Journalist Ben Jacobs has stated that Martin O'Neill may have potentially been considered for the Leicester City manager job.
What's the latest manager news at Leicester?
The Foxes have had a simply dreadful season so far. Indeed, the team who won the Premier League in 2016 could soon be relegated from that same division.
With just eight games left to save themselves, Leicester are second bottom, only 25 points and two points from safety.
A 1-0 home loss to relegation rivals Bournemouth last time out summed up the club's recent form and they went into that game without a manager having just sacked Brendan Rodgers.
It has since been announced that former Aston Villa and Norwich City boss Dean Smith will take charge until the end of the season, with Craig Shakespeare as his assistant.
Before the club landed on that decision, however, it seems as though they considered a shock option for the job.
Indeed, while talking on NUFC Matters, Jacobs said (51:23): "I heard on the grapevine through a few sources that even a sort of Martin O'Neill was being looked at in the short term.
"How much substance to that there is, I'm not entirely sure."
Would Martin O'Neill have been a good appointment for Leicester?
It's a bit of a shock to see O'Neill's name come up as he has not been a Premier League manager since his spell with Sunderland between 2011 and 2013.
In fact, he has not been the head coach at any club for a few years now, with his last job being a 19-game stint with Nottingham Forest in 2019.
Of course, time with Leicester City in the past – he took charge of 178 games between 1995 and 2000 – means he is well-known to the club, but an awful lot of time has passed since then.
With that in mind, it certainly would have been a huge risk to throw the 71-year-old in at the deep end and help keep the Foxes from relegation.
Still, there are some who have doubts about the club's ability to come through this destabilising period regardless of who is in charge.
For instance, before Smith was announced as interim, pundit Chris Sutton told BBC Radio 5 Live (via LeicestershireLive): "The owner has made such a mess of this. It is staggering what has happened.
"They sacked an experienced manager with a good track record. Things haven't gone well this season, but I do not understand how this situation has come about.
"We had the international break where, if they were not happy with Rodgers then, they should have sacked him and brought a replacement in.
"I thought in this multi-billion dollar industry that clubs plan for all circumstances, so if a manager has to go they would have a list of ready-made replacements – Leicester haven't. They have made it up as they have gone along and it is absolute panic."
