Ranieri tops City's list as Thai edges closer to takeover

Claudio Ranieri is now the first choice to become the new manager at Manchester City with a takeover bid from Thaksin Shinawatra likely to arrive as soon as the early part of next week. The former Thai prime minister has kept all negotiations on the issue of a new man tightly guarded but sources close to him say that Ranieri is now top of the list.

The former Chelsea manager yesterday denied that he had been in contact with Manchester City officials, but, given that the deal is being brokered by Thaksin and his advisers, he would not yet have needed to have had any talks with the club itself. Such is the current advanced state of Thaksin's bid that no part is being played by current club officials until after the takeover process is complete.

Ranieri will not be under contract at Parma come the end of the season and, as it stands, the Italian side would not be entitled to any compensation. The 54-year-old Italian has gone some way to rehabilitating his reputation this season by leading Parma out of relegation trouble to 14th place in Serie A. Those who know him have said that he is determined to return to English football and, unlike those out-of-work managers who might expect to manage a bigger club, would not turn his nose up at Manchester City.

The Serie A season has not yet finished and Ranieri is unwilling to make any public commitments until the end of the season. The Dutch manager Louis van Gaal, who is currently at AZ Alkmaar, was another name in the frame but he recently signed a long-term contract that has all but ruled out a move to England. Ranieri fulfils the prospective new City owner's desire to have a foreign coach with experience of managing in the Premiership.

Ranieri took charge of Parma in February after two years out of football including a short-lived stint as Rafael Benitez's successor at Valencia. Come the end of his time at Chelsea in 2005, the Italian was regarded in some quarters as incapable of making up his mind on team selection although the club itself has got no closer to the Champions League title than the semi-finals - which he reached three years ago.

In a recent interview, Ranieri said that he still harboured ambitions of returning to England. "Why not?" he said. "England was amazing for me, for my wife, my family. We had a nice life. I've kept my house in London. I like English football. I like English people. I even like English food."

Thaksin is understood to have been addressing the question of City's debts in the past few days - there are around £19m in private loans and external debts of £32.3m - as a precursor to making a bid for the club.

In Thailand yesterday, he made his first tentative public committal to making a bid for City. He told a Bangkok radio station that if the bid became "a reality" he believed "it would be very beneficial to the image of the country and also beneficial to Thai youth".

The Thaksin deal now appears to have the blessing of the club's two major shareholders, the chairman John Wardle and his business partner David Makin, who own 29.75 per cent of the club between them. They are also owed about £19m in debts. It would appear that Thaksin would follow the model of the Glazer takeover at Manchester United and keep City's executive team in place to run the club.

Ousted from Thailand in a bloodless coup in September, Thaksin, who has a home in London, has been in the country over the past week finalising details of the City takeover bid, which is being put together by the football finance expert Keith Harris.