CHRIS LAKEY Glenn Roeder is prepared to surround himself with would-be managers as he closes in on a new coaching appointment.The City boss is expected to announce a new coach tomorrow to join him and assistant Lee Clark in the dug-out.

CHRIS LAKEY

Glenn Roeder is prepared to surround himself with would-be managers as he closes in on a new coaching appointment.

The City boss is expected to announce a new coach tomorrow to join him and assistant Lee Clark in the dug-out.

The new man, much like Clark, has managerial aspirations, and Roeder says he sees their ambitions as advantageous.

"I have not got any insecurities whatsoever," he said. "Where some managers wouldn't employ a coach that wanted to be a manager I would be exactly the opposite. The other coach as well, he wants to manage as well - I am surrounded by people who want to be managers."

Clark moved to Norwich from Newcastle on Friday, reunited with a man who made him reserve team boss at St James Park when injury ended his playing career.

"He played for me a number of times when I was caretaker at Newcastle," explained Roeder. "At the end he was really struggling with a groin problem.

"He was having injections just to get through being on the bench and coming on for 20 minutes and getting through 20 minutes. Then he had the operation."

Roeder gave Clark a choice: continue playing, but at a lower level, or quit and take up coaching. Clark went for the latter.

"I have never known a player to forget about being a player so quickly," said Roeder.

"Normally it takes six, nine months, 12 months sometimes, where they want to join in five-a-sides. But you are this side of the white line now, I don't like coaches that join in on a daily basis. But he straight away came over on this side of the fence with us, the manager and the coaches, and you could see he was a sponge for knowledge.

"He got his A licence last year, he's working for his pro licence this year and by the end of this year he will have everything.

"Reserve coach, assistant manager, the next step eventually will be to manage, but that's what I want.

"If he didn't want to manage I wouldn't have been so keen to have him, because I have to have ambitious people around me."

Clark's beloved Newcastle has been touted as a possible destination - one day.

"I am sure that would be an ambition," said Roeder. "He would have to fight Alan Shearer over it. They are big buddies the two of them - it would be a good scrap, but that's many years away."