Front-runner Roy Keane pulls out of the race for Celtic job

It might have been a little bit late in the day to suggest that he didn't wish to be even "considered" for the job, but the wording of the various announcements yesterday mattered little really. The important thing is that Roy Keane won't be the next Celtic manager and he will instead be staying in his current role as assistant to Martin O'Neill at least until, it is anticipated, he is safely on a plane tomorrow bound for the United States. After the past few days, that's enough to be getting on with.

O’Neill will presumably be happy to have had the whole thing resolved one way or another because there were clearly times over the last week when all of the questioning about his assistant was trying his patience.

The difficulty now, as he readily acknowledged at the weekend, is that this is all likely to happen again over the summer or in the autumn or early next year. The northerner, though, might just take the easy option of bad-mouthing the 42-year-old the next time someone comes calling.

In the meantime, it will be interesting to see if anything like the real story of the last few days emerges over time because unless the Corkman woke up suddenly yesterday morning in a cold sweat over what he was on the verge of letting himself in for, there appears to have been some pretty poor stabs made at it along the way.

In the unlikely event that Keane himself decided to take a 21st century approach to sticking a wet finger in the air and checked out twitter for a sense of how Celtic fans viewed his potential appointment, he may have been somewhat disappointed. Social media may not be the most reliable measure of opinion on these things, but the reaction over the last few days has certainly not been terribly positive.

Deter him

Keane would not have been put off by that but it would be interesting to know what did deter him. Was it a wariness of the club’s chief executive Peter Lawwell’s reputedly extensive influence on every aspect of the club’s operation; or the budget he might have been told he’d have to work with; or the thought of returning to a city where he did not previously settle.

Or, perhaps, it was the fact that, even if he won the league handily, he would only be judged on the club’s performance in the Champions League, where one slice of bad had the potential of writing off his entire first season.

It always looked a like a punt with many downsides for a man who, it could be argued, is in his chosen field’s last chance saloon. But then it would be interesting, too, to know what sort of Plan B he might have had, for O’Neill was adamant last week that he has also been weighing up offers from other clubs too. And if, as it has been suggested, they are from the Premier League, then taking on Celtic would have been rash indeed.

After the way Ipswich went and Sunderland ended that seems unlikely, especially as none of the obvious candidates have a major Irish dimension to its ownership. That being the case then, Keane is probably better off staying where he is for the moment as he certainly seems to be appreciated in his present role as assistant.

Keane’s qualities

Over the past few days, O’Neill never seems to have tired of talking up Keane’s qualities; the FAI presumably likes having him on board and there appears to be a genuine sense of warmth (okay, respect) from the players when they talk about him.

The former Aston Villa boss has, perhaps half-jokingly, described Keane’s time in his current role as a “period of rehabilitation” and if that’s what it is, then you’d have to say it is coming along nicely. Last year Keane discussed the possibility of taking over at Turkish side Kasimpasa before finally ruling himself out and this week it is Celtic.

His appeal to the Glasgow club, or its owner, may have been strong, but the Celtic job is a far bigger fish than his previous managerial posts. It is difficult to know what he makes of the present set-up, which include long periods of relative inactivity but he has always given the impression that the media work is only a means to an end.

However, the last few days will have encouraged him that both are getting him back to where he wants to be, as well as learning the trade again beside a supportive manager.

It would still be no great surprise if he was tempted away by a genuinely attractive offer but as long as the Republic of Ireland don’t fail to qualify for an expanded European Championships, he really could do worse, one suspects, than see his current job out.