Ipswich have announced they have parted company with manager Paul Jewell by mutual consent.
Tuesday night's 2-1 home defeat to Derby sent Town to the foot of the npower Championship table, 10 matches on from their solitary league win this term against Watford.
Former Bradford, Wigan and Derby boss Jewell, who took charge at Portman Road in January 2011, suggested he was close to quitting following the weekend loss to Hull and did not appear at Tuesday night's post-match press conference.
Ipswich chief executive Simon Clegg has revealed he and owner Marcus Evans began the process of identifying possible successors to Jewell "a number of weeks" ago.
Clegg told Ipswich Player on the club's official website, www.itfc.co.uk, that himself and Evans have hit the ground running in terms of bringing in Jewell's replacement.
"We're very clear in terms of the type of individual we want," he said. "Already Marcus and I have been brainstorming for a number of weeks what would happen if we got to this scenario.
"So we're not waking up this morning completely cold going in to trying to find a new manager.
"That process, in some respects, has started by the identification of the various candidates and now those discussions will be ramped up going forward."
Jewell replaced Roy Keane as Ipswich boss in January last year following a similarly unsuccessful reign and Clegg accepts he and Evans must call it right this time around.
"I don't want to give too much away at this moment in time but we do realise that the next appointment is a very important one for us," he said.
"We need to get it right and we need to de-risk that process by ensuring that whoever we bring on board we are absolutely confident that they have the skills, the experience, the ability, the drive and the motivation to take us to where we want to go to.
"In the short-term we're looking for someone who is going to be able to get us out of the hole that we're in.
"The table doesn't lie - we're sat at the bottom of the table.
"That's what the immediate focus needs to be, while at the same time taking a long-term view in terms of where we want to take the club."
And Clegg moved to assure fans that the next man in the Portman Road hotseat would enjoy similar levels of financial backing to those provided by Evans for Keane and Jewell.
"We're still incredibly ambitious individuals and we're ambitious for the football club," he added.
"Marcus will continue to back the football club, continue to back the next manager in the way that he has backed the last couple of managers and through that we would expect success."
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