When it was announced that Jesse Marsch had been sacked from Leeds United, one of the first names to be mentioned as a potential replacement was Andoni Iraola.
The Rayo Vallecano manager has been working wonders at the La Liga side, with them currently 6th in the table after 21 games, which clearly caught the eye of Victor Orta.
The problem for Leeds was that the Spanish side were not interested in negotiating an exit for their manager, pointing to his release clause if they wanted to talk to him, and Iraola himself didn’t really want to force an exit by triggering it.
That led to Iraola staying and the Elland Road club having to look elsewhere for their next manager, and are still doing so, failing in their attempts to sign the likes of Arne Slot and Marcelo Gallardo.
That means Michael Skubala will remain in charge for the foreseeable future, and could very well see out the season if Leeds don’t find anyone, hoping that he can keep them up after two improved performances in their last two games, both against Manchester United.
Should that happen, then the chance of getting Iraola will be far greater, as Union Rayo reported on Tuesday.
They state that Rayo Vallecano ‘know that it will be very difficult to get Iraola to continue’ on their bench next season, and there are two reasons for that.
The first is that he already received a ‘great offer’ from Leeds in the past few weeks, which shows that he is in demand, and the second is his contractual situation, as his current deal ‘ends on June 30th’.
They hope, though, is for him to stay at least another season at Rayo, especially if they were to qualify for European football when their initial aim was to avoid relegation.
