Leeds United's rivals poised to name former Southampton man as new manager

Hull City are set to name Ruben Selles as their new manager following their decision to sack Tim Walter last week. The Spaniard is poised to join Leeds United’s Championship rivals from Reading in League One.

The 41-year-old has done an impressive job with the Royals under difficult circumstances over the past year-and-a-half. They stayed up last season despite point deductions and are currently sat in 6th place in the third tier play-offs.

Leeds beat Hull 2-0 at Elland Road back in August after goals by Mateo Joseph and Joel Piroe. It has been a tough campaign for the Tigers so far and they are in the relegation zone along with QPR and Portsmouth.

They haven’t won in their last 10 games and have lost their last five on the spin. The East Yorkshire outfit opted to part ways with Walter amid their poor run of form and will hope that Selles can help lift them up the table.

He has previously managed Southampton and has also held coaching roles in the past with the likes of Valencia, Aarhus and Copenhagen.

In an interview with Coaches Voice back in May, he said: “Looking ahead, longer-term, my ambition is always to come back to the top level and try to compete against the very best teams. Hopefully, one day, I can complete that by doing it with the national team of my country.

“Right now, I have a fantastic group at Reading that I would really like to continue working with. But we need to see what happens with the takeover. It can be that the takeover doesn’t happen. Nobody from the club deserves to have a season like the last one, with points deductions, uncertainty every payday, not being able to go to hotels the day before the game, waking up one day and seeing that they intend to sell the training ground. That chaos, we cannot have again.

“We need to focus on bringing the love of football to the players, staff and fans. Then I believe we could have a lot of fun.”

Hull placed Andy Dawson in caretaker charge following Walter’s dismissal and he oversaw their match away at Middlesbrough last time out. However, they were beaten 3-1 at the Riverside Stadium.

The Tigers will want to bounce back from that loss with a positive result at home to Blackburn Rovers this weekend. Their upcoming opponents have won three on the spin and will be in confident mood after beating Leeds 1-0 at Ewood Park in their last outing after Todd Cantwell’s penalty.

As for the Whites, they take on Derby County at Elland Road on Saturday. They are 3rd in the division behind Sheffield United and Burnley and will want to get back to winning ways against the Rams after losing to Blackburn.