The end of week announcement the club were hoping to make won’t be happening by the looks of it, in fact it looks almost certain it won’t. Talks are still “progressing” with Marcelo Bielsa but it doesn’t like being a deal done in the next few days and the club are now looking at alternative options in case the deal doesn’t go through.
I know that they've been looking at two others – one British, one foreign. Need to have alternatives.
— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) June 8, 2018
There are plenty of managers and coaches linked and by the sounds of it we are eyeing up a couple who would hopefully be quick appointments if Bielsa doesn’t come off. One British which is interesting given the rumours in recent weeks of Steve Bruce, a man under pressure at Aston Villa with the club in some serious financial difficulties. Another foreign, could be a British based manager so we can’t really speculate, Claudio Ranieri the most linked outside of Bielsa.
With the news that talks are advancing with Bielsa the chances are we will stick at that until we have no time left or we manage to secure a deal but other clubs are now interested and stories today are that Sporting Lisbon would like him as the new head-coach. This is the problem with taking so long to appoint someone and others will be looking, it’s a similar situation with the pursuit of Abel Hernandez as well, with no news on a head-coach and signings unlikely until then how long will players wait?
The news that we do have a plan b in operation is encouraging because there is no guarantee that Bielsa will come. If we do have to wait but we do land him then that would be worth the wait but we need to be in a position to move fast if that isn’t the case, pre-season is only two weeks away and as per usual we are one of the last clubs to get our house in order.
