With Crystal Palace now showing interest in Jens Berthel Askou, it looks like Celtic really messed up at the back end of last season…

Jens Berthel Askou is reportedly on Crystal Palace’s shortlist, just six months after leaving Motherwell.

That is the story in the Scottish Sun this morning, and I’ll be honest, it made me wince.

Here is how they put it:

JENS BERTHEL ASKOU is reportedly on a Premier League club’s shortlist just six months after leaving Motherwell.

The Dane swapped North Lanarkshire for Toulouse in May and currently has his side sitting 12th in Ligue 1 after 10 games.

Palace sacked Pierre Sage after 16 games and they sit rock bottom of the Premier League.

SunSport were first to reveal that Eddie Howe has already rejected an approach, Thomas Frank is the frontrunner and Sean Dyche is in the frame.

And Palace have reportedly kept tabs on Askou ever since his impressive stint in Scotland.

That is not a name pulled out of a hat.

And right there in the mix, alongside former RB Leipzig head coach Ole Werner, is the man Celtic chased at the back end of last season.

Six months on, it’s becoming clear that Celtic missed out on the real deal.

Toulouse had a stuttering start in France, as you’d expect from a young manager in a new country.

But they have started to find form, and they are climbing steadily up the Ligue 1 table.

They won their latest fixture against Strasbourg 3-1.

Even Le Mans boss Patrick Videira has been warning his rivals about the high-octane football Toulouse now play.

Not bad for a boy plenty of us were wary of.

When opposition managers start publicly worrying about your team, you are doing something right.

At the back end of last season, Celtic had the chance to bring a young and ambitious manager to Celtic Park.

That doesn’t happen very often at our club.

Usually it’s a safe pair of hands, or whoever is available and cheap.

Now, we all know the Celtic board are the slayers of any dream an aspiring manager might have.

But Askou has the kind of character that might just have given him an Ange Postecoglou aura in the dugout.

I can’t prove that, of course.

Nobody can.

That is the whole point of the thing.

The chance came and went, and the only people who can say for sure what it might have been are the ones who didn’t take it.

We messed up the pursuit of the Dane, and we burnt our bridges with Motherwell in the process.

Make no mistake, the Motherwell hierarchy were never going to hand him over with a smile.

That relationship was delicate enough after John Beaton’s infamous penalty award in injury time last May.

Celtic then messed up in their pursuit of the Dane, and the bridges with Fir Park got a bit more singed.

We didn’t get the man, and I doubt we left anybody at Motherwell feeling warm towards us.

A proper double, if so.

Some going, even by the standards of this board.

In fact, it fits the pattern perfectly, because Dermot Desmond and Silent Mike never met a bargain they could resist or a risk they could stomach.

And now, a short six months later, an EPL club are showing an interest in our former target.

It seems the only people who didn’t see it coming were the ones in the boardroom.

Many of us were sceptical about a relatively unknown young manager, and I include myself in that.

Let’s be fair here.

When Askou’s name came up, plenty of Celtic fans turned their noses up.

A young Dane, a short spell at Fir Park, no big-club pedigree.

I understood the doubts, because I had a few of my own.

It was a risk, and we’ve been burnt by risks before.

But the doubters, myself included, had one thing to go on, and that was a short spell in Scottish football.

Now the Dane is proving he’s the real deal in a much tougher league.

Ligue 1 is not a place where reputations are handed out for nothing.

You don’t get talked about by a Premier League club on the back of luck.

Having said that, ten games is hardly a body of work, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

Nobody takes a job in France and gets a shortlist call from the Premier League by accident.

Give him the same time at Celtic Park, with the support behind him, and who knows?

Maybe he is the real thing.

Maybe he isn’t.

But he’s getting the chance to find out for somebody else.

We can lament the board letting him slip through the net, but where would we be right now if they hadn’t?

That is the question I keep coming back to.

Martin O’Neill is in the dugout, the team still hasn’t settled, and we are being told to be patient.

Would Askou have fixed that?

I have no idea.

He might have struggled just as Toulouse struggled early on.

Then again, he might have walked in and brought something fresh to a dressing room that badly needs it.

We’ll never know, and that’s the part that stings.

Because the one thing we do know is what the board were thinking when they let this one go.

Safe.

Cheap.

Quiet.

No risk to the balance sheet.

Then again, I guess we’d need something like ambition to hire a manager like that, wouldn’t we?

Something that is sorely lacking at Celtic Park, as we all know…

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