An update has emerged on Celtic and their search for a new head coach ahead of the 2023/24 campaign…
What's the latest on Andoni Iraola to Celtic?
According to the Daily Mail, former Rayo Vallecano manager Andoni Iraola is preparing to throw his hat in the ring in the hope of being in contention for the job.
The club are in the market for a new boss after Ange Postecoglou left Parkhead to put pen to paper on a deal with Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.
Iraola is currently a free agent after opting against a contract extension with Vallecano having kept them in LaLiga for a second straight season.
Would Andoni Iraola be a success at Celtic?
The Hoops could strike gold with the young tactician as he is an up-and-coming coach who has shown great promise in his short career so far.
Former Leeds United head coach Jesse Marsch is another name to have been linked with the job but Iraola would be a far better option than the American boss, whose poor form at Elland Road raised red flags to those at Parkhead.
The 49-year-old barely avoided relegation from the Premier League in the 2021/22 campaign as he lost five of his 12 matches with the Whites and finished 17th in the table.
He then lost ten and won four of the 20 matches he managed in the division the following campaign, and that led to him being relieved of his duties by the English side with a points per game rate of just 0.9.
That spell in England came after the American lost six of his 14 Bundesliga games with RB Leipzig in Germany, which included five wins that left them underperforming in 11th in the table. They went on to finish fourth in the table, with 17 wins to ten losses, suggesting that he was holding them back.
Iraola, however, won 22 of his 46 matches in LaLiga 2, including the play-offs, to win promotion to the top flight in the 2020/21 campaign and was then able to establish Vallecano in the Spanish top division.
The 40-year-old tactician, who typically plays a 4-2-3-1 formation, finished 12th in both 2021/22 and 2022/23 and this shows that the Spaniard was able to successfully lead a club through a transitional period.
They finished outside of the play-offs in the second tier in the season before he joined, 2019/20, and was able to turn them into an established top-flight club within three years before his departure this summer.
Therefore, Iraola, whose work with Vallecano was hailed as "insane" by scout Jacek Kulig, is a manager on the up who has proven himself capable of uplifting a team above their means.
On the flip side, Marsch has failed in his last two jobs and has been a disappointment in England and Germany, which suggests that the Spaniard would be a far better option for Celtic at this moment in time.