Stoke City still isn’t seen as the impossible job that it might sometimes appear as potential candidates and their agents position themselves for a crack at being the manager who finally gets it right.

Stoke have been sucked into a cycle of bottom half finishes since relegation from the Premier League in 2018 and eight bosses have said their goodbyes in less than seven years, unable to get the club moving convincingly enough in the right direction.

But the infrastructure and potential backing from billionaire owners who are desperate to succeed – plus the expectation that Financial Fair Play rules are changing, hopefully for the better, in the not too distant future – still makes it an attractive proposition.

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This vacancy has enticed managers to leave Championship rivals in both of the last two seasons –Alex Neil from Sunderland and Steven Schumacher from Plymouth – and these early days following the sacking of Narcis Pelach are throwing up intriguing possibilities.

There is a pool of familiar names out of work too, led by Mark Robins, seemingly fresh after ending his long spell at Coventry in early November.

Robins, aged 55, has always spoken particularly well about Stoke as a club – and the stability of its ownership model is in sharp contrast to the sagas he dealt with over eight years at Coventry, where he hauled the club from League Two to challenge for a spot in the top flight.

His exit was controversial and came in the aftermath of an apparent fall-out with assistant Adi Viveash. Robins, a former teammate of Mark Hughes at Manchester United, will need to find and build a new significant relationship wherever he goes next.

Odds have dropped relatively sharply over the last 24 hours on Lee Carsley, who has had a caretaker spell in charge of England since he was linked with the Stoke job around this time last year.

Carsley, aged 50, is set to return to take on England under-21s this week as Thomas Tuchel takes on the senior reins. The next big date on his diary is currently the under-21s Euro finals next summer – but he has been keen to test himself in club football.

Steve Cooper is free after an abrupt end to his short stay at Leicester but he would be unlikely to take on the Stoke gig at this stage, even if that’s not quite as unlikely as Nuno Espirito Santo was when he was briefly bookies’ favourite to replace Neil 12 months ago.

Tony Mowbray and Russell Martin remain relatively short odds at the moment but there are names believed to be being discussed who do not feature even on the long list.

Stoke are expected to have experience high on their checklist after the Pelach experiment and the time frame is interesting and would be affected depending on whether the contender is currently in or out of a job.

Ryan Shawcross was able to galvanise the squad and home supporters as caretaker boss and is currently leading the preparation for a New Year’s Day trip to Burnley.

There is a home match against Plymouth on Saturday (12.30pm) – and Stoke have launched a £10 ticket offer, with £5 concessions for that first game of 2025 – followed by a two-week break to the next league game.

That might ordinarily give a little breathing space for such an important decision but the Plymouth game might be enticing as a debut for any head coach, especially with a big crowd behind them, and there is also the transfer window, which opens on Wednesday.

Latest odds: Mark Robins (5/4), Steve Cooper (3/1), Lee Carsley (6/1), Russell Martin (11/1), Tony Mowbray (11/1), David Moyes (14/1), Gary O’Neil (14/1), Mat Sadler (14/1), Ryan Lowe (14/1), Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (20/1), David Wagner (22/1),

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