Rangers and Celtic staring at 31-year first and it's not Hearts who could be architects of unfathomable shock

His bold ideas were such that some of an Old Firm persuasion would have shrugged their shoulders, another Scottish football newbie coming to underestimate our game, and get ideas above their station. Through an eye-catching style of play that marries defensive efficiency with killer instincts up front when all on song, Motherwell have emerged as one of this Premiership season’s major plot points.

It says a lot about manager Askou’s tenure that he is arguably the most talked up boss in a season where Derek McInnes has Hearts within touching distance of their first title since 1960. A defeat to Dundee last weekend has made Fir Park ambitions of getting properly involved in that shake-up further fetched, sitting ten points off the leaders with nine to play, but Rangers and Celtic would do well to heed the warnings that they might not be out the woods yet when it comes to Motherwell going above them.

What could Motherwell achieve this season?

The North Lanarkshire-based club have enjoyed second and third place finishes over the last decade-and-a-half but that was with major top flight players out the division for certain periods. The 1994/1995 campaign was the last term with both sides of the Old Firm in the top flight that Motherwell managed to split them, runners-up to Rangers that year, as Celtic finished a lowly fourth behind Hibs.

Somehow, despite all their financial and resource advantages, the Steelmen could split them again. Not only that, they could do the unthinkable, and finish above both. How brutal a reminder of how poor this season has been in Glasgow would it be for Hearts and Motherwell to be flying the flag for Scotland in next season’s Champions League qualifiers. Win at Parkhead on Saturday, and that reality might edge closer, as the fourth-placed team would be a point off the Ibrox side above them and two off the current champions.

When he arrived last summer, Askou spoke of a 3.4 point margin that Motherwell needed to make up to reach the top six, essentially an extra win and a draw after one top half finish across five previous years. They had claimed that berth by February 24 as attentions had already turned to Europe, something that wasn’t entirely on their agenda when he jetted into Scotland.

“No, not really,” Askou explained of continental hopes. “Well, yes and no. If you're in top six then you know that if all the pieces fall right, fifth place could get access to Europe (via Celtic winning the Scottish Cup), at least this season. If you enter top six, then it's one position. So it was something that, OK, let’s see if we can get in the top six. We needed to try and find something in our game that gives us a probability of getting three, four more points. Then we get access to the top six and from there we reach out. I knew that if we got into the top six that it's not an impossible mission to get to the top five. It wasn’t like European football was the headline. It was more what do we need to do as a football team to get three or four more points and we've gone a little bit beyond that.”

Who have been Motherwell’s key performers this season?

As Scotland’s usually dominant pair have spent millions across the season on teams who’ve failed to hit the mark for most of this campaign, Motherwell’s foundations have been built on last term’s third-choice keeper in Calum Ward, experienced campaigners Stephen O’Donnell and Paul McGinn, an Elliot Watt who suffered relegation with St Johnstone last season, and Tawanda Maswanhise has been moulded into a 20-goal striker. Perhaps gallingly for Celtic, the club’s best performing centre-back this season has arguably been at a rival, with Stephen Welsh’s loan to ML1 another success story. Askou might be all about possession-based football and combining both sides of the game to great effect, but he isn’t set to go preaching over his methods, instead taking plenty from the league’s varied platter.

“I think one thing is that I'm not a football missionary who preaches a certain way of playing,” explained Askou. “I think football is most interesting when it's diverse, and it also gives the biggest challenges for the players when they play different styles, but also for me as a manager. Obviously I try to make everyone here buy into what we're doing and also the fans. There are some top teams right now in the league that have very different ways of approaching their football which I think is really interesting. If you take, for example, Derek McInnes and his Hearts team and us. It's very different, our approach, but what I really like and love when I see them play is their intensity first and foremost. Their determination to really go for things when it's in the boxes and that's something we could learn a lot from. The way they connect with their fans, that intensity that they really get off each other is fantastic, and very inspiring. It’s something that I think anyone could could learn from.”

If Hearts win the league, it could be explained away by both sides that those in maroon caught lightning in a bottle with some savvy recruitment and investment to boot, that left them primed for causing a seismic shock when they were vulnerable. Differences are so stark in this case though that there will be zero excuses for either if Motherwell finish above them. Such a possibility would spark severe soul searching, and an inquest to determine how it happened. This weekend as Motherwell go to Glasgow’s east-end and Rangers face St Mirren, without a permanent manager after Stephen Robinson’s exit to Aberdeen, could reveal plenty about how the top four shakes out come May. In the meantime, Askou will simply be hoping for another feather in his cap, alongside a blether with his Celtic counterpart in Martin O’Neill.

“If we have the time then I would love to say hello to him and ask him a few questions,” added Askou. “He's been up there leading top teams at the highest level for many, many years. To go in and do that, like he has done at that age, is extremely impressive. Denmark is a small country where everyone meets each other all the time. You come in and say hi but it's not like it's a big culture where you sit and have a glass of wine. I think one of the reasons that it might have diminished or vanished a little bit is because there's a lot more press work after the game.

“We have to go nine games more this season. I hope we can go nine games more with quality and intensity and also at the end of the day, creating the results necessary to at least stay where we are in the league. Time will tell if we can do that, and if we can do more than that.”

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