IT seems that Celtic have played the Brendan Rodgers situation with the perfection of a Paul McStay pass.

A hospital ball, to borrow a well-worn football phrase, was controlled and then defeat turned into an unlikely victory.

Last month, Celtic had an unhappy but extremely well-paid manager with expensive tastes who was, in all likelihood, going to leave in the summer no matter how this season panned out.

Had Rodgers won another treble and left after the Scottish Cup final in May – his reason being that he’d taken the team as far as he could – Celtic supporters, every last man, woman and child, would have blamed the board for their lack of ambition. Chief executive Peter Lawwell in particular would have been the bad guy.

Not only that, but a replacement would have to be found for Rodgers, a Celtic icon who had delivered history three years in a row. Finding such a man would be no mean feat. Who would be available? Who would want to follow in those footsteps? Could they afford to pay for a manager in a job who might be able to take the team further in terms of Europe?

“How can you improve on a triple treble?” asked one interested observer only last month. “Win the Champions League!”

Incidentally, that was Neil Lennon.

This was a week at best before Rodgers agitated for his move to Leicester once they became the first English Premier League club to express concrete interest in his services. It quickly became clear that this deal was happening right away. There was no chance of him seeing out this campaign.

That’s when the call went out to Lennon late on the Monday night of February 25. From those incredible days of uncertainty, Celtic emerged as winners.

The Scottish champions will receive a staggering £9m – the record fee spent on Odsonne Edouard – for Rodgers and his backroom staff. Lennon has now taken the team 10 points clear with just eight games to go – the title is won - and they are in the Scottish Cup semi-final.

As for Rodgers, he is the traitor who, at least for the moment, is viewed as a conman who pretended that Celtic was his dream job when it never was. Time will heal the wounds but there are players far from happy with the way all of this went down. “The show goes on," said one.

Celtic, we revealed today, will exceed their yearly financial targets because of the financial package coming their way from Leicester with the best part of £39m in the current account. The board come out of it smelling of roses and, back on the park, the treble is very much on.

Not only has that but the 'sale' of Rodgers, for want of a better word, meant the club has broken even on someone who by a distance was the club’s best paid manager.

We understand that when Rodgers’s wage was added together with the beautiful house in a posh suburb of Glasgow and smart car Celtic provided to him, the 46-year-old was earning just under £3m a year for the past two-and-a-half years. And when you add bonuses to that number, that’s not far under the £9m Leicester paid for his and his staff's services.

Chris Davies, Kolo Toure and Glenn Driscoll would hardly have been on the liveable wage either. And the savings don’t stop there.

Rodgers’s fondness for taking the first-team to Dubai every year did not go down well with everyone at Celtic Park. Winter breaks cost serious money given how many made the journey to the UAE and the quality of hotel.

Oh, and while Lennon and Lawwell previously disagreed on Celtic being taken all over the world during pre-season, something Rodgers never had to do, those money-making, brand-strengthening visits to the United States could be back next summer.

Lennon’s wage will not come close to what Rodgers was on, even if he agrees a long-term deal. He didn’t cost a penny to hire, already has a home in Glasgow and wants to be at the club. That’s a treble win right there for you.

History will be kinder to Rodgers than the present is. Two trebles, the architect of perhaps a third in a row, seven trophies out of seven, winning every cup tie, the Invincibles season, and that 69-game unbeaten run which was the longest such stretch in 100 years of British football.

However, as things stand, Celtic are richer than ever, no longer have the uncertainty over their manager and the last-gasp wins over Hearts and Dundee all-but sealed eight in a row.

Even for those fans who despair at their club boasting about cash flows and profit, they have to admit that Celtic have done some superb business.