Goodness, that has a familar ring to it. Perhaps it’s because Luiz Felipe Scolari was in line to replace Sven-Goran Eriksson as England manager two years ago, before the Brazilian decided he could do without the hassle of being hounded by the press on a 24 / 7 basis. Nevertheless, Manchester City owner Thaksin Shinawatra is dangling a rather large carrot in the direction of the Portugal coach, and The Times reports that he’s rather determined to land his man.

Clearly, the reported £3.2million a year is not going to be a sticking point for ‘Big Phil’, although the upping of sticks to Manchester is obviously a rather large consideration, as too is the task in hand of trying to assemble a team worthy of playing in the Champions League. ‘Frank’ has also made it clear that he wants an answer pretty soon, although Scolari is concentrating on Euro 2008 right now and is likely to stall.

Scolari, 59, is expected to pursue a new challenge once his contract with the Portuguese federation expires in July, but he said last week that he would not make a decision until after the tournament. That leaves City with the prospect of being without a manager for the whole of June - as they were last summer after the dismissal of Stuart Pearce - although it has emerged that Eriksson may be given an unwelcome stay of execution to take his squad on an end-of-season trip to Thailand and Hong Kong.

Whatever you think of Eriksson, it must be said that he’s handled the matter with complete dignity, refusing to be drawn on his future with the club. Indeed, if Scolari decides that the gig isn’t for him (can’t think why he’d wanted to work with a deluded megalomaniac - there’s no pleasing some people!), the Swede could end up seeing out his three-year contract after all.

Watch Manchester City live online