Former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri insists he is in the dark about a possible return to the Premiership with Manchester City.

However the Parma coach, who is out of contract at the end of the season, admits he loves "the mentality of English football".

Bookmakers in Britain yesterday closed bets on Ranieri succeeding Stuart Pearce as manager.

That situation apparently took the Italian coach by surprise and he said: "Nobody has contacted me from Manchester City - I don't know anything at the moment. I love the mentality and atmosphere of English football and want to work there again one day.

"There are a lot of champions, a lot of good teams and the fans are fantastic. I enjoyed my time at Chelsea a lot. But my mind is 100 per cent on Parma right now."

Louis Van Gaal, Ronald Koeman and Gerard Houllier have all indicated they would not be prepared to join City.

Ranieri took charge of Parma in February after two years out of football and under his stewardship they have a great chance of staying up.

He added: "We have made a lot of progress, winning three of our last five games, but not enough at the moment, because we can still go down. I want to finish the season very, very well. When I arrived here, nobody believed we would be safe at the end of the season.

"Now we are doing a very, very good job and must continue."