A delighted Eriksson, who could not have hoped for a better display from his new side after a 2-1 win at Leeds, said Vassell had passed his medical and was ready to return for a second spell with Leicester after failing to settle in Turkey with Ankaragucu.

While Rooney is pondering his future after the day's revelations at Manchester United his former England boss appears to have made an instant impression on his return to English football. Kyle Naughton, on loan from Tottenham, fired his first goal for Leicester after a defensive slip in the 63rd minute and late substitute Steve Howard slid home the decisive second with nine minutes remaining.

Luciano Becchio set up a grandstand finish when he headed home two minutes later, but it was too little too late for Leeds, who had been outmuscled, overrun and outplayed by Eriksson's new charges

Leicester had won only two of their 10 league games before the Swede succeeded Paulo Sousa in charge earlier this month and Eriksson said: "I'm pleased with the result, but more with the way we played and that we played football for 90 minutes. I don't think we did that very well last Saturday.

"Of course you think it's going to be one of those days, I've seen it before so many times, you play well, create a lot of chances and you don't score.

"But finally we scored and we deserved to win today, I only hope we can go on playing as we did today.

"We wanted to see a more mobile team out there. It was good performance and at the end the team showed great heart, great spirit."

Eriksson confirmed he expects the signing of Vassell to go through without any hitches and admitted he would never have envisaged Rooney leaving Old Trafford.

Eriksson added: "It is a big surprise of course. Yes, I saw the (Sir Alex Ferguson) interview this afternoon - well, he can always come to us if he wants. We'll take him.

"I have no idea where he will go or if he is going to leave. The last word is not said yet."

Leeds have now lost three of their six league games at Elland Road this season and looked a shadow of the side that had bounced back from a stunning 6-4 defeat to Preston in their last home game to win 2-1 at Middlesbrough on Saturday.

Manager Simon Grayson expressed his frustration at his players' inconsistency, but gave credit to an impressive Leicester performance.

He said: "It's frustrating. We wanted to try and build on the weekend's result, but it probably typifies our season so far.

"We're very inconsistent. We played very well at the weekend, did a lot of good things, had energy, had quality, desire, but tonight we didn't do any of those things very well.

"We were dictated to by Leicester from the start. They played very well and you've got to give them credit, but we didn't do the good things we're capable of."