truly up shit's creek right now. Burnley with 12 points and then West Ham with 13.

That, that's 5 points adrift from, from safety, uh, from Nottingham Forest. So not looking good for those 3.

All right, well, we're just 3 points behind So Celtic, is that what you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that could be zero points by the end of tomorrow if they win.

So we'll see. Yeah. So coming back, hopefully. All right. Well, I suggest we get out of here and we will see or speak to all of you folks after the new year.

Yes, uh, 2026, uh, will beckon quite a bit for this show.

So looking forward to another year. All right, Auld Lang Syne, I guess. Yeah. All right, all right.

For executive producer Richard Naka. This has been Tackling the Chicane.

Copyright 2025 for the final time. Yes, Studio 2520. We'll see you next time.