Ranieri: I was in talks with Southampton

Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri revealed he was in the running to replace Mauricio Pochettino at Southampton in 2014.

Ranieri claims he held talks with Southampton, who eventually opted for Ronald Koeman, a year ago and before he took charge of Greece.

The 63-year-old's Greece spell was short-lived, sacked after just four months.

Ranieri, however, is flying high in his first season as manager of Leicester, who are fifth in the Premier League this term.

Speaking before Saturday's trip to Southampton, Ranieri said: "I was interested, but after that there was also the Greece job - and I made a mistake. It was important that it was the right moment - and it [Southampton] wasn't the right moment for me.

"This is the right moment at Leicester. Southampton has a very good project, they want to be at a high level. They started it with Mauricio Pochettino a long time ago.

"Now we are starting, we are a little bit behind, but we want to fight and arrive. We want to emulate our project, we don't want to emulate another project."