The motivations for Jesse Marsch’s interview with Radio Scotland are open to interpretation, it’s not often that the profile of the manager of the Austrian league leaders is of any relevance to a Scottish audience.
John Collins, Pat Bonner and James McFadden have all gone on record to back the RB Salzburg boss to take over from Neil Lennon. Compared to Roy Keane, Paul Lambert, Steve Clarke and Rafa Benitez, Marsch is certainly a left-field candidate.
Having moved with the RB network from New York to Salzburg via a season in Liepzig Marsch will be a very valued coach but as you move up the system there are fewer obvious next steps.
After assisting Ralf Rangnick at Leipzig during the 2018/19 season a return to the German club would seem the obvious next move.
With Joachim Low stepping down as manager of the German national team there is as much speculation about replacements as there are over who will take over from Neil Lennon.
From Jurgen Klopp down there are all sorts of combinations being thrown around. One suggests that Hansi Flick could leave Bayern Munich to take over the national team with Julian Nagelsmann leaving RB Leipzig to take over at Bayern. Result- a vacancy at Leipzig as RBlive report:
And speculations are also flourishing about Nagelsmann himself. Sport-Bild (Print) believes that it knows that RB would hand over the 33-year-old (contract until 2023 without an exit clause) for a transfer fee of around ten million euros. That would be a record for a Bundesliga coach. As a possible successor, Red Bull Salzburg coach Jesse Marsch, once co-trainer under Ralf Rangnick, is very popular with the RB executive suite.
Background: After a dispute with sports director Hasan Salihamidzic, Bayern coach Hansi Flick is currently dissatisfied and quite willing to take on the role of national coach. In this case, Nagelsmann would be the first candidate for the coaching position at the record champions. Salihamidzic is said to be very close to Nagelsmann’s (and Dayot Upamecano’s) advisor, Volker Struth, in the report.
Celtic haven’t made any comment in the three weeks since Neil Lennon resigned but there is little doubt that the introduction of Marsch to the speculation has been received much more favourably than the Chris Wilder or Roy Keane rumour.
CLICK HERE for Marsch’s Radio Scotland interview.