THE Great Celtic Managerial Guessing Game continues to trundle along with the situation threatening to develop into a saga.
Martin O’Neill, of course, completed the season with an incredible league and Cup double during his second stint as interim boss.
During a turbulent campaign, the 74-year-old Irishman answered the SOS calls from his former club when Brendan Rodgers resigned in late October and again when Wilfried Nancy was fired in early January.
O’Neill has been linked with a one-year deal at the champions to continue to steady the ship, but the name of Robbie Keane, who had a brief loan stint at Parkhead in 2010, has also been added to what appears to be a two-horse race.
DOUBLE-TAKE…Irish legends Martin O’Neill and Robbie Keane.
The 45-year-old Republic of Ireland international reportedly had talks with the club’s principal shareholder Dermot Desmond yesterday after his exit from Ferencvaros at the end of the season.
Keane had led the team to the title in his debut campaign the previous year, but they had to be content with the runners-up spot this time around, the first time they have failed to lift the championship in nine years.
It was reported he was unhappy with local league rules, which state every club must have at least five Hungarian players on the pitch at all times.
Mystery surrounded his quickfire departure and Tamas Hajnal, the club’s sporting director, has now provided further detail on the former Liverpool and Spurs forward’s decision to quit.
He said: “We sat down to review the season and, of course, the future was also discussed.
“At the end of the discussion, we already felt that the situation was completely open-ended. He had repeatedly expressed during the season that he did not agree with a certain set of rules and that he felt that this made his work more difficult.
GREEN FOR GO…Robbie Keane (extreme left) celebrates Ferencvaros’ 2-1 Europa League win over Danny Roh’s Ibrox side in December last year.
“When we got up from the table, he asked for time to think and then two days later he called me and said that he felt that, in terms of his career, it was not worth it for him to stay here under these circumstances.
“Of course, uncertainty also played a role in this, since even now it is not possible to know exactly what expectations and set of rules in the Hungarian League the clubs will work under next season.
“It is difficult to know for sure whether he would have stayed if we had won the league.
“Of course, the gold medal always creates a different emotional state, but it would not have solved the issues we talked about.”
Hajnal, as reported by the Daily Record, added: “He felt that he now had to go in a different direction for his own career and we took note of that.
“We analysed the league and you could say we were unlucky because ETO scored an unprecedented amount of points.
“But we don’t want to settle for that. We especially need to examine our performance in home matches.
“We need to improve our intensity, dominance, the way we play and our quality.
“And we trust that Balazs Borbely will bring a new approach so we can achieve our goals next season.”
Meanwhile, Keane must wait and wonder – just like the rest of us.
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