Who is Shota Arveladze? The former centre-forward set to manage Hull City after a serious apprenticeship

With Grant McCann's sacking as Hull City thought to be imminent, the 48-year-old Georgian is hotly-tipped to replace him.

Arveladze has never worked in English football before but he has some coaching pedigree having cut his teeth under Louis van Gaal, Ronald Koeman and Dick Advocaat and left his last job as a serial winner.

In between time came the five years in the Turkish Super Liga which are almost certainly how he came to the attention of Hull's new owner Acun Ilicali.

It was Advocaat who brought Arveladze to Scotland in 2001, signing him from Ajax.

He played his part in two treble-winning seasons, scoring 44 goals in 95 league appearances over four years before returning to Holland with AZ Alkmaar, a move that would be influential in his coaching career.

Georgia's all-time leading scorer finished his career at Levante in a one-year spell ruined by injury and when he retired, van Gaal brought him back to Alkmaar as his assistant.

When the former Barcelona coach moved on, Arveladze stayed to work alongside a future one in Koeman, then Advocaat. All three have managed the Netherlands, and in the Premier League.

He began his managerial career in Turkey with two years as manager of Kayserispor, followed by two at Kasimpasa and a short-lived spell at Trabzonspor, the club he moved to when he left Tblisi as a 21-year-old. His managerial career there was far less successful than his prolific time as a striker, sacked after only 15 matches.

In his next job, he qualified Maccabi Tel Aviv for the Europa League in his first season, but was sacked when they failed to get out of their group.

Encouragingly, his most recent managerial job has been his most successful.

As the only side from the country to have played in the old Soviet league, Pakhtakor Tashkent are the biggest club in Uzbekistan football and Arveladze upheld their reputation with two league titles, two Uzbekistan Cups and the club's first league cup in a five-year spell which came to an end at Christmas 2020.

Now the 48-year-old looks set to face a new challenge in a new league, but McCann's parting gift to the club has at least made his job easier. The Northern Irishman beat promotion hopefuls Blackburn Rovers and Bournemouth in his final week as coach to open the gap to the Championship relegation zone to 10 points.

Arveladze is expected to work alongside a new director of football in former Turkish agent Tan Kesler, and Merthan Acil, a midfielder who left Kasimpasa months before Arveladze arrived, has been sat with Turkish television mogul Ilicali at both Hull games he has attended. Former Sunderland, Notts County and Scunthorpe United chief executive Jim Rodwell was also with Ilicali at the FA Cup tie with Everton.