Red Bull Salzburg head coach Jesse Marsch has told BBC Sport it’s an honour to be linked with the Celtic job and believes it’s something that wouldn’t have happened even three years ago.
Marsch has a growing reputation in the game and is more of a head coach than a manager which would suit Celtic and their new Director of Football down to the ground.
Marsch has Red Bull top of the Austrian Bundesliga and won the double with the club during his first season in 2019.
Before that, the American was an assistant to RB Leipzig head coach Ralf Rangnick at Leipzig.
“I’ve heard [about the links]. It’s an honour for me,” Marsch told BBC SPORT.
“Three or four years ago, being linked with a club like Celtic would literally be an impossibility for me. And now that this is where I am, I always just try to look at it in terms of, ‘what would the project look like?’
“Would we have similar ideas in how to build it the right way, invest in the academy, invest in young players and create this development process that I’m talking about? And not just focus on winning.
“Obviously I know that when you’re the coach of Celtic, winning is the most important thing.”
“I know enough about it to say of course it’s interesting,” he added of the Celtic role. “It’s an amazing club and it would be an honour to even be considered. But I also have a job to do here.
“My way of working is really to focus in on the job that I’m doing and concentrate on the moment. And the more that I do that the more other possibilities can arise.”
Marsch would be a left-field choice for the Celtic manager’s job. He’s something different from the candidates who have been mentioned to this point.
Someone who wants to come in and create a culture from top to bottom is needed and someone who can make players we already have better.
As we’ve said since Neil Lennon left the Hoops hot seat, the club are remaining tight-lipped on who they have on their shortlist to take over for the Irishman. It’s hard to see that changing until we get nearer season ticket time.
Marsch would command a fee to allow him to leave Salzburg which would be a major stumbling block. Celtic are likely to go for a manager out of contract in the summer.
