Kenny Dalglish does not believe Gordon Strachan's successor has to have a Celtic background - but he insists the new manager must know what the club is all about.

Self-confessed Celtic fan Owen Coyle and former players Tony Mowbray and Mark McGhee have all been linked with the Parkhead hotseat and Dalglish believes whoever lands the job will quickly realise just how big a task they have taken on.

"You don't need to have supported the club or have played for the club," he said. "But I think you have to have a knowledge of what the club is all about."

Dalglish added: "If you have that, I'm sure it would be a tremendous help for whoever gets the job.

"But if they're good at their job, surely they are clever enough to work out how big the football club is. It's a fantastic football club to go to.

"If you don't come from Glasgow or you aren't Scottish and you don't understand Celtic, you would be in there for about 30 seconds before you realise how big the club is and how much the club means to a lot of people, not just in this country but worldwide. It's a massive club."

Dalglish made more than 200 appearances for Celtic and returned as director of football and then caretaker manager following the sacking of John Barnes back in 2000.

Lack of experience was largely blamed for Barnes' ill-fated spell in the east end of Glasgow but Dalglish claims an impressive managerial CV will not necessarily guarantee success.

He said: "When John Barnes started, he had the best start of any Celtic manager since Jock Stein. That's not a bad start and he had no experience. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as well as everybody hoped it would but it was a fantastic start.

"He lost Henrik Larsson in the October and he didn't play another game - the next year he scored more than 50 goals. You need a bit of luck. It doesn't matter how old you are, how good you are or how experienced you are - you need luck."