COLCHESTER United chairman Robbie Cowling has no particular successor in mind, following Geraint Williams' departure as U's boss yesterday.

Carl Marston

COLCHESTER United chairman Robbie Cowling has no particular successor in mind, following Geraint Williams' departure as U's boss yesterday.

But he is likely to have a big pool of excellent candidates to choose from, and so is unlikely to name a new manager before the end of this month.

Furthermore, Cowling also revealed that he will be appointing a technical analyst to work alongside the new manager.

“I have no idea who the new manager will be as yet. I have not even considered it,” admitted Mr Cowling.

“All I know is that I have had a lot of calls from managers' agents already, and I will be expecting a lot of applications to come in over the next couple of weeks.

“We will have to consider who applies and draw up a short-list. Colchester United is an attractive club, so there will be some good people applying.

“There will also be a role for someone to come in and work alongside the manager. I discussed that a few weeks ago with George (Geraint Williams), because just like most people, I didn't realise when I first came in how hard a manager has to work. I talked about that long-term appointment with George.

“We have circulated the job description to the Football League. The title is a technical analyst, and we want to make that appointment fairly soon.

“The club is in a very good financial state, and I will be putting in some more money aside soon, as I agreed with Peter Heard (previous owner and chairman).

“I'm looking at a time-span of three weeks. That's two weeks for the applications to come in, and a week to draw up a short-list,” added Mr Cowling.