Gary Lineker tells Leicester to snub Graham Potter and hire ex-England boss | Football

Gary Lineker has named who he thinks should be the new Leicester City manager following the sacking of Steve Cooper on Sunday.

Cooper has left the King Power just five months after replacing Enzo Maresca, with the club 16th in the Premier League and just a point above the relegation zone.

His last game in charge was Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Maresca’s Chelsea, after which his players were filmed wildly partying in a nightclub in Copenhagen.

First-team coach Ben Dawson will take charge for now, with Leicester set to travel to Brentford this Saturday, while a host of big names have been linked with the managerial vacancy.

Graham Potter is the early favourite having been out of work since leaving Chelsea last year, while former Manchester United bosses David Moyes and Ruud van Nistlerooy are the other frontrunners.

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Former Foxes striker Lineker likes these options, saying on The Rest is Football podcast: ‘The first rumour I heard was David Moyes which would certainly be a safe pair of hands. He’s been around the block and would be a safe appointment.

‘If you look elsewhere someone like Potter possibly. He’s been doing the media rounds which suggests he wants to get back in the game as soon as he can.’

But the England legend and Match of the Day host has another name in mind for the job: ‘I’d go with Lee Carsley.

‘I think he’s really got something and I think there’s a little bit of a reluctance in the Premier League opposed to perhaps other leagues and I think with possible exceptions – Brentford, Brighton, who have brought in young managers that they think have got something about them, a real coaching ability that I think is there and you take a bit of a punt.

‘Now, it’s difficult with a club that’s obviously going to be fighting relegation. It will be a tough first managerial job, in terms of a club side for someone like Carsley.

‘But the way that England players responded to him, you could tell that they respected him as a coach, that they thought that he had good ideas. We thought he was really imaginative and brave.

‘So if it was down to me, which it’s categorically not, I would possibly think of someone like that, if they don’t go down the tried and trusted experienced route of someone like David Moyes.’

Carsley was recently propelled into the spotlight after becoming interim England manager following Gareth Southgate’s resignation.

He won five of his six games in charge, winning promotion back to the top tier of the Nations League in the process, and earning the respect of the Three Lions players.

The 50-year-old was tipped to get the job full-time but the FA plumped for Thomas Tuchel, with Carsley heading back to the U21s with whom he won the European Championships in 2023.

At club level, he has only ever held caretaker roles at Coventry, Brentford and Birmingham, and his inexperience would make him a risky – yet exciting – appointment.

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