St Johnstone chairman Steve Brown insists he always knew Tommy Wright would be staying at McDiarmid Park.
Wright was the man Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson wanted to take over from Jackie McNamara at Tannadice and a request to approach him was made – and rejected – last week.
Saints have now won the managerial tug-of-war over Wright by handing the Northern Irishman a new, extended contract that ties him to the Perth side until the summer of 2019.
It is a statement of confidence from Brown, the board and Wright himself.
This is them saying, collectively, that United should not expect to be able to make a move, spend a bit of compensation cash and take their manager away.
Indeed, Brown argued that he felt all along that the Tannadice job was not appealing enough to persuade Wright to leave Saints.
Brown said: “This is probably is a statement of intent from us.
“We want our manager here and we want to improve year on year as a club going forward.
“I am obviously delighted to get it all done.
“There was a lot of speculation about different things but there was never a question for me Tommy was always staying here.
“Putting a contract extension together to do it all properly takes a bit of time but it’s done now.
“I didn’t have any doubts.
“Obviously, Stephen Thompson phoned me and it was his intention to try to get Tommy.
“But it wasn’t something that crossed my mind.
“I genuinely didn’t feel Tommy would want to go to Dundee United anyway.
“So factoring in my stance on it and that I was confident that particular job wouldn’t appeal to the manager then I was fairly sure he would be staying.”