THE CELTIC JOB will be too good for Roy Keane to turn down if offered it, Keith Andrews said.
It emerged this evening that Celtic’s majority shareholder Dermot Desmond has spoken to Keane about the possibility of taking over at the Scottish champions.
And Irish international Andrews said: “I don’t think he could actually pick a better job to rebuild his reputation as a manager.”
Keane is now seen as the prohibitive favourite for the Celtic Park hotseat and rocketed to the top of a shortlist that also includes Owen Coyle, Malky Mackay and David Moyes.
In a statement, the Glasgow giants said that they are continuing discussions “with a number of excellent candidates.”
But their season begins on 15/16 July in the second qualifying round of the Champions League — less than seven weeks away — which adds a bit of urgency to the process.
The decision to build a bridge with the FAI and come on board as Martin O’Neill’s number two has paid immediate dividends for Keane, Andrews told Newstalk’s Off the Ball.
“He has been linked with this job on what he has done with Ireland. That has only been seven months, and they have only been together on two or three occasions.
I don’t think he would have been getting most of these jobs six, seven, eight months ago because he wasn’t getting linked with jobs.
He added: “If hypothetically it was a Championship team coming down asking to speak to Roy Keane, I would be saying no.
“I would definitely persevere, do the campaign with the national team and try to build [his reputation] up even more; learn from Martin, learn from the experience that he has in the game, and how he goes about things.
“But Celtic, I just think the draw of a club like that playing in the Champions League and the chance to get a league or two under your belt as a manager, I think that might be too big of a draw for him.”
