Friendship with Rudkin means City are on Dyche's watch-list!

LEICESTER City are one of the few clubs Sean Dyche would go to watch as an out-of-work manager because of his friendship with the club's director of football Jon Rudkin, writes Jordan Blackwell.

- By Jordan Blackwell

Dyche is the new favourite to take over from Ruud van Nistelrooy at the King Power Stadium, whose future is in considerable doubt ahead of the Championship campaign.

The former Burnley and Everton manager has been a target for City previously, in 2017, before Claude Puel was appointed. He has never previously been out of work when City have changed managers.

Earlier this year, Dyche revealed that he has an existing relationship with City director of football Rudkin, whom he knows “really well from youth days”.

Before stepping into his current role, Rudkin was City’s academy manager and so may have crossed paths with Dyche when he started his coaching career with Watford's Under-18s.