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Portuguese Boss Claims Town Talks - Ipswich Town News

Portuguese manager José Gomes, who is currently in charge of Saudi Arabian side Al-Taawoun, is reported to have claimed he is in what are described as "early negotiations" with Town.

According to RTP News, Gomes told radio station Antena 1 that he has begun discussions with the Blues regarding the manager’s position which will become vacant when Mick McCarthy moves on in the summer.

"The enthusiasm is very big regarding the conversations and meetings that my agent has had in England,” Sport Witness quotes Gomes as having said in the interview.

"Because getting into a league like the Championship would indeed be extraordinary for my career.

"Football in England would be the embrace of a dream. Because it’s football with a contagious enthusiasm, with a lot of intensity, even in Championship we see stadiums filled with 20,000, 30,000 spectators in every game.”

While it might well be true that 47-year-old Gomes’s representatives have made contact with Town, the much-travelled boss, who is also said to be interesting another Saudi club Al-Hilal, would appear a very unlikely successor to McCarthy.

Gomes’s numerous previous clubs include Portuguese sides Leiria, Moreirense and Aves, as well a stint in in Hungary with Videoton and spells as an assistant at Porto, in Spain at Malaga and in Greece with Panathinaikos.

Elsewhere, former Blues loanee David Unsworth, 44, currently U23s coach and director of coaching at Everton, is said to be among those interested in the Town job.

Unsworth's only experience in first-team management up to now are spells as caretaker-boss at Preston and with the Toffeemen.

VVV-Venlo boss Maurice Steijn is again being linked with the Blues having been erroneously rumoured to be a Town target last summer.

The 44-year-old Dutchman has been tipped for a move to a bigger club this summer but would appear very much an outsider for the Portman Road job.

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