Gordon Strachan will not return to Celtic to replace Brendan Rodgers as the club’s manager, he has revealed.
Rodgers, the Northern Irishman, looks set to depart Celtic Park after two-and-a-half years as he is in talks with Leicester over becoming their new boss.
Claude Puel was sacked by the Foxes on Sunday following a 4-1 defeat by Crystal Palace and Rodgers is believed to have been the club’s No.1 target to succeed the Frenchman.
Former Swansea and Liverpool boss Rodgers has previously spoken about his desire to return to the Premier League, and Celtic have given him permission to talk with the Foxes over a move to the King Power Stadium.
Celtic are expected to appoint Neil Lennon as their manager until the end of the season with a view to assessing potential permanent managers throughout the summer.
Along with Lennon, other favourites for the position include Steve Clarke, David Moyes and Mikel Arteta – but there will be no Celtic Park return for Strachan, who won six trophies during his four-year spell with the Hoops in the 2000s.
Asked if he would want to return to Celtic Park, Strachan told https://news.paddypower.com: “Me? No, no, no, no.
“If you’ve had such a good time at a club, like I did at Celtic, I don’t think I could re-trace my steps. Unless that’s the only place you’ve felt alive and it’s your club. Others have done it, but I’m onto different things now.
“And I think I would’ve got a whisper of it, as I talk to Peter [Lawwell, chief executive] and Dermot [Desmond, director] quite often. It might have come up. But they only talk to me about golf.”
Strachan does believe there will be a ‘mad rush’ of people applying for the Celtic job now that Rodgers is set to leave, and the onus is on the club’s hierarchy to make the correct appointment.
“It’s a blow to the club,” Strachan added, “but they’ve lost managers before and dealt with it. There’ll be a mad rush around the world now, of people wanting to apply to work at Celtic.
“The people behind the scenes at the club have seen it all before. They’re so good at their job, it’s like working with chess players. They can see problems coming, they’ll have prepared for this – they would’ve known it was coming.
“There’ll be a lot of great managers they talk to. They’ve hired people before with links to the club, but also without links – my only link to Celtic was getting booed every time I played there with Aberdeen.
“The next appointment will say a lot about how Celtic see themselves. Do they keep playing the same way that Brendan had them? Which might be a good idea. They have the means to buy players better than the rest of the division, so it’s a great job.”