Motherwell’s form has tailed off after a remarkable run featuring just one defeat and 14 clean sheets in 20 league matches that had them in scarcely believable title contention.<\/p>\n
Despite that, Askou’s nine-month Premiership journey has felt like a linear path to success, with a European spot in touching distance.<\/p>\n
That does not apply to his managerial career, although demands have always been sky-high.<\/p>\n
At Danish club Horsens, where Askou experienced top-flight promotion and relegation, day one of his two-and-a-half-year spell began with him scurrying about with a bin bag because he felt the facilities were not up to standard.<\/p>\n
Sporting director Niels Erik Sondergaard, who had signed the former Norwich and Millwall defender as a player for Esbjerg a decade earlier, appointed him.<\/p>\n
“He felt it was a little bit dirty. He always wanted things clean and organised around him,” Sondergaard tells BBC Scotland, recalling Askou dipping in and out of bushes to collect fast food rubbish.<\/p>\n
“As a player he was not born with the biggest talent, but he made it through dedication, hard work and mentality. This is what we saw when he was head coach. I knew he would go on to bigger things.”<\/p>\n
Mikkel Frankoch, who played under Askou at Vendsyssel and HB Torshavn, remembers his “demanding yet understanding” former coach setting the bar during pre-season training.<\/p>\n
“He was always running in front, showing us how it should be done,” says the Midtjylland youth coach. “He’s a guy you look up to. He’s changed the culture at every club he’s been at.”<\/p>\n
Frankoch views Askou as a coaching inspiration but recalls being savagely dropped as Vendsyssel closed in on promotion.<\/p>\n
“He told me some things he wasn’t happy about,” he says. “When I was playing again I had this hunger to show him. I played my best games afterwards.<\/p>\n
“He has a good understanding of who should play and why they should play. He has an impact on players, helping them to show the best versions of themselves.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Motherwell’s form has tailed off after a remarkable run featuring just one defeat and 14 clean sheets in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-659468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}