Ranieri takes charge at Juve

I expected the stories linking the vacant job at Juve with Claudio Ranieri to be nothing more than idle speculation - especially given the comments attributed to him that appeared to suggest he had all but taken the City job (in principle at least), but today's announcement that he has succeeded Didier Deschamps at the newly-promoted side was certainly a shock and has left most Blues in a state of flux.

No real reasons have come out thus far to suggest his reasons for taking the Juve job over he City one (merely some hyperbole at the press conference), so it appears that either:

a) He was keen to take the City job, and may have tentatively agreed to take charge, only for the lure of the Juve post to turn his head at the last minute.

Or perhaps more worryingly,

b) He became disenchanted/concerned at the time the takeover appears to be taking and decided he couldn't wait around for something that may not come to fruition - particularly with an offer from Juve landing on his doorstep.

It has certainly put people in pessimistic mood, with a shortlist of Ranieri, Houllier, Eriksson etc now appearing to comprise Jewell, Warnock and Souness.

Perhaps ofmost concern is that this is now throwing weight behind the rumour that the Shinawatra takeover is soon to be dead in the water - leading to the prospect of the current board remaining in charge and scratching around for a replacement for Pearce (how foolish would they then appear) echoing a situation just over ten years ago when Alan Ball arrived at the club ludicrously late in the day to try and assemble a side with little or no budget.

Yet again though, our board are remaining extremely quiet over the whole affair - not even so much as a 'We are conducting a thorough search for the next manager and have targets in sight' type message, leaving most to the conclusion that there is nothing but confusion reigning at the club at the present time.

The silence is beginning to speak volumes.