Calum McFarlane says he will have no say on Chelsea’s managerial search.
The Blues’ sporting department are working in the background on whittling down a list of between five or six candidates being seriously considered as permanent successors to Liam Rosenior, who was sacked last month.
McFarlane is interim head coach for the remainder of the season and will lead them into the FA Cup final at Wembley on Saturday.
However, Chelsea are keen on appointing a head coach with experience and having them in place before mid-June.
Standard Sport understands that Xabi Alonso and Andoni Iraola are emerging as leading candidates but that the race is ongoing. Marco Silva and Oliver Glasner are also candidates, and there are staff at Chelsea fond of the ex-Chelsea full-back and former Flamengo manager Filipe Luis.
McFarlane, commenting on the situation on Thursday, said: “There's a lot of names linked with the job.
“It's not really my place to say who's going to get it, who should get it, who's a good manager, who's not a good manager.
“My job is to prepare the team for Saturday and that's all I'll be focusing on.”
McFarlane was asked whether winning the FA Cup against Manchester City in Saturday’s final is the only remaining way to rescue a disappointing season by Chelsea’s standards.
“I think our recent form in the league has been way below the standard we'd expect and that we'd shown previously,” he said.
“It's an FA Cup final, so we want to win it. It's a massive competition, prestigious club's got history in that competition as well, winning it eight times. So, yeah, our focus is on that, performing as well as we can against the top side.”
