By Omar Shahid
3 Jun 2011 19:25:00
EPL,Mark Hughes,Fulham,Manchester City vs Fulham
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Former Fulham manager Mark Hughes would be honoured if Chelsea approached him to be their new manager, his agent Kia Joorabchian has revealed.
Hughes departed from Craven Cottage on Thursday and asked whether the Blues’ position would interest the former Wales boss, Joorabchian told Sky Sports News: “I think you are now talking about big clubs like Chelsea that Mark has aspirations to manage.
“But Chelsea clearly, they have some candidates at the moment and we will wait and see. I’m sure that if they approach Mark, then Mark would be more than happy to speak with them, it would probably be an honour for him.
“But at the moment, again like I tell you, we have not spoken to any single club or anything.
“It why he left Fulham was first and foremost to determine Mark’s future at Fulham and now we have done that he can start to rest a little bit and we’ll explore the options in the next few weeks.”
Joorabchian also made clear that Hughes is not just looking for the first available job, and would consider managing abroad: “He wants to go to club where he can fight for titles, whether that is in England, Spain, Italy or Portugal.
“If that means he has to be out of management for a year then that is the case. Mark left Fulham because he wanted to explore his aspirations.
“Mark made his aspiration clear when he first signed his contract last year. One of the things that he looked for was to see if Fulham wanted to go to the next level.
“If the ambitions didn’t align then he didn’t think it would be fair to stay in the job if he was looking over his shoulder all the time.”
There has been speculation linking Hughes with the vacant Aston Villa job, but his agent has dismissed claims that the former Fulham boss left the club to go to Villa Park: “Maybe the timing may have influenced the press and the public to believe that he was heading towards a direction but that was not the case whatsoever.
“Mark is contracted, the season finishes theoretically in employment terms at the end of June and he is free to join whichever club he wants to, if there is an offer for him on 1st July.
“Villa have their own direction, they have to go in their own route, they have to take who they believe is the correct manager for them.
“Mark’s motivation was – and I hope that today it is clearer with the public – that this was not motivated by any particular job or job that was coming up.
“So he’s ambitious, he wants to improve on that and he wants to take it to the next level and I think he felt the honourable thing to do was to be honest with Fulham and tell them the truth rather than string them along and be in a job and be looking over your shoulder and looking for something else.
Joorabchian went on to discuss Hughes’ ambition to manage at the highest level, and feels he has proven track record in club management in England.
“He’s an ambitious manager – he’s young, he’s ambitious, he’s talented – I think everyone that knows him and all your guests have all said he’s done a great job at Blackburn, he did a great job at City,” he said.
“You look at the players he brought into City like Kompany, Lescott, Nigel De Jong, Zabaleta, Barry, Tevez, they’re all the players at the moment that got City into the Champions League, they’ve won the FA Cup, he built a solid fundamental base there when he left.
“He’s done the same at Fulham. He’s spent no money at Fulham – net I think he probably came out even – but he’s brought in the likes of Dembele, they sold Konchesky for £4 million and brought Salcido for £1.5 million.”