Green Brigade are Celtic song and dance act who Brendan Rodgers will never need an endorsement from – Hugh Keevins

Brendan Rodgers didn’t have a press conference as such at Celtic Park on Friday afternoon.

The spectacle looked, and sounded, more like a man being interviewed under caution. As if he was a suspect implicated in some kind of wrongdoing. Anything you say may be written down and later used in evidence against you. That kind of thing. The caution also included the certainty that every word Rodgers said on the record will be repeated in condemnation of the detainee – sorry, manager – if he has the audacity to leave Celtic Park before the expiry date on his contract.

But he stopped his interrogators in their tracks with his “guarantee” that he would honour the terms of his new three-year agreement. Now his detractors will have a long wait to see if they get the chance to say “I told you so” in the event of a sudden evacuation for a second time. It was candour on an extra-ordinary level from Rodgers because his reputation would be shot to pieces if he made an early exit. He has to stand by what he said or forever be synonymous with deviousness.

The manager’s best soundbite was his assertion that Celtic are: “A club that allow you to dream but we have to be unified. From this day forward, we stand united.”

The veracity of that statement needs to be established while there are dissenting voices among the support. But Rodgers has challenged them to accept his regret over the hurt caused by leaving for Leicester City in 2019. And in a subtle way he turned around the topic of allegiance to the club and put the onus on the fans to get behind the team and the man who picks it –or else it’s their devotion that is called into question

He didn’t apologise for leaving four years ago – nor should he have done. The temptation to say