Southampton agrees terms with Ivan Juric as new head coach

Southampton is close to agreeing to an 18-month deal with Ivan Juric to take over the relegation threatened club.

The deal includes a break option which will be reviewed this summer.

Should Southampton avoid relegation this season, Juric’s contract can be extended by a further two years.

Juric, 49, was recently manager of Roma, who sacked him in November after just 12 matches in charge.

The Southampton job would mark Juric’s first managerial role outside Italy.

The Croat is set to replace Russell Martin, who was sacked by the Saints on Sunday after their 5-0thrashing by Tottenham.

However, Simon Rusk, the interim boss will take charge of the Saints trip to Fulham on Sunday. “I’ve prepared the team, so the sensible thing for me is to wait for a little bit of communication but as it stands, I’m preparing for Sunday’s game.

“We’ve had the players this morning and trained as normal. I don’t know much about the manager situation but I’m sure I’ll get some communication later today,” he said in a press conference ahead of today’s clash.

Juric’s managerial journey

The Croatian manager started his coaching career working under Gian Piero Gasperini – who is currently the head coach at Atalanta.

Juric worked in Gasperini’s coaching staff at Inter Milan andPalermo, before taking his first job at Serie C side Mantova in the 2014-15campaign.

The following season, he took a Serie B job at Crotone and got them promoted to Serie A for the first time in the club’s history that term.

He did not take them into the Italian top-flight though, as he was offered to replace Gasperini at Genoa, which he accepted.

Juric then had three separate spells at Genoa in the space oftwo years – being sacked by the club three times between February 2017 and December 2018.

He finally found stability at Hellas Verona in 2019, who had just been promoted to Serie A.

With one of the smallest budgets in the league, he kept them in the top flight for two straight seasons – before taking the Torino job.

The Croatian left Torino at the end of last season after three seasons in Serie A and took on the Roma job in September of this year after The Friedkin Group sacked fan favourite Daniele de Rossi.

Juric, however, did not even last two months as he was sacked with the Giallorossi four points above the relegation zone.