Is Murat Yakin The Dark Horse
An contender has emerged as an early outside bet to replace Mauricio Pochettino as manager of Southampton Football Club.
Murat Yakin would be an unknown name to most Saints supporters but he is emerging as a contender for the vacant position at St Mary's.
Born in Switzerland of Turkish descent, Yakin won 49 caps for Switzerland as a player whilst plying his trade not only with Grasshoppers and Basel in his home country but in spells in Germany and Turkey.
When his playing career finished he branched into coaching, his first big job came at Thun before joining Luzern as manager in 2011, he stayed for a year before moving to Basel where he stayed for two seasons, winning the Swiss super league in both of them and with the highlight being beaing Chelsea both home and away in the group stages of the Champions League in 2012.
On 17th May 2014 it was announced that Yakin had left Basel prompting speculation that Southampton realising that they were going to lose Pochettino have been pro active in appointing his replacement.
Yakin would obviously be an unknown quantity, but then again so was Pochettino when he joined Saints and in that respect Yakin has similar qualities to the ex Saints and Espanyol boss and it should not be forgotten that those responsible for sourcing Pochettino are still at the club.
The bookmakers are taking Yakin seriously and he is second favourite in the early betting at 6/1 with only Ronald Koeman at 5/1 ahead of him
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