Celtic managerial candidate Eddie Howe has asked former Hoops boss Brendan Rodgers for advice about taking on the role at Parkhead, according to the Mirror.

Rodgers controversially left the Scottish club for Leicester in 2019 but Howe’s friendship with the Irishman goes back quite a long way to when the pair were managing clubs in the English Championship.

Howe was struggling during a spell at Burnley while Rodgers was at Swansea. At the time, the Englishman decided to seek guidance from his fellow manager, asking whether he could come down to Wales to watch training:

“I asked him: ‘Can I come and see you work?’ He invited me down, and I spent a couple of days with him. He was brilliant. He was absolutely superb with me and very, very generous with his time. We shared a few stories and I’m forever grateful for that, because you need people who help you along the way. At times it is a tough, tough, lonely job, and Brendan was brilliant.”

It’s an intriguing twist in Celtic’s search for a new head coach. While there is no love lost between Rodgers and Hoops supporters, the former Liverpool manager has maintained he looks back on his time with the club with a great deal of fondness.

Bizarrely then, it could well be the case that Rodgers pushes Howe into moving north of the border.