OPINION
Roberto Martinez is not interested in becoming the new Celtic manager, according to his agent.
Jesse De Preter was talking after a large volume of bets made Martinez the favourite to take over at Celtic Park.
“Roberto always seems to be on the shortlist as soon as there is a vacancy at a big club,” De Preter said, as quoted in the Daily Record.
“But this is a false rumour about him going to Celtic. It seems to have come from the fact Roberto has a Scottish wife and he obviously has ties to the country.
“However, there’s nothing to see here and I would suggest the bookies review their odds.”
They haven’t, yet. Most leading bookies still have Martinez as the favourite, followed by Neil Lennon and Andre Villas-Boas.
And it just goes to show that next manager markets are a real money-spinner for the bookies.
They’re generally one of the more volatile markets, with rumour, conjecture and bets enough to catapult a name to the top of the list.
Celtic fans will have to get used to a procession of names being linked to the job until they make an official announcement – and it doesn’t look like that’s going to come until the end of the season.
Neil Lennon has the job at the moment and it’s his to lose. If he delivers the Premiership convincingly (pretty much done and dusted already) and the Scottish Cup (they face Aberdeen in the semi-finals), it would take a big name willing to come to Celtic to wrest the job from him.
Celtic fans should be happy either way.