Surprise Everton frontrunner Ralf Rangnick is to tell the Merseyside club that he is not interested in becoming their next manager, according to The Times.
Rangnick, 59, is currently sporting director at Bundesliga club RB Leipzig, and became a surprise candidate after owner Farhad Moshiri reportedly set sights on him on Wednesday.
The Times report that “Everton approached Rangnick in their increasingly scattergun search as it became clear Marco Silva will remain at Watford, but the 59-year-old German is happy at Leipzig”.
However, Rangnick is now set to become the latest name to rule himself out of the running to replace Ronald Koeman, with Leipzig set to offer him a contract extension to remain in his director role.
Rangnick was actually a leading candidate to take the Everton job in 2013, and was interviewed by chairman Bill Kenwright, but was overlooked in favour of Roberto Martinez.
Leipzig were reportedly ready to offer Rangnick a new contract anyway, and will now look to speed that process up.
As quoted by The Times, chief executive Oliver Mintzlaff said: “We expect to extend the contract ahead of schedule this week. Ralf Rangnick is the supportive engine of our club and therefore also elementary for our future development.”
OPINION
If this report is true, then Everton’s manager hunt has just become even more comical than it already is. First it was Sam Allardyce, then Sean Dyche, Diego Simeone, and yesterday Marco Silva. Moshiri’s scattergun approach is quite obviously not working, and in fact may be deterring managers from the job. Rangnick is a hugely excited candidates but it appears he is the latest man to reject their advances, and the board must be getting desperate. Their failures will not be helping the squad in their quest to regain form, and the longer this goes on, and the more names reject the job, the worse it will get.