BRENDAN RODGERS has committed himself to Celtic for at least another 3 years,despite enduring his toughest week as Celtic manager so far.
After today’s 1-0 loss at Tynecastle this will certainly raise the spirits of the support who feared we were seeing the beginning of the end of the Rodgers period in charge of the club after this week’s dramatic events.
“I love my life here at Celtic as the manager,” Brendan said.
“There are always challenges as the manager at such a big club with the standards that we have set over the first couple of seasons.
“But despite all reports and everything out there, there’s talk of ultimatums with the board, I don’t work that way.
“My communication is very open, so that is certainly not the case. I read somewhere else about walking away. I have three years left on my contract.
“I love every day of my life here at Celtic, all I ever want is for us throughout the club and every aspect to improve and get better.
“That I’m sure is the same ambition of everyone at the club.”
Asked about the possibility of new arrivals coming in before the window closes, Rodgers remains hopeful.
“Every team wants to bring in players and that’s something we want to do of course.
“But as the manager I work with the players who are still here.
“I can’t go on about the players that we want in, of course we want quality players, but there’s still improvement in this squad.
“My concentration is with the team. My concentration is really on the guys that we have. There’s lots of young players so we’ll continue to work with them on a daily basis and try to improve them.”
He was also asked about the situation with Dedryck Boyata, who disappointingly was not available today and whose agent has spoken out attacking Celtic. Rodgers had not seen those comments when speaking so his reaction may change at a later stage.
However he did give an update on the Belgium star.
“He hasn’t been well. We were hoping that he could play some minutes today with a view to Tuesday. He may well be struggling with that, but we’ll see I haven’t heard anything more on that.
“If he’s available great it really really helps us, if not then we’ll carry on with the players that we have.
“I speak regularly with Dedryck, I didn’t speak yesterday to him because he was off ill and not well.
“I think there’s been an ongoing issue with the club for a period of time, I think the club were trying to organise a deal.
“But it was clear that probably his agent wasn’t so keen for him to sign a new deal before the World Cup, which you can understand.
“They have been in discussion for a period of time, but obviously nothing concrete as of yet.
“He’s a player we don’t want to lose, it’s very difficult to get centre half’s now and especially good ones and he’s one that has really developed in the last 18 months for us.
“As I say we respect he’s in his last year of his contract, we wouldn’t like to lose him and not have a replacement.”
