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It is a huge summer ahead for Celtic as they prepare to appoint a new permanent manager – and two former Old Firm stars are in agreement over which rival Premiership boss they should be pursuing.

A decision has yet to be made on interim Hoops boss Martin O’Neill’s future, with the 73-year-old in charge until the end of the season. Should the Irishman decide he doesn’t want to stay beyond the summer, club chiefs have been told they should be looking to poach Jens Berthel Askou from Motherwell.

Operating on a minimal budget, the Steelmen have earned plenty of plaudits for their eye-catching style of play under the Danish boss this term and are currently 10 points adrift of leaders Hearts in fourth spot, with a game in hand to play.

The champions have also been linked with Portugal national team head coach Roberto Martinez, who looks likely to step down after the World Cup.

And with the process of finding a new boss well underway behind the scenes, Charlie Mulgrew admits Askou gets his vote. He told the Go Radio Football Show: “If Martin O’Neill wins it, I think he should get a chance to take it on next year.

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“That is my opinion, he deserves that at least. I don’t know if he wants to, but I would 100 per cent go for (Jens) Berthel Askou. What he is doing for Motherwell is nothing short of remarkable, and what he could do for Celtic in Europe I think would be really interesting to see.”

That prompted Rangers hero Barry Ferguson to chime in, stating: “All I can say is I’m really impressed by the way he coaches, by the way he manages his team.

“They are the best team to watch this season, by a country mile. Both with the ball and without the ball. They went down to 10 men (against Rangers) and they don’t change the way they play. They are very calm about it. You go into a bit of a panic sometimes but they just kept plugging away.”

Mulgrew then continued with his point, commenting: “He is a real forward thinking manager. In the past, people have moaned about not being able to play football because they don’t have the budgets of Celtic and Rangers. He has put all of that to bed. He goes with two strikers as well and manages to cover the wide areas, it’s really impressive.”

And Ferguson is refusing to rule the North Lanarkshire club out of the title picture completely before conceding he wouldn’t want to face off against the Danish boss.

He added: “See when you are just looking at the league table, they win that game in hand and they are on 50 points. They are right up there. I wouldn’t want to come up against Motherwell.”