Puel no longer Nice manager

Highly-respected French coach Claude Puel has resigned from his job in the dug-out at Ligue 1's Nice, a joint statement revealed on Tuesday.

Puel has previously coached Olympique Lyon and famously took Monaco to the 2004 Champions League final, while this season he gave a free role to France forward Hatem Ben Arfa as the side finished fourth in France. “We came to a common decision not to continue our adventure,” a statement said on Nice's website on the end of a four year collaboration.

The move will likely be taken badly by the club's fans, who are also set to lose their star player Ben Arfa in June after their highest league finish for 30 years. As well as his run to the Champions League and French League victory at Monaco, Puel also led Lyon to the Champions League semi-final in 2010, and guided Lille to a 2004 Intertoto Cup and a French league runners-up spot in 2005.