Monaco manager Claudio Ranieri has stepped down from his role after his failure to lead the club to any major title last season. Monaco spend a huge amount of money on several players including star striker Radamel Falcao last summer. However, the club only managed to finish second in the table behind Paris St Germain. This is a considerable achievement considering that the team was playing in the second division only last season. Yet, Ranieri has stepped down from his role after this perceived poor campaign. The French outfit will now be searching for a new manager.
The club vice president paid tribute to the Italian by saying that it is never easy to take the club in the second division of French football to finishing second in the subsequent season in the French division. Yet, he acknowledged that the club needed a new direction provided by a new manager. Ranieri has been in a similar position previously in his career when he finished second with Chelsea in 2004. He was so relieved of his duties and was replaced by Jose Mourinho, who then went on to achieve a lot of success with a group of players largely brought by Ranieri.
It has been heavily speculated that Sporting Lisbon manager Leonardo Jardim will be appointed as his replacement. “I confirm that Claudio Ranieri is leaving soon. We decided to break up. I would like to pay tribute to Claudio Ranieri, who did a good job. It is never easy to take a club from Ligue 2 to the Champions League. But we believe that at this stage we need a new dynamic,” Vasilyev said after breaking the news to the media. Even though Monaco finished second in the table behind PSG, they were almost 10 points behind the leaders at the end.