FA drawing up shortlist for England manager job

The Football Association today revealed they are finalising a shortlist of names for the England manager's job but don't expect to have their man in place until May.

Albion boss Roy Hodgson is believed to be one of the names on the list, which has more than three and fewer than 10 candidates on it, with at least one potential target understood to be a foreign coach.

The FA's Club England board will then cut down the shortlist and recommend one name to the full board with Tottenham's Harry Redknapp installed as the favourite to take over from Fabio Capello, who resigned last month.

Chelsea's decision to sack Andre Villas-Boas could complicate matters with the prospect of both the Stamford Bridge club and the FA going for the same man.

But FA chairman David Bernstein insisted the unique nature of the England job will prove so attractive to the right candidate that it should prove irresistible – even if the manager could earn a greater salary elsewhere.

Asked if the FA were at a disadvantage compared with clubs in the market for a manager, Bernstein said: "This position is so unique that the right person would want to do it on a sensible basis and for the right reasons. It is a very fluid situation, I am not sure if other clubs searching helps or hinders. It depends on how the cards fall.

"We don't believe rushing this process is going to be good for arriving at the right conclusion. We are also doing this treating clubs and managers with the greatest of respect, we don't want to disrupt the season of the clubs.

"Most of the people we are looking at are in positions and whatever we do we ought to try and do it in a way which enables clubs to finish their season with the minimum of disruption.

"We have now arrived at a number of target names, I would call it a flexible target list because it's not absolutely fixed in stone. We would intend to deal with this at the back end of the season but it could be earlier if certain things fell into place."