Stoke City manager search live: Odds plummet on Nuno Espirito Santo

The ambitious coaches set

Following the model of Ipswich Town, who have had great success since bringing in Kieran McKenna from the youth set-up at Manchester United.

Paul Gallagher, the current caretaker, ticks this box as well as England under-21s’ Lee Carsley, who is currently being linked with the senior job for Republic of Ireland.

Shay Given, the former Stoke keeper, said: “I said to [Joleon Lescott, England youth coach], ‘What does he bring to the party?’ because I know him as a friend more than a coach or a manager. He said he’s unbelievable with the lads and the attention to detail is second to none. [He said] the lads just want to play for him, they want to run through brick walls for him; his man management, he’s not seen [that level] before.

“He brings all that to the party as well. If you listen to people like that who have worked closely with him, and have seen what he’s done, and he’s been successful as well, he ticks a lot of boxes.”

Liverpool coach Pep Lijnders has been a tactical sounding board for Jurgen Klopp and apparently the brains behind Trent Alexander-Arnold’s hybrid right-back/central midfield role. He briefly had a spell in charge of NEC in Holland.

Charlie Adam has been cutting his coaching teeth with Burnley’s under-21s, as well as serving as loan manager, and has never hid his aspirations to strike out as a manager in his own right one day, probably initially working with an experienced sidekick. His philosophy would be to get personality and a solid identity into a team.

Rich Walker, who had a long spell in Stoke’s academy before joining Wolves under-18s in the summer, is also ambitious and well thought of by the Stoke hierarchy.

Ryan Shawcross, presently a youth coach with Stoke, was on the touchline next to Gallagher on first team duty on Tuesday night.

“You have to have strong characteristics to make it as a manager and I truly believe I have them all. I may get shot down and made to look a bit silly in time, who knows,” he wrote in his season as a Sentinel columnist before returning to Stoke. “But, I truly believe that I have the credentials to become a good manager. I just need somebody to give me a chance like Tony Pulis did at Stoke at the start of my playing career.”