Dan Friedkin 'flies in to UK' to hold manager talks amid Roma crisis and Everton takeover wait

Prospective Everton owner Dan Friedkin has reportedly flown into the UK to discuss appointing a Premier League-winning manager for Roma, the club he already owns. Gianluca Di Marzio of Sky Sport claims Friedkin, and son Ryan, are set for discussions in London with Claudio Ranieri, who flew out from Italy to the British capital on Tuesday evening alongside his agent Pietro Chiodi.

Rome-born Ranieri, who celebrated his 73rd birthday last month, is a lifelong Roma fan and starting his playing career with them in 1973, making half a dozen first team appearances. Over a varied career in the dugout, which has taken in no fewer than 22 different posts, the veteran coach has had two previous stints in charge of his boyhood club, between 2009-11 and then in 2019.

Nicknamed ‘The Tinkerman’ because of his penchant for making changes in personnel and tactics on a game-to-game basis, Ranieri is a well-known figure in English football having steered 5,000-1 outsiders Leicester City to the first League Championship in their history when they won the Premier League title in 2015/16 while he has also had spells at Chelsea, Fulham and Watford. After saving Cagliari from relegation to Serie B in May this year, he announced that his career in club football was over, and he would only consider offers from national teams but it seems that the lure of his first love in the game could give the Friedkins hope he will reconsider as they look to steady the ship.

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Given his age and his previous statement, Ranieri could be brought in as an interim appointment, possibly until the end of the season with the brief to be a short-term ‘firefighter’ or ‘ferryman’ as the term is called in Italy, in terms of guiding a team through choppy waters to get them safely back to shore. Friedkan has hired and fired three coaches this year alone with Jose Mourinho dismissed in January, club legend Daniele De Rossi brought in and handed a three-year contract over the summer only to be sacked in September and now Ivan Juric given his marching orders on Sunday after less than two months in charge, with a report claiming that the Houston-based billionaire personally called him to tell the Croatian he was being axed before he could get back to the home changing room following a 3-2 defeat to Bologna.

Juric was previously in charge of Torino for three years and won four, drew three and lost five of his games in the post. The result leaves Roma, who finished sixth last season, 12th in the Serie A table with 13 points from 12 matches.

The actions of Friedkin, who agreed a deal on September 23, to purchase Farhad Moshiri’s entire 94.1% stake in Everton, have been heavily scrutinised by the Italian press with Ivan Zazzaroni of Corriere dello Sport describing Juric’s dismissal as “the funeral of Roma” in an opinion piece headlined “the day of shame” while Dario Machetti of Tuttosport laments that it’s not been this bad for the club in 20 years.