Skip to main content

Leicester City appoint Claude Puel as manager

Leicester City have appointed the former Southampton head coach Claude Puel as their manager following last week’s dismissal of Craig Shakespeare. He has signed a contract until June 2020 and was described by the club’s vice-chairman, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, as “a perfect fit”.

Leicester interviewed several candidates for the position that has been held on a temporary basis for the past two matches by Michael Appleton, who will revert to his assistant’s role. Puel will be introduced to the media on Friday and will take charge of Sunday’s home match against Everton, who are without a full-time manager.
Puel was let go by Southampton in June despite leading the club to an eighth-placed finish in the Premier League and the final of the Capital One Cup. Southampton flopped in the Europa League and decent domestic results were deemed not good enough to compensate for a style of play that many supporters decried as too defensive. Several players disliked his rotation policy. Puel told French media he was let go “for a little bit more than sporting reasons”.
Puel, who has since been without a club, impressed Leicester during more than one set of talks. “Upon meeting Claude, his attention to detail, knowledge of our squad, understanding of our potential and his vision to help us realise it were extremely impressive,” Srivaddhanaprabha said. “He quickly emerged as the outstanding candidate.”

The Leicester squad will find Puel a different character to Shakespeare, with whom many players formed a warm relationship during his many years as an assistant before his promotion in the wake of Claudio Ranieri’s shock sacking in February. Puel’s record suggests he will bring the tactical savviness Shakespeare was accused of lacking this season.

The 56-year-old has a French title among his managerial achievements, having won Ligue 1 in 2000 with Monaco, the club at which he had spent his entire playing career. He is perhaps known more as a builder of medium-sized clubs and a cultivator of young talents thanks to his six-year spell in charge of Lille, who regularly qualified for Europe by finishing above clubs with more resources. He was voted the manager of the year in France in 2005 for leading Lille to a second-place finish in Ligue 1 behind Lyon.
He was appointed as the Lyon manager in 2008 and, despite leading the club to the semi-finals of the 2010 Champions League, his reign ended unhappily in 2011 amid criticism of his man-management and a dreary playing style.
He refurbished his image at Nice by transforming a struggling side with young players and a thrilling attacking style before leaving in 2016 and taking over at Southampton.

Puel described it as “a great privilege” to take the Leicester job. “The opportunity to help the club build on its remarkable recent achievements is a truly exciting one, and I’m looking forward to working with the owners, players, staff and supporters to deliver further lasting success,” he said.

He arrives with the club 14th in the Premier League, one point above the relegation zone.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kenyan Law Court dismisses case of man seeking compensation after his wife eloped with another man from hospital

  A lawsuit filed by a man seeking to be compensated by St Mary's Mission Hospital in Kenya for allowing his wife to leave the hospital with another man after giving birth, has been struck out by a law court.    The appellant had sued the St. Mary's Mission hospital at Kakamega law courts in 2020 seeking general damages from the facility on grounds that the hospital had discharged his wife and allowed her to leave with another man. After delivering and at the time of discharge, the wife of the appellant claimed he was the baby's father.   The court of appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Mumbi Ngugi and Francis Tuiyott sitting at the Kisumu Court of Appeal, empathized with the man, but disagreed that he (the appellant) be compensated by the hospital for not detaining his wife.  They upheld the lower court's judgement which added that there's no remedy that lies in the law for such grievances.   Kiage said;   "I agree that if a man takes the woman he loves to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hurricane Hits Texas, One Person Reported Dead

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 storm on Friday, battering the coast with 130-mph winds and torrential rain. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in more than a decade leaving a massive destruction, loss of electricity, wrecked buildings and has so far killed at least one person. Scroll down to see more pictures of the incident:
Post a Comment
Read more

Togo prime Minister Komi Klassou resigns

Togo’s prime minister and his government have resigned, the West African nation’s presidency said late Friday. President Faure Gnassingbe congratulated prime minister Komi Selom Klassou and his team for their “economic, political and social efforts and the encouraging results despite the health crisis around the world”, a statement on the presidency’s official website said. Togo has been due for a political reshuffle since Gnassingbe was reelected in February for a fourth term in office, but changes were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s election win, which came after a constitutional change allowing him to run, extended more than a half-century of dynastic rule over the former French colony by the Gnassingbe family. The victory was disputed by the main opposition challenger, who has faced official harassment in the wake of the vote. The president has led the country of eight million people since taking over in 2005 following the death of his father Gnass...
Post a Comment
Read more