It is without doubt the case that Leicester City’s hierarchy haven’t covered themselves in glory given the way they have treated van Nistelrooy. Time moves on and attention now focuses on who replaces the Dutchman. Given the problems the club has – a likely points deduction, the financial travails of the King Power Group, the massive drop in revenue following relegation – the appointment of the next manager is a crucial one. The club can’t afford to get this wrong.
There are two main candidates it seems, the current Sheffield Wednesday boss Danny Rohl and the out of work Sean Dyche. Under normal circumstances, it might be worth taking the risk of appointing an up-and-coming coach like Rohl. He has, so we are told, performed miracles at Sheffield Wednesday and likes to play the possession-based game that has become common in modern football.
However, these are not normal times. Even if they were, the need to get immediate promotion back to the Premier league is paramount. The Championship is littered with big clubs previously in the top-flight who no longer have the luxury of parachute payments and are unable to mount an effective promotion bid.
The Leicester job requires someone who has considerable experience of managing a club with its backs against the wall. That man is surely Sean Dyche. He has experience of getting a club out of the Championship and, equally importantly, keeping them in the Premier League despite limited resources. With Burnley, he won two promotions to the Premier League and, the second time, kept them there for five seasons qualifying for Europe after finish seventh in 2018. Even more significantly, Dyche kept Everton in the top-flight despite significant off-field problems at the club
Yes, it is true that the former Everton boss is a pragmatist whose main aim is to win football matches, or at least not lose them, rather than play a pretty passing game. In any case, though, the possession style isn’t always, as he himself has noted, popular with fans. I didn't hear many Leicester fans complain when their club was winning matches under the pragamatic management of Nigel Pearson or Claudio Ranieri.
The big question is whether or not Dyche wants the job and whether the Foxes want him. On the latter point, he is said to have the support of Director of Football John Rudkin but the club’s owner is less enamoured with the idea. On the former point, some reports have suggested that the former Everton boss doesn’t want to move to the King Power. I find this unlikely given that he has been out of work since January, lives locally (he grew up as a Kettering Town fan) and Leicester is still, despite the club’s current difficulties, a big draw. We shall see.