Bookmakers have been forced to close their books on the next manager at Hull City, with Russian Leonid Slutksky looking set to take charge.

The relegated Tigers have been looking for a new boss after Marco Silva opted not to continue his role with the club, and has since taken up the Watford job.

A host of names had been linked and Nigel Adkins was long-term favourite for the role, but now Hull once again look to have gone down the foreign route with Slutsky.

Slutsky – a good friend of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich – has been based in London since leaving his since leaving his job with CSKA Moscow last December, where he had been in charge for seven years.

Slutsky was also in charge of Russia last year, taking over from Fabio Capello and guiding them to the Euro 2016 finals.

The 46-year-old has been looking for a job in the UK and now looks set to take up the role of trying to get Hull back to the Premier League.

BetVictor were one of those to close their book and their Head of antepost Football Michael Triffitt told us:  “It was closed after good support from 15/8 into 4/6 this morning.

“Plenty of media reports saying an appointment is imminent and rival firms have seemingly laid much shorter odds.

“We would be happy enough with the result as the Russian remains a small winner which, on any manager market, is always classed as an achievement!”