Report claims West Ham are lining up Lazio boss Simone Inzaghi who was famously slapped by legend Paolo Di Canio

West Ham United are reportedly lining up Lazio boss Simone Inzaghi as a replacement for Manuel Pellegrini.

West Ham have plummeted from third in the Premier League to the brink of the relegation zone in less than three months.

As a result Pellegrini’s future is in serious doubt.

Defeat to Southampton on Saturday will almost certainly spell the end of the Chilean’s Hammers tenure.

The latest is Italian Simone Inzaghi, according to The Guardian.

The newspaper claims West Ham have ‘great admiration’ for the manager of Lazio, a club with close ties to the Hammers from the Paolo Di Canio days.

Indeed Inzaghi and Di Canio were teammates in Rome when the West Ham legend returned to his beloved Lazio after his time in London.

And the pair had a very public spat over a penalty during a game which saw Di Canio slap Inzaghi and later brand him ‘selfish’ and ‘gutless’.

“With Inzaghi, it was my first game after 16 years away from Lazio, my Lazio, with the score 0-0 and a penalty awarded – you need a brain the size of a peanut to think that I wouldn’t take it,” Di Canio told Four Four Two back in 2006.

“Inzaghi is selfish. 
He prefers to lose 4-3 and score a hat-trick than win 3-0 without scoring – the complete opposite of me.

“Inzaghi had missed 
a penalty a year before because he’d tried to chip the ball and he thought he had the right to break my balls at my Lazio?

“Do you know what he told me in the dressing room? Nothing. He had no guts.”

That was a long time ago now of course.

And the pair may well be friends now.

All that matters to West Ham fans is the team’s performances on the pitch and seeing signs of progress.

Inzaghi has won two trophies in three years with Lazio and has guided them to three consecutive fifth place finishes in Serie A.

He boasts a superb win ratio of 53% and his side has scored 335 goals in the 176 games he has overseen with a positive goal difference of 113.