Former England boss Steve McClaren is claimed to be top of Town owner Marcus Evans’s list of potential successors to Mick McCarthy.
The current Blues boss is expected to leave at the end of the season with his contract up in the summer and, according to a report in The Sun on Sunday, Evans hopes to tempt McClaren, 56, to Portman Road.
The former Middlesbrough, FC Twente, Wolfsburg, Derby, Nottingham Forest and Newcastle manager is without a job at present having ended a short spell as a coaching consultant with Maccabi Tel Aviv at the end of last year.
McClaren’s name is unlikely to be the last speculatively linked with Town in the weeks to come with McCarthy’s summer departure now appearing inevitable.
As previously reported, Evans is believed to be keen on former skipper and coach Tony Mowbray, who he has twice come close to appointing Blues boss in the past, however, the 54-year-old is currently riding high in League One with Blackburn Rovers and might prove difficult to prise away from Ewood Park.
Ex-Manchester United defender Jaap Stam, 45, who was sacked by Reading earlier in the week, is also understood to be among those in Evans’s thoughts as he looks to appoint McCarthy’s replacement.