Even Walker knows Celtic can’t persist with this Rodgers nonsense.

Today we saw a classic example of why this season is bouncing up and down like a jet ski on choppy water — too many unanswered questions hang over it. One of the biggest, of course, is about the manager.

Michael Nicholson can shrug his shoulders all he wants over transfer questions. He can claim that the club has “better things to do” than investigate leaks against Brendan Rodgers. But he cannot hold back the tide.

People are going to keep asking what Celtic has done about that leak from now until the campaign ends. When Rodgers eventually leaves, they’ll ask whether Celtic could have kept him if they’d properly investigated the matter and turfed the culprit out of the club.

That’s how big this issue is. It’s not going away.

Nor is it going to die down.

It’s going to haunt this club for the rest of the season. I wish that weren’t the case, but it’s a fact.

It was the turn of Andy Walker the other day to weigh in on this and to suggest there are doubts over whether Rodgers will even finish the season.

I’m tired of that narrative. It’s obvious from Rodgers himself that he’s not going anywhere — not before May, anyway. If he ever was tempted to walk, the smear itself probably cured him of that. The suggestion that he was “working his ticket” has almost certainly guaranteed he’ll stay just to deny his detractors the satisfaction of being right.

But that doesn’t mean Celtic is a happy workplace. It doesn’t mean the job is easy right now, or that it’s going to get easier.

Walker is a clown — everyone knows it. I wouldn’t trust Walker if he told me the sky was blue and the grass was green. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. Yet even when he’s wrong about Rodgers’ immediate future, he’s right about something else: Rodgers will not be here long-term.

Part of that is down to this unresolved issue. The person who leaked those claims still walks the corridors of Celtic Park. The person who spoke to Roger Hannah still works in an executive capacity at this club — someone Rodgers has to deal with daily, and even more so as we approach January.

What astonishes me about that smear is how badly it backfired.

Up until then, the leverage was all with the board. They didn’t want Rodgers to be too comfortable. They could have kept denying him signings, kept putting obstacles in his path, and let him take the blame for anything that went wrong on the pitch. The renewal of his deal was in their hands. They could have spun it any way they liked.

But in briefing against him — and doing it so clumsily, with claims that were easily disproved — they flipped the script. Suddenly, Rodgers was the victim of an internal hit job. Suddenly, he had the moral high ground.

He seized back the initiative almost overnight. And Nicholson’s smug comment about the club having “better things to do” than investigate only made things worse.

If Rodgers ever decides to walk, that line alone will form the heart of his case. He can point to it and say, “They knew who it was, and they protected them.” And the fans would back him, overwhelmingly.

Rodgers won’t leave before the season ends.

I genuinely believe him when he says he intends to see out his deal. But he won’t stay one minute longer than he has to, and that’s a serious problem for those in charge.

They’re in a game of brinkmanship with the manager.

They think they can use that as leverage. They’re wrong.

If Rodgers can put together a winning run and build momentum, the balance of power shifts entirely his way. With the Celtic Fans Collective already hammering the board over multiple issues, Rodgers’ position grows stronger by the week. A successful Brendan Rodgers has no equal at Celtic Park.

As for Walker, he’s long past the point of being amusing.

He’s one of those ex-players who believes wearing the hoops gives him eternal insight into the club, but he’s been talking nonsense for so long that even he occasionally stumbles into the truth by accident. This club cannot continue pretending all is well while the person who briefed against the manager still holds an executive role. You don’t need “inside knowledge” to grasp that. You just need two brain cells to rub together.

Everyone else seems to get it — except the Celtic board. The people in charge know exactly who that individual is. They know what was said, and they’ve chosen to do nothing. It’s untenable, and yet they’re determined to brazen it out.

My prediction? It ends badly. For them, not for him.