ARSENE Wenger’s former protege Claude Puel has emerged as the latest name to be heavily touted as Ronald Koeman’s replacement at Saints.

Puel and the Arsenal manager worked together at Monaco where Wenger encouraged the former Nice boss to combine playing and coaching duties.

The skills he learned under Wenger, he could now bring to Saints.

Puel, who helped bring through Arsenal legend Thierry Henry at Monaco, has been linked heavily with the vacant St Mary’s role and a reunion in the Premier League with the Emirates Stadium boss.

Who do the bookies think will be heading for the Saints hot seat?

The latest is that the 54-year-old joins fellow Frenchman Rudi Garcia and Dutchman Frank De Boer in the bookmakers’ top three for the St Mary’s role, after his odds tumbled over the past 24 hours.

Ex-Roma boss Garcia, who admits he is the market for a new challenge, became favourite for the role and was said to be on the club’s shortlist for the role recently, but is no longer regarded as an option.

There is fresh speculation that Puel is on Les Reed’s shortlist, with a swathe of money being placed on someone who was a complete outsider until now.

As of last night, he was being backed at 4-1 for the role as the bookies slashed his odds.

Puel, who played for Monaco through the 1980s and 1990s, was most recently boss at Nice, where he led Les Aiglons to a lofty fourth-place finish in Ligue 1 on a fairly tight budget last season.

He managed to tame the mercurial talents of former Newcastle forward Hatem Ben Arfa, who scored prolifically for the Allianz Riviera outfit last term.

The former Hull City loan man enjoyed a renaissance following a torrid time in England, scoring 18 goals in the league under Puel.

Wenger and Puel are said to have been close since 1988, when the latter was a key man in Monaco’s title triumph under the Gunners manager.

Puel helped coach youth players while playing in the first team.

Two years after Wenger left in 1996, Puel stepped up into the role of reserve team boss, where he coached Henry.

The legendary striker claimed that Puel was an important influence on his career.

Puel then stepped up to be first team manager at Monaco where he won the Ligue 1 title in 1999/2000.

While out of work in the early 2000s, he joined Wenger at the Arsenal training ground where he continued the education he had started at Monaco.

In 2002 he was appointed manager at Lille and on a small budget managed to regularly compete with the big guns in the French top-flight.

After six years at Stade Pierre-Mauroy he was head hunted by Lyon before switching his attentions to Nice in 2012.

He has built a reputation of being able to manage a club on a budget and still deliver success.

At the end of this season he left Nice and was said to be in talks with Belgian giants Anderlecht as well as Bordeaux.

Although he has had little managerial experience outside France, he has a vastly experienced mentor in Arsene Wenger as well as an understanding of what it takes to lead a team into European competition.