Will Quique Sanchez Flores be the next manager at Leeds United?

Oh goodie, yet another name out of Spain.

Former Watford boss Quique Sanchez Flores is the latest Spaniard to be rumored to be in the running for the manager position at Leeds United. As a player, he played ten years at Valencia before moving to Real Madrid. The current RCD Espanyol boss has held a variety of managerial positions in Spain, from coaching the youth team at Real Madrid to qualifying for the Champions League twice at Valencia. He has also managed Getafe on two separate occasions, a couple of clubs in the United Arab Emirates, Portuguese giants Benfica, and Atletico Madrid. His record at both Valencia and SL Benfica are quite impressive, winning over 50% of his matches at both clubs.

His record at Watford FC was actually fairly impressive for a newly promoted team. The team finished with 45 points and in 13th place in the table, compared to the Watford team last season that limped to a 17th place finish with 40 points. His dismissal from the club seemed to be more of a result of the impatience of the board than with the results on the pitch by a newly promoted team. The family that owns Watford has gone through managers at an alarming rate and seemed to ignore the FA Cup run in 2016 by Watford under Flores where the team lost in the semi-finals to Crystal Palace.

At his latest stop, Espanyol, Flores managed to get the team into 8th place in the table on 56 points, winning 15 matches in charge of Barcelona’s less fashionable city neighbor. While 8th place is a far cry from his time at the helm of Valencia, it is still a good result given the resources that he had to work with.

This seems like a fairly credible rumor for a number of reasons. First, Flores might still have something to prove in English football after his untimely dismissal at Watford. He also worked with Ivan Bravo at Real Madrid, as Bravo started at Madrid in 2003 and Flores coached the youth team until 2004. He would also have been a contemporary in Spanish football to Victor Orta, as both of them were at clubs that competed for European places in table while Flores was at both Valencia and Atletico Madrid.

Time will tell, of course, but Leeds could do a lot worse than Flores. Like Alan Pardew or Sam Allardyce. While everyone might be dreaming of Claudio Ranieri, a guy like Flores might come in and get it done and provide some stability to the team.