In-demand Carlos Corberan still dreams of taking a team from the Championship to the Premier League - but he did not believe Huddersfield Town could do it this season

And the former Leeds United coach says that remains his ambition as Middlesbrough, West Bromwich Albion and Hull City are all linked with the out-of-work Spaniard.

In his second season in charge of the Terriers, Corberan surprisingly took them to the Championship play-off final where despite a disappointing performance against Nottingham Forest, the outcome could have been different but for two poor video assistant referee decisions.

But Huddersfield are run along very tight financial lines, and ended up selling two of their best players – Lewis O'Brien and Harry Toffolo – to Forest for just £10m in the summer without a huge investment in replacements.

Corberan, whose 2021-22 campaign had come in spite of a similarly frugal summer transfer window, decided early in pre-season (and before the sale of O'Brien and Toffolo) it was time to move on.

Shortly after leaving he became the new Olympiakos coach, but was sacked after just 11 games. Town sacked his successor, Danny Schofield, after nine.

"It was a complicated decision to make," he said of his surprisingly-timed resignation. "It's true that after being at Wembley, the only target you need to have is to fight to go again and to achieve the promotion we couldn't achieve.

"It was the only possibility that I understand as a football coach. After we finished the final I was talking with the club and we were creating a plan to see how we could go into the next year and how we could go about achieving promotion.

"In the pre-season I was thinking that we weren't close enough in that game or with the plan that we were creating with the club. So I was thinking that the best thing was to step back and that my time was over at that moment because we couldn't fix the idea that we had at the beginning."

Corberan, who came to England to coach Leeds' under-23s and became Marcelo Bielsa's assistant, wants to return to English football's second tier, which probably explains why he is putting himself out there for interview.

He has been linked with Middlesbrough, where Michael Carrick is considered more likely to be the next manager, and is reportedly on a three-man shortlist to replace Steve Bruce at West Brom. Despite speculation to the contrary, he is not thought to be high in Hull's thinking.

"When we finished the (play-off final), my feeling was clear, I want to come back here again and I want to achieve,” said Corberan. “I feel like I didn't finish my job here in England because it was a dream to put a team from the Championship into the Premier League."