Claudio Ranieri reveals Leicester bosses were preparing for prospect of RELEGATION this term

Kampusbet  ~   " Claudio Ranieri reveals Leicester bosses were preparing for prospect of RELEGATION this term "

Agen SbobeT  ~   Claudio Ranieri has revealed Leicester’s owners were preparing for the ­prospect of relegation this season – and he had agreed to remain Foxes’ boss even if they plunged into the ­Championship.

After masterminding an extraordinary rise to the top of the Premier League, Ranieri has divulged details of the job ­interview which led to his surprise summer appointment – and said that vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha asked whether he would stay if the club were ­relegated.

Ranieri, sacked as Greece manager after a dismal defeat by the Faroe Islands in his previous job, says Aiyawatt and his father, the Leicester chairman Vichai, voiced their plans to take Leicester into the higher echelons of the Premier League but also offered him long-term ­commitment if the wheels came off.

With Leicester requiring victory at Everton on Saturday to confirm top spot at Christmas, Ranieri said: “I didn’t believe when I signed my contract that in December we would be top of the league. 

But two things were very, very fantastic for me.

“One was to hear from my owner that he wanted, in the next two years, to maintain Leicester in the Premier League, then to grow and try to achieve the top places.

“The other is that when the son asked me, ‘If everything goes wrong, you stay with us in the Championship?’ and I said, ‘Yes, I will stay here’.

This was amazing because there was a balance – there was a big project but also they wanted me to stay even if everything went wrong. It was important for me to understand this philosophy.”

Bandar Judi Online SbobeT  ~   Ranieri, 64, says he had only ever received similar long-term commitment once in his long managerial career, in one of his first jobs at Cagliari.

He explained: “When I was young at Cagliari, we won Serie C, we won Serie B and we arrived in Serie A. But the first year was like Leicester last season – at the end of the first half, we were not just down but down-down.

“Nobody believed in us, a lot of journalists asked the chairman, ‘OK, you sack Claudio? He won Serie C and B but not in Serie A’. But he told me, ‘Don’t worry Claudio, we went with you from C to B to A, we’d go with you from A to B to C’.

Leicester’s miraculous form has led their most famous fan Gary Lineker to claim he will present Match of the Day in just his ­underpants if Ranieri’s men win the title.

But on being told this, Ranieri replied: “Oh that’s not good. Because when Roma won Serie A once, there was a nice girl who did the same and I think that is much better...”

Ranieri is without the suspended Robert Huth for the trip to ­Goodison as Leicester bid to extend their unbeaten Premier League away run to 12 matches. But he praised Huth’s central-­defensive partner, skipper Wes Morgan, claiming that the former Nottingham Forest man has become one of the best in the top flight.

He said: “I’m so surprised by my captain.

“One thing is to watch him on TV, another thing is to watch him train and in matches because he is good, he is strong, he is tall, he is big, he is fast – he is unbelievable.

“He is a very great central defender – one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League.”