Leganes want to appoint former boss Asier Garitano following the club’s relegation and imminent departure of Javier Aguirre.
Garitano coached Leganes across five seasons and won two promotions, taking the club from Segunda B to La Liga – he left in 2018 and had subsequent stints at Real Sociedad and Alaves, whom he left earlier this month.
As reported by Marca, the managerial switch is expected imminently with 13 players also set to exit Lega as their deals at the club expire.
Mexican Aguirre was unable to maintain Lega’s status in the top-flight despite a spirited run-in to the season which saw them unbeaten across their final five league games.
Indeed, Leganes took their battle right to the end of the campaign, coming back from behind twice to draw 2-2 with Real Madrid and putting the Spanish champions on the ropes late on.
However, it was not enough to beat the drop despite Celta Vigo only managing a point away to relegated Espanyol – meaning Aguirre’s side fell just one point short of the Galician side’s tally.
Sunday’s result had followed a run of four successive clean sheets which also took in victories over Espanyol, Athletic Club Bilbao and Valencia.
Aguirre was appointed at the Madrid-based club in November with the club at the foot of La Liga and despite an initial upturn in results, has had to deal with an increasingly challenging situation.
In January, star forward Youssef En-Nesyri was sold to Sevilla and the following month the club were powerless to stop their other main striking option Martin Braithwaite joining Barcelona in an ‘emergency’ transfer when his release clause was activated.
Leganes were comfortably the lowest scorers in the division with just 30 goals in 38 matches and were never unable to recover from the mid-season loss of star strikers Youssef En-Nesyri and Martin Braithwaite.
Indeed, going into the final run of matches, midfielder Oscar Rodriguez – on loan from Real Madrid – was the only player in Lega’s first-team squad to have more than one league goal all campaign.
Aguirre has previously coached a plethora of teams in Spain including Atletico Madrid, Osasuna, Real Zaragoza and, most recently, Espanyol between 2012 and 2014.
He has also coached a variety of international sides – Mexico, Japan and Egypt – the latter of whom he left last year.
