AFC Telford chairman Lee Carter looking to build for the future

With relegation possibly days away from being confirmed, Carter and his board of directors are planning for next term with the aim of having a strong appointment in place and are believed to have met several candidates in the last 48 hours.

Telford's two-year tenure in the Blue Square Bet Premier is drawing to a close after they set a 'fifth tier' record when they stretched their winless run to 27 games at Lincoln City last weekend.

Managerial turmoil has hardly helped to arrest the slump after Christmas and the club are now on their third interim boss since Andy Sinton was sacked on January 31. Mark Cooper, Graham Hyde and John Psaras have all been unable to stop the rot, although the latter's readiness to blood several of the club's youth players will have curried favour with the board.

"We've set a horrible record and had a very hurtful, painful run so I understand that people will ask questions and point fingers," said the Bucks chairman. "But we have got to move on and rebuild again.

"We had fantastic promotions between 2005 and 2010, but I understand this achievement, and I say it with a sense of irony, is more memorable because it is more painful.

"But we need to move on from the petty name calling and finger pointing and rebuild for the future.

"We will learn from the past and make it better going forward and that will start with youth.

"For a long time now we've urged managers to involve the youth team, even if it is just by way of introducing them to training and travelling with the first team, and that has come to the fore under John Psaras."

Nuneaton boss Kevin Wilkin, Worcester City's Carl Heeley and ex-Altrincham chief Graham Heathcote have been linked with the job, but ex-Walsall academy coach Psaras, who is in charge until the end of the season, has done much to quell dressing room unrest.