Brendan Rodgers wants to stay at Celtic if the club want to continue to develop, insisting he is ‘not the right guy’ to just maintain something.

The manager, who has a year left on his contract, has told Sky Sports News he has held positive talks with majority shareholder Dermot Desmond and chief executive Michael Nicholson about his future.

Rodgers has already said he will “200 per cent” be the Celtic manager until the end of his current deal, but there are questions about what lies ahead for him and the Scottish Champions next May.

Sunday 3rd August 4:00pm


Kick off 4:30pm

“I’ve had talks over the summer with Dermot and Michael and that went well and we’ll take it from there,” he told Sky Sports News.

“The club will either offer me a deal or they won’t. Either way, until it’s my very last day here, I’ll give absolutely everything and it won’t affect anything. I’m very committed here, very focused here in helping us have a really good season.

“As a Celtic guy, I love my time here. I love the support and everything I’ve had since I’ve been back but there have been challenges.

“My overriding feeling is I want to help the club continue moving forward. I’m not the type of manager to just maintain something, I’m not the right guy to have.

“I need to build, I need to work with players, develop individual players.

“If the club feel that that is something that they want, then I’m pretty sure we’d come to an agreement and if not, we’ll give absolutely everything until the very end here.”

Rodgers desperate to fill ‘gaps in the squad’

The Scottish champions have made six summer signings, but half of those have been on free transfers, with Rodgers admitting he isn’t convinced he’s “doing a good enough job” of convincing the Celtic board that more additions are needed.

“We have gaps in the squad that are very clear,” he added.

“I have to convince the board to really push to get the players in that we really need.

“Clearly, I’m not doing that job well enough, but I will continue to push and hopefully we can get the players in by the end of the transfer window.”

Celtic started the window quickly when they announced the return of Kieran Tierney upon the expiry of his contract with Arsenal, but they are yet to replace some notable departures.

Winger Nicolas Kuhn left for Como earlier this month, the club are yet to replace talisman Kyogo Furuhashi after his January departure and Jota is expected to miss a large spell of this campaign through injury.

“When you lose important players, you want to fill those gaps,” the former Liverpool boss said.

“That attacking department is the strength of my team. It always will be.

“We were very, very good last year in that front in terms of both the score and both the creativity.

“I’m fairly confident that we will do the business that will fill those gaps and with the necessary quality that’s needed to keep the team moving forward, because that’s what we all want.

“That’s what the supporters want. They want to see a team that’s exciting and that can dominate games and really attack games and that’s our goal.

“I’m quite experienced as a manager so you tend to not get so frustrated, you become more philosophical about it.

“You learn through experience that you can only really focus on what you have.

“I think I’ve made it clear in terms of what it is we need within our squad so my focus really goes on the players that are here. The players are in a great place.”

Are Celtic taking a risk with transfers?

Sky Sports’ Chris Sutton on Celtic’s transfer activity:

“If you’re a Rangers fan, you’re quite encouraged by the lack of business that Celtic have done.

“Last season, there wasn’t a title race. Celtic had buried Rangers in the first half of the season. They won 16 out of the first 18, and the title race was over.

“However, it’s interesting, Celtic won a double, lost the Scottish Cup to Aberdeen and yet because of their dominance in recent seasons, maybe there’s a sort of feeling of entitlement amongst some of the support base and they feel that winning is just normal.

“I bang on about Kyogo loads. They needed to replace him in January and Brendan Rodgers spoke about that. They didn’t replace him in January and haven’t replaced him yet.

“Nicolas Kuhn’s gone. Selling him for £19 million – I do think it’s good money for him, but there’s a Champions League qualifier coming up.

“You look at their goals and assists between the two of them last season, there are enormous holes to fill.

“Are they taking too big a risk? Is it one of those that comes and bites you on the backside if you leave it that late?”

When asked if Celtic could cash in on forward Daizen Maeda, following reports linking him to Brentford, Sutton added: “Maeda is like Maradona to Celtic. He is that important to Celtic.

“What would be the point if they sold Daizen Maeda? I mean, just sell all the players. I know Celtic have a model and I understand that, but that’s absolutely ridiculous. They can’t sell all their best players.”

Celtic v St Mirren – live on Sky Sports

Celtic will raise the league flag in front of the same team they lifted the Scottish Premiership trophy against in May, with the match against St Mirren live on Sky Sports on Sunday.

“Flag day represents an occasion that allows you to reflect a little on the season that has passed, in which we were champions and played very well,” added Rodgers.

“But it is also a reminder of what lies ahead, a lot of hard work, and that hard work will start with St Mirren.

“Stephen (Robinson) has an excellent record at St Mirren over the last three seasons, guiding them into European football. He’s a very good coach, so he’ll have his team very well organised and up for the game.

“But for us, it’s our first home game and we really want to go and start how we need to go on.”