Robben: Chelsea should keep Ranieri

Arjen Robben: wants Ranieri to stay

Claudio Ranieri today received public backing from his most recent and, possibly, final signing.

Arjen Robben will join Chelsea for £12 million from PSV Eindhoven this summer. But the 20-year-old Dutch international is already concerned that Ranieri, who played a major part in persuading him to choose Chelsea over Manchester United, may not be at the club when he arrives.

Robben said: "It's a bit strange signing for a club where you don't know who the manager will be but in football you're never sure about anything. In a few weeks Ranieri could be fired - but nothing is certain.

" I hope Ranieri stays because we had a meeting and he came across as a man who can work with young players. That's very important.

"Ranieri is a very good trainer who wants to make his players better. He likes young players and has improved youngsters in the past, which is vital to me."

Speculation over Ranieri's future continues to rage. There are unconfirmed reports today that Chelsea are considering a dramatic U-turn over the Italian. It is claimed Roman Abramovich, the club's billionaire owner, has told Ranieri his job will be safe if he wins the Champions League.

The prospect of that increased last night after Deportivo La Coruna's sensational 4-0 second leg victory that knocked out holders AC Milan.

After that result, Chelsea were immediately installed as Champions League favourites.

There is now even talk that Ranieri is a potential target for Real Madrid.

The Football Association have angrily denied stories that Sven-Goran Eriksson has a verbal agreement that he could still walk out of the England job after Euro 2004 to go to Madrid.

With the Swede supposedly unavailable, agents for the Spanish giants are said to have made contact with Ranieri's representatives to organise a meeting next week.

Meanwhile there is also speculation that Inter Milan want Juan Veron.

The Argentine, who cost Chelsea £15m last summer has only played 11 games this season due to a back injury. It is reported that Inter are prepared to pay £9m for him.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in