Celtic: Analysis of the implications of Rodgers vs Desmond

“Celtic Football Club can confirm that football manager Brendan Rodgers has today tendered his resignation.”

No one really expected Brendan Rodgers to stay at Celtic next season, but no one really expected him to be on the verge of quitting. He said during the week that he had “never been more motivated during my time at Celtic”.

In the wake of the 3-1 loss to Hearts on Sunday, he said: “I’ve never worked harder in all the time I’ve been here. So the motivation is there to try and turn around the levels we’re in. It’s absolutely fine, it’s still very early. I think that’s the key point of it all. We just have to stay there in the moment, find those performances, find the results and hopefully our levels will improve as the season goes on.”

Just over 24 hours later, he was gone. It begs the question – the first of many – what has changed? The rest of these quotes are drawn from Desmond’s own statement.

“In June, Michael Nicholson (Dermot Desmond) and I expressed to Brendan our interest in offering him a contract extension, to reaffirm the club’s full support and long-term commitment to him. He said he would need to think about it and come back. But in subsequent press conferences, Brendan implied that the club had not committed to offering him a contract. This is simply not true.”

All of this is open to interpretation. Only those in the room know exactly what was said, but we can analyze Rodgers’ version from as closely as possible. In August, he said the three parties had a conversation “about where we were and where I sit with myself and everything else and I said I’m very happy here.”

“When the club feels there is time to make an offer, they will do so,” Rodgers told the media. In September, Rodgers said that “I haven’t had an offer yet to think about, and until that comes, I won’t be arrogant to say I want to stay here for another three years. Maybe the club doesn’t want me here. I have to respect that. Until there is something serious on a piece of paper, I will continue to do my job.”

Desmond is entitled to ask why Rodgers was publicly saying “the club might not want me here” when, Desmond claims, Rodgers had already been told in June that he was wanted. But did he actually offer to stay? Desmond has been keen to offer a contract extension but stopped short of saying he has actually put anything on the table. There’s a bit of dancing on the head of a pin about it.