Luke Chambers may have made no secret of his desire to one day become a manager but he will stop short of applying to succeed current boss Mick McCarthy when he leaves for pastures new at the end of the current campaign.
Chambers said: "I think it is too soon for me to be throwing my hat into the ring. You just never know what is going to happen around the corner in football but I’m fully focused on playing.
"I’m enjoying playing centre-half again and my only aim is to help us finish as high as we can in the league this season.”
Town famously turned to ex-skipper Jim Magilton to replace Joe Royle in June 2006 and he was in charge for almost three years before owner Marcus Evans - who had taken over 18 months beforehand - decided to dispense with his services and replace him with Roy Keane.
But Magilton had, by his own admission, reached the end of his playing days and had just turned 37 when then chairman David Sheepshanks and the club’s directors were sufficiently impressed to offer him the chance to launch a career in management that continued, briefly, at QPR after his dismissal by the new regime at Town.
For now Chambers plans to continue as a player, although when asked if he would be happy to advise owner Marcus Evans on the type of character needed to fill McCarthy’s boots he replied: "If he wants to ring me my phone is always there, as it always has been, but I don’t really want to get into that.”
Chambers agreed things might have worked out differently for McCarthy and Town had the manager been able to spend bigger in the transfer market rather than operating with one of the Championship’s lowest budgets throughout his time in charge.
The skipper said: "As the seasons have come and gone, and more teams have come down from the Premier League with parachute payments, yes I do feel his hands have been tied a little bit. I feel he has worked very, very well under the financial constraints.
"He has signed players on free transfers, signed one for £10,000 and sold him for £8 million, so he has probably made the chairman a bit of a profit. But that’s all for someone else to discuss. All we can talk about as players is our relationship with him and I feel that in the circumstances he has done a very good job.”
Will McCarthy’s achievements be regarded as more successful once the dust settles on today’s news that he will depart at the end of the season? Chambers said: "I’d like to think so. At the end of the day the new manager will be coming in to take over a team that is mid-table, not one that is in freefall and trying to avoid relegation.
"In my opinion the new manager will have a tremendous platform to work with. We’ll see which way it goes. We’ve got eight games left to play and I’m sure Marcus Evans will already be looking for the next manager and the candidates will be at our games.
"The lads are going to have to do all they can to make sure they are in the new man’s plans for next season.
"The new manager will be inheriting something a lot more positive than what Mick did back in November 2012. Obviously, the atmosphere has not been great at games recently because voices have been heard.
"All we can do is try to improve and the person who does come in will inherit the same players with the same mentality to give absolutely everything. That’s never going to be a question.
"Under the gaffer we’ve never been blurred about what we have had to do in games.
"It won’t be difficult to focus on our last eight games. It’s all out in the open, there are no secrets and nothing has been hidden.
"The gaffer wants us to finish as high as we can because he’s a winner and he doesn’t want to take his foot off the gas.
"He’s still working for the club and he’ll be giving everything he can, as we all will, to finish as high we can in the league — hopefully starting this Easter weekend.
"There’s no sense of relief, it’s just clearer for everyone. It probably shouldn’t have got to this point and things should have been a lot clearer sooner in terms of deciding what way we were going to go. I’m captain but I’m only a player and I’m not here to make the decisions.
"All I can say is how it affects the team and the boys always let me know how they’re feeling. It probably would have been better for everyone if it had been cleared up a lot sooner, but there is still enough time between now and the end of the season for us to give the gaffer a good send-off and it can be a positive atmosphere for everyone.”