Liverpool have vehemently dismissed claims they have approached Carlo Ancelotti about the possibility of succeeding manager Brendan Rodgers.
A report claimed the veteran Italian, a Champions League winner with AC Milan and Real Madrid, had been sounded out by owners Fenway Sports Group about taking over at Anfield.
However, that was immediately rubbished by the club with sources suggesting such a move would be completely out of character with the way the Americans have run things to date.
Rodgers survived a robust end of season review after a dismal finale to a campaign which reached its nadir with the 6-1 humbling at Stoke on the final day.
Having retained the backing of FSG - despite losing his assistant manager and close friend Colin Pascoe and coach Mike Marsh in an enforced backroom shake-up - he was then given the best part of £80million to spend on new signings, splashing £32.5million on his primary target Christian Benteke and a potential £29million on Roberto Firmino.
Neither have found their feet so far and Rodgers is still searching for his best XI and formation having switched from 4-3-3 to 3-4-1-2 in Sunday's home draw with Norwich.
But despite a stuttering start to this season - they have not won in five matches - leaving them 13th in the Premier League but only four points off fourth place, which remains the minimum target for Rodgers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here