Lincoln City boss Danny Cowley has become the first manager to distance himself from the Town job which will become vacant in the summer when Mick McCarthy departs, news which the club confirmed this morning.
Cowley, whose then-Vanarama National League Imps beat the Blues in the FA Cup last season before winning promotion to League Two, quickly emerged as the early bookies' favourite to succeed McCarthy.
At time of writing the one-time Braintree Town boss is the 13/8 favourite with SkyBet ahead of former Blues skipper and coach Tony Mowbray, who is currently in charge at Blackburn, at 5/2, then the currently unattached Shefki Kuqi at 3/1, ex-England manager Steve McClaren, who was linked by one of Sunday’s tabloids, at 9/1, Colchester boss and ex-Blues defender John McGreal at 10/1 along with VVV-Venlo boss Maurice Steijn, who was the subject of Town rumours last summer.
Ex-Brentford and Rangers manager Mark Warburton is 16/1 and former Reading boss Jaap Stam 22/1 with Luton’s Nathan Jones and the much-travelled Uwe Rosler.
Quizzed on the links with the Town job Cowley said he and his brother and assistant Nicky are purely concentrating on matters at Sincil Bank, at least for the moment.
"Our focus remains wholeheartedly here,” he told Lincolnshire Live We’re eternally thankful for the opportunity we’ve been given here.
"We’ve been shown great loyalty by the people of Lincoln. When we’re shown loyalty we always like to reciprocate.
"Our total focus is here. We’re at the business end of the season. We’ve worked very, very hard since the end of last season to put ourselves in this position.
"It would be crazy of us to think of anything else but Lincoln City and what we’re doing between now and hopefully the end of May [when the play-off final will take place].”