Ruud van Nistelrooy has been confirmed as Leicester City’s new manager.
The 48-year-old succeeds Steve Cooper, who was sacked following the club’s 2-1 home defeat against Chelsea last Saturday.
Van Nistelrooy will not take charge of Leicester’s trip to face Brentford on Saturday — first-team coach Ben Dawson will be in the dugout — but the Dutchman is expected to be in position for the visit of West Ham United to the King Power Stadium on Tuesday evening.
“I’m proud, I’m excited. Everybody that I speak to about Leicester City Football Club is enthusiastic,” he said. “They have great stories about the quality of the people working at the Club, the supporters and, of course, the recent history of the club is impressive.
“I’m excited to start and to get to know everyone and give everything I can for the football club.”
Welcome, Ruud van Nistelrooy 🦊 💙 pic.twitter.com/wHcwZc85eY
— Leicester City (@LCFC) November 29, 2024
Van Nistelrooy arrives at Leicester shortly after taking interim charge of four Manchester United games following Erik ten Hag’s sacking. He won three of those four matches — two of those against Cooper’s Leicester — and drew the other 1-1 at home against Chelsea.
It is his first permanent managerial job since leaving PSV Eindhoven at the end of the 2022-23 season, when he cited a lack of support from the Dutch club’s hierarchy. Van Nistelrooy joined Ten Hag’s coaching staff at Old Trafford at the beginning of this season but was not kept on by new head coach Ruben Amorim.
Former Brighton & Hove Albion head coach Graham Potter and David Moyes, most recently of West Ham United, were ruled out before the club moved for Van Nistelrooy, who did not cost any compensation, a key factor for the club given ongoing PSR concerns.
Van Nistelrooy previously held talks with Burnley over replacing Vincent Kompany before he joined Ten Hag’s coaching staff. His only managerial job to date was at PSV, where he won the Dutch Cup in his sole season at the helm. Before that, he had two separate stints as assistant coach of the Netherlands national team under Guus Hiddink and later Frank de Boer.
‘Supporters want an identity — something Cooper failed to establish’
The news of Van Nistelrooy’s appointment brings a much-needed morale boost to the Leicester fanbase at a time when they are 16th in the Premier League and just a point above the relegation zone.
While their knowledge of the former United striker’s coaching prowess is limited, this appointment provides significantly more optimism to those supporters than the one that brought Cooper to the club in the summer.
Despite lasting a little over a year as PSV manager, Van Nistelrooy did enjoy some success with the Dutch side. He led them to a second-place finish in the Eredivisie and got his hands on two trophies. The first was the Johan Cruyff Shield, the equivalent of the Community Shield, in which PSV beat Ajax 5-3 and the other was the KNVB Cup, Dutch football’s only cup competition.
Despite PSV’s position in the Eredivisie being very different to Leicester’s in the Premier League, fans will be glad to hear Van Nistelrooy favoured a direct, attacking style during his time in the Netherlands that focused on building from the back and utilising the club’s threats in the wide areas. PSV were among the best sides in Europe at creating chances during his tenure.
The appointment of Van Nistelrooy is far from a guarantee of Premier League survival, but the main thing that the supporters will want to see in the short term is a clear identity, something that Cooper failed to establish across 12 league games. Van Nistelrooy inherits one of the more limited squads in the division — further weakened by long-term injuries to Ricardo Pereira and Abdul Fatawu — but one with enough quality to stave off the threat of relegation.
(Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
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