Leicester face battle to find a manager to replace Ruud van Nistelrooy amid points deduction fears
LEICESTER face a battle to convince their top managerial targets to take on the chaos gripping the crisis-hit club.
The Foxes finally parted company with manager Ruud van Nistelrooy on Friday — 33 days after the end of the season — and a whopping 68 days since relegation was confirmed against Liverpool with five games remaining.
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Sean Dyche and Sheffield Wednesday's departing boss Danny Rohl have emerged as the front-runners to replace the Dutchman following his marathon period as a dead-man walking.
Former Wolves boss Gary O'Neil and ex-Middlesbrough manager Michael Carrick are also on Leicester's radar.
However, club chiefs will find it tough to persuade any potential candidate to accept what increasingly appears to be a poisoned chalice.
The Foxes seem to be in freefall and have a potential points deduction hanging over them in the Championship as Prem bosses charged them with breaching strict Profit and Sustainability Rules.
Meanwhile, the club's main backers, King Power, have been plunged into a financial crisis and are feared to be on the brink of collapse after running up eye-watering losses of £450million.
Legendary striker Jamie Vardy quit the East Midlands outfit this summer to cut the last ties with the club's 5,000-1 title-winning team which famously lifted Premier League trophy in 2016.
Wilfred Ndidi, 28, is expected to follow him out of the door, with Everton and Manchester United looking to sign the powerful midfielder.
No fewer than EIGHT players have entered the final year of their contracts, while Van Nistelrooy banished Harry Winks and Jannik Vestergaard for refusing to stay one night a week in Leicester.
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With little cash available to patch up a wafer-thin squad already low on confidence following relegation, the new boss may also struggle to convince potential targets to join.
It is a bleak prospect for Leicester chiefs — club chairman Aiyawatt 'Top' Srivaddhanaprabha and beleaguered director of football Jon Rudkin — as they try to find 48-year-old Van Nistelrooy's replacement.
Ruud Van Nistelrooy speaks after Leicester relegated to the Championship
Title-winner Marc Albrighton fears for his former club, whose players return for pre-season training on Monday.
The 35-year-old former wideman told SunSport: 'Most clubs are prepared for the worst now.
'They sack their manager in the morning and by the afternoon they've got someone else in charge.
'But it will be hard for Leicester to get someone in with a potential points deduction hanging over the club.
'Any new manager will be conscious of that and won't want to commit until they know what they're dealing with.
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'The fans will be expecting an early appointment, given the length of time the board must have known Ruud was going.
'But I wouldn't be too hasty with a new appointment.
'I'd be really thorough because they MUST get this appointment right.
'They obviously went through two major managerial changes last season, and they won't want to go through that again.
'They'll want a manager who is hopefully going to be there for quite a while. So I wouldn't be rushing too much into it if I was them."
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