Presenter Chris Coles and ex-Derby County player and coach Eric Steele discussed all of the latest Derby County news on the most recent edition of the BBC’s Sportscene Podcast.
They spent some time talking about potential replacements for Phillip Cocu after the Dutchman was sacked by the Rams this past weekend with the club sitting at the bottom of the Championship and one of the names that Steele was asked about being Cocu’s successor was Ralf Rangnick.
Here is what Steele had to say about the possibility of Rangnick taking the reins at Pride Park:
“Yeah, it’s an option. Trust me, coming to England is a major attraction to the foreign coaches. You’ve seen now how many are really always linked to the jobs and I think that’ll be the case with Derby County, irrespective of the fact that we’re bottom of the Championship.
“The Championship’s a huge league when you speak to coaches abroad and they see it as a way to getting a foothold in England and then ultimately aiming for the top jobs, which would be either going with the club you join or into the Premier League, so yeah, it’s a good name, The one thing I think that I like about that is the fact he’s a coach, he’s a really good coach.”
Do you think there is any chance that Rangnick could become the Derby boss?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts on what Steele had to say about the possibility of Rangnick becoming Derby boss…
Rangnick is currently without a club, having most recently served as Head of International Relations and Scouting for both New York Red Bulls and Red Bull Bragantino. He last managed during the 2018/19 season when he was in charge of Bundesliga side RB Leipzig, with Rangnick leading them to a third-place finish in Germany’s top flight.
Derby’s new manager is not expected to be appointed until Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan’s impending takeover of the club is completed and it may be fair to say that appointing Rangnick would show a lot of ambition from the new owner, given that the 62-year-old has got a great reputation in the game and he is said to have ‘deeply influenced many of today’s most intriguing managers.’
However, with that in mind, as well as the fact that he has been linked to some of Europe’s biggest clubs during his career, with the German coach having been set to take charge of AC Milan for the 2020/21 campaign before the Serie A club allegedly ‘pulled the plug’ on the move, perhaps Rangnick would want to return to management at a higher level than the club that currently sits at the bottom of England’s second-tier and so we feel it is unlikely that he will succeed Cocu, despite Steele seemingly thinking that it is a realistic possibility.