Southampton New Manager: 6 Candidates To Replace Mauricio Pochettino

5. Dan Petrescu

Often a club can turn to a former player in a time of managerial need and, although old Saints favourites Mark Hughes and Kevin Keegan seem like yesterday's men, they are by no means the only options for a club that has had an enormous number of players pass through their doors, many of whom have since become highly rated managers. Dan Petrescu arrived at Southampton in 2001, bought by Glenn Hoddle the manager who signed him for Chelsea. Petrescu had five extremely successful years in the Premier League with the Blues, but his playing career was beginning to wind down when he played for Southampton as he slipped out of the first team after a strong start. Still, if the Romanian, who remains an admired player in England, is looking for a Premiership return as speculated when he was linked with the Crystal Palace job last year, then he could be said to have more to prove for Southampton. A season after leaving Saints, Petrescu retired to pursue a career as a coach, eventually winding up at Unirea Urziceni, newly promoted to the Romanian top flight. Under Petrescu's guidance the small club would win first the Romanian Cup, then qualify for the UEFA Cup where they beat Rangers and Sevilla, and finally win the Romanian title. On leaving Unirea, Petrescu joined Russian club Kuban Krasnodar, taking the club up from the Russian First Division with a comfortable title win in which the Cossacks only conceded 20 goals. In their first year back in the Russian Premier League, Kuban finished 6th in the regular season and Petrescu moved to the more traditional challengers Dynamo Moscow, the first significant failure of a successful managerial career that suggests Petrescu may do better at unfancied clubs than those with high expectations. Petrescu credits his success at taking teams from a lower league and establishing them as top flight contenders, something Pochettino has done at Southampton, as coming from what he learnt playing in England and his application of a hands on English style training routine. Perhaps now is the time to try that in England itself.