Ruud van Nistelrooy joins race for Coventry City manager role amid Frank Lampard competition

After a short but effective spell with Manchester United, Ruud van Nistelrooy parted ways with them this Monday. Now, according to reports, he has applied for a full-time manager role at EFL Championship side Coventry City FC. The news comes as no surprise as the Dutch tactician had signalled his plans to take the role of a coach in English football soon.

Ruud van Nistelrooy, currently aged 48 years, was given the responsibility of a caretaker manager at Manchester United after the English club sacked Erik ten Hag from the role. Nistelrooy impressed everyone during his short spell, with a struggling Man United. He coached them for only four games and attained wins in three after the rusty start under Hag. But his stint was short, as United rushed for a permanent solution in Ruben Amorim, and a deal to keep Ruud with the staff was not reached.

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Competition from Frank Lampard

Now, within a week he has applied for a full-time role at another English club, Coventry City, who have recently parted ways with their head coach for seven years Mark Robins. However getting the job won’t be easy for Nistelrooy, as he will face competition from Chelsea legend Frank Lampard. The EFL side have a lot of options to replace the coach, as per the owner Doug King.

King has said to talkSport, “We’ve received a huge amount of CVs from high-quality people, of which Frank is one”. The owner also made it clear that he won’t be rushing out for a new manager, and will opt to take time to choose considering the best for his side. 

He further added, “We’ve done nothing on that process…but clearly we’re in the international break, we’ll be assessing everything. We’ll work out who’s going to make the shortlist and we’ll go from there.”

He also said “The fans don’t want us to be a revolving door with managers. The fans and I like stability and a long-term manager. I need to take my time with the team to get this right and I know we’ve got this period of two weeks to look at that and move that forward at speed.

“If it takes a little bit longer, it takes a little bit longer but I’ve done it now so we get something sorted into the month of December, allowing the new person to assess what he’s got so that when we come into the [transfer] window we’ve got a little bit more knowledge,”

The above statements are enough to reflect the plans of the club. So, we can assume that Ruud van Nistelrooy is a strong candidate for the role, but he will face strong competition for the role, and would only get the job if the club deems him to be the perfect replacement for the club’s long-term goals.

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