Rumors emerge of approach for Luciano Spalletti to manage Napoli

Napoli certainly don't seem to be screwing around in their hunt for a new manager. Within days of the report that Aurelio De Laurentiis won't offer Rafa Benitez a new contract, a report only reinforced by the club's implosion against Lazio, Napoli have been linked to a raft of candidates who are actually very plausible by some sources that generally don't make things up out of whole cloth.

Among all the talk of Sinisa Mihajlovic or Vincenzo Montella or Cesare Prandelli (please no) or even a return of Walter Mazzarri, one report is standing out from the rest, one that indicates that De Laurentiis and Napoli may have already had extensive talks with former Roma and Zenit boss Luciano Spalletti.

The 56 year old Italian has been unemployed for a year -- though Spalletti is still receiving his salary from Zenit as contractual compensation after getting sacked -- and seems ready to get back in to management. There's been talk of him wanting "a major project in Italy," which Napoli would certainly qualify for, and his longtime assistant manage spoke several weeks ago about Spalletti being very interested and even eager to take the Napoli job if it's offered.

Now an offer may just have been made, with Sportsmediaset even indicating that framework of a contract may already be in place. It'd certainly be an intriguing hire and seems on the surface to be a far better option than some of the other names that have been bandied about in recent months -- sorry Walter -- and it would be interesting to see how the team takes shape under his leadership.

Of course, we're still a long ways from anything being official, and at this point it's hard to say it's even likely that Spalletti joins Napoli. There's still a lot of things up in the air, but for now at least we have some indication of the direction Napoli seem to be going in.

All we ask for now is good news. No specifics beyond that, just good news.