• Former France defender is advocate of club's style of play
• Michael Laudrup also in running for managerial vacancy
Marcel Desailly has emerged as the bookmakers' surprise favourite to succeed Brendan Rodgers at Swansea City. The former Chelsea, Milan and France defender has most recently been living in Ghana, concentrating on charity and media work while also completing his coaching qualifications.
Despite a lack of managerial experience Desailly, who finished his playing career in Qatar six years ago, has been a passionate advocate of Swansea's possession-based passing style and appears a serious contender as Huw Jenkins, Swansea's chairman, considers his options.
Michael Laudrup, the former Barcelona, Juventus, Real Madrid and Denmark midfielder, is another potential candidate to replace Rodgers, now at Liverpool, but the claims of Brighton & Hove Albion's Gus Poyet, the former Rayo Vallecano coach José Ramón Sandoval and Graeme Jones, Roberto Martinez's assistant at Wigan Athletic, cannot be discounted. Jones, who earlier worked under Martínez at Swansea, was the initial front-runner but is believed to now be strongly tempted to stay at Wigan.
"There are only a small number of people who would suit our football club," said Jenkins, who is determined to hire a manager committed to the purist brand of football played under Rodgers. "We are spending a few days weighing up our options and we'll take it from there. Other than having a new manager in place for the start of the season, there's no timescale."
Meanwhile Cardiff City's Malky Mackay has ruled himself out of the running for the vacancy at Norwich City created by Paul Lambert's departure for Aston Villa. David McNally, the chief executive at Carrow Road, said the club are looking for a manager with "top-league" experience, quite possibly in Europe, to replace Lambert.
"Our search is certainly a European search," said McNally "We are looking for somebody who has got top-league experience. I don't think the candidate necessarily has to have Premier League experience – Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga, are some of the toughest leagues in the world, too. We have names in mind and we are thinking about them long into the night."
Nonetheless, Norwich are believed to be interested in Chris Hughton, the Birmingham City manager, who previously managed Newcastle in the Premier League. Hughton had been a contender to replace Roy Hodgson at West Bromwich Albion but is now apparently no longer under consideration by the board at the Hawthorns who continue to maintain interest in the former Schalke coach Ralf Rangnick in addition to Poyet, Michael Appleton and Alan Curbishley. Read More
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