Leicester target Hiddink to replace Ranieri
Leicester City have targeted Guus Hiddink as their new manager with talks already understood to have taken place. The 70-year-old Dutchman is regarded as the ideal candidate to steady the club following the sacking of Claudio Ranieri.
Through intermediaries, Leicester are also believed to have made an approach to the Portuguese coach Vitor Pereira, who is at 1860 Munich. However, they may miss out on both.
Hiddink performed a similar task at Chelsea last season – when Jose Mourinho was sacked only months after winning the Premier League title, just as has happened to Ranieri. Hiddink turned Leicester down before Ranieri succeeded Nigel Pearson in the summer of 2015 and it is believed he is unsure whether to take the job now.
Leicester want to appoint Hiddink until the end of the season and then to review what to do next. Hiddink’s experience in the Champions League is also regarded as vital, with Leicester’s last-16 tie against Sevilla in the balance with the home leg to come.
Although it is understood that Hiddink has indicated that he probably does not want the job, he has not been ruled out. Pereira, who has previously been linked with Everton and Southampton, has indicated that he would prefer to stay and see out the season in Munich although Leicester may still seek to dissuade him.
Ranieri, meanwhile, has made it clear he wants to return to football management as soon as possible, with the 65-year-old telling advisers he has no intention of retiring after his shock sacking from the Premier League champions.
Ranieri has been employed almost continuously since his first job in management in 1987, as a 35-year-old at the then fourth-tier Italian club Campania Puteolana, working his way through 14 different appointments since then. He does not want to quit less than a year after finally securing the first top-flight league title of his career.
He is expected to have a short break in Italy with the intention of being back with a new club by the summer at the latest.
In the meantime, there were meetings at Leicester City’s Belvoir Drive training ground yesterday, attended by the club’s owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, as results elsewhere meant the
club dropped into the relegation zone.
The Thai billionaire flew to Leicester from London to speak with staff, including director of football Jon Rudkin. Kasper Schmeichel, the Leicester goalkeeper, became the first player to speak publicly about Ranieri’s sacking, while Jamie Vardy went on Instagram.
Schmeichel conceded that the players were consulted by the Sr iv add ha nap rabh as but denied that senior players had told the Thai family that Ranieri was the problem. Schmeichel told the BBC: “There is absolutely no truth in that whatsoever.” Vardy said suggestions that he had been involved in the dismissal were “completely untrue”.
Schmeichel went on: “We can only affect [what happens] on the pitch. What happens above our heads at boardroom level is out of our control. What I can say is our owners are very hands-on. They come to practically every game, they come to the training ground and they speak to all the players regularly.”
Asked whether any players had expressed dissatisfaction to the owners, Schmeichel said: “No. [The owners] won’t let themselves be influenced by any players or anything like that.”