Carrick Rangers chairman Peter Clarke has said that there has been “lots of interest” in the vacant managerial job at the club.

Stuart King departed as manager on Tuesday by mutual consent after a poor start to the season.

Players Curtis Allen and Mark Surgenor took interim charge for the club’s 2-0 win against Cliftonville which brought to an end an eight-game losing streak in the league.

And Clarke is hopeful that a new manager will be at the helm in time for their next league game.

“As much as we haven’t really advertised, we have had a lot of interest which is really pleasing,” he told BBC Sport NI.

“There have been plenty of names going around, I can say that the interest has been local, and we have had interest from managers in the south of Ireland and in England,” Clarke revealed.

“Definitively, we would like to be in a position that Wednesday or Thursday next week we will have a manager in place.”

Clarke paid tribute to King and his assistant Scott Irvine for the “fantastic” three-year spell they had at the club.

“It has been really hard for us, we have to put on record our thanks to Stuart and to Scott, they did really well and have taken us to another level and they deserved the recognition,” Clarke added.

“It was just one of those things, it didn’t go for them this year. For us as a club, it has been really difficult but we’re taking the right steps, and we know what we want in a manager.”