Plymouth appoint Austrian Muslic as new boss

Miron Muslic has been hired as the head coach of Plymouth Argyle.

The 42-year-old Austrian succeeds Wayne Rooney at the Championship’s bottom club and has signed a three-and-a-half year deal.

Muslic held the position of manager of Belgian side Cercle Brugge until his dismissal last month in September 2022.

The former Bosnian-born forward is Argyle’s first-ever foreign manager or head coach, having spent most of his career in Austria.

Chairman Simon Hallett stated on the club website that “Miron had a clear vision of how he wanted to take Argyle forward and showed a depth of tactical awareness that made it clear exactly how he wanted the team to play and set up.”

“He has received positive comments from his time at Cercle Brugge, where he transformed a team from a lowly league position into European football, which is not very impressive.

I’d like to see him make an immediate impact on the team, and I’m happy to welcome him.

Kevin Nancekivell, the interim manager for Argyle, will join Muslic’s backroom team. Additional coaching positions will be announced later.

Before taking over his first game against Oxford United on Tuesday night, he will be in the stands for Saturday’s FA Cup third round match against Brentford.

Muslic led Cercle Brugge to an eighth-placed finish in Belgium’s top flight in his first season in charge.

He made an improvement with their regular season performance last year, which placed them in fourth place in the end-of-season play-offs.

That resulted in them reaching the Uefa Europa League qualifying stages this year, where they defeated Kilmarnock for two legs before being eliminated by Molde, who had previously qualified for the Conference League.

He was sacked at the start of last month with Cercle in the relegation play-off places following a loss at bottom-of-the-table Beerschot.

Muslic is Argyle’s fourth permanent manager in 13 months.

Steven Schumacher, who won the League One title with the Pilgrims in 2023, left the team in December that year to become Stoke City manager.

Former England youth coach Ian Foster replaced him, but during his three-month tenure, the Pilgrims fell into the relegation zone and Neil Dewsnip, the team’s director of football, Nancekivell, who had rescued them on the final day of the season.

Brent Pilnick, BBC Sport, Plymouth.

Plymouth Argyle made a historic change with this. A club chooses an Austrian who has managed in the Belgian top flight but has never appointed a non-British manager and has for the past five years only appointed managers from Liverpool.

They had three final candidates, one of which was former manager Steven Schumacher.

After leading the Pilgrims to a club-record 101-point tally when they won League One in 2023, the ex-Stoke City manager is still incredibly popular there.

Owner Simon Hallett and his team, however, are very data-driven, and they will have used both financial and sporting data to calculate this conclusion.

No wins in two months, a lack of goals, and the English Football League’s most porous defense, according to their clear belief that Muslic is the right man for the job.

In order to improve both defenders’ positions on the field, Argyle have signed Poland left-back Tymoteusz Puchacz and club record signing Michael Baidoo this month. However, more signings will be required.