Mikey Johnston insists it would be "unreal" to see Brendan Rodgers back at Celtic as manager.
The Northern Irishman is in advanced talks to replace Ange Potsecoglou after the Aussie departed for Tottenham Hotspur last week.
After being linked with Manchester City assistant Enzo Maresca, Bodo/Glimt boss Kjetil Knutsen and West Ham manager David Moyes, among others, the Celtic board have now homed in on Rodgers, with whom they met in Majorca last weekend to initiate discussions.
Rodgers left Celtic to take over at Leicester almost four and a half years ago, but he now appears set for a return to the club at which he won all seven domestic trophies available to him while laying the foundations for a remarkable quadruple-treble that was completed by his successor Neil Lennon.
Rodgers handed Johnston his Celtic debut and that's why he would love to see the 50-year-old return to Parkhead.
He told The Sun: "Definitely. He gave me my debut and every player will love the guy who gave them their debut won’t they?
“But he’s a great manager and if he came back to Celtic he would be unreal. It’s a clean slate at Celtic as there will be a new manager, so I could be back there.
“It’s the club I’ve always supported, I’d like to give it another go. But we just have to wait and see what happens. Whatever I do next year I want to play every game.”
On his own personal season and his loan stint at Vitoria Guimares in Portugal, Johnston added: “It was a tough year and it was a high level and I performed pretty well. I feel like I’ve learned so much in the year. When you play for Celtic, you’ve got the ball all the time and you’re attacking.
“My club, we had the ball a lot, but not always because there were four bigger teams, three in Champions League as well.
“So there were probably eight games where you were testing yourself against them when you didn’t have the ball as much and just, tactically, I learned so much.
“Obviously with Celtic we played sort of the same system a lot whereas we changed a lot in Portugal, depending on other teams so I learned a lot.
“When you’re playing at Celtic, you get a lot of 1v1s, a lot of touches, sometimes in Portugal you’re not in the game as much and you need to be more effective when you get it and be smart, win fouls.
“It’s a different style of football completely. You see it in how the referees are as well, it’s completely different.”
