Saturday 8 April 2017 23:24, UK
Former Leicester boss Nigel Pearson has told Craig Shakespeare to take the manager's job if he is offered it full-time.
Shakespeare, assistant to Pearson at Leicester and Hull, has won all six games since replacing sacked Claudio Ranieri on an interim basis.
No other British boss has won his first five Premier League games, and victory at Everton on Sunday would make him just the third man to win his first six after Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola.
Shakespeare is yet to be offered the job full-time and says he is still unsure if he would take it, but his old boss Pearson has offered encouragement.
Shakespeare said: "I don't know. The contract is purely until the end of the season and I've stated before that any time the owners want to speak...if not then we'll sit down at the end of the season and that's fine by me.
"I've said at the beginning that I think I can do the job and it doesn't faze me, but there are other aspects to it. Do I think I'm a better assistant as I am a first-team manager? And these are the questions I review myself."
When asked if Pearson had encouraged him to go for it, he replied: "Yes, he has done in the past. I'm not in regular contact with him, I never was. We have spoke a couple of times but nothing at great length."
Pearson was sacked by Leicester in the summer of 2015, just weeks after masterminding an unlikely escape from relegation.
Having worked alongside Pearson for so long, was there any awkwardness now that Shakespeare has the job?
"No, I think there would have been if it had been straight after. But with the time frame and everything considered it didn't feel awkward on both our parts," said Shakespeare.
"At the moment it's only until the end of the season. I've asked the team to focus on each game at a time and it's important that if I'm asking the players to do that then I do that too as manager. I think that's important."
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