Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack insists no-one has been offered the chance to replace Derek McInnes at Pittodrie.
Stephen Glass is the frontrunner for the vacant post, but Cormack is adamant he will not be rushed into making an appointment at the club.
He said: “It’s only been a week and just to make it clear for everyone’s sake – not one person has been offered the job or guaranteed the job.
“I’m spending time with some of the other board members to go through the applications and some of the approaches we’ve made ourselves in the last week.
“We will go through a process which will take as long as it will take.”
Cormack makes no apology for taking his time on an appointment and believes the size of the task of managing Aberdeen requires due diligence at boardroom level.
He said: “It might take two weeks, it might take longer. But it’s a process we have to go through. I’m a real process guy – the key thing is we have got a strategy that we put in place, on and off the field, in May 2019. It makes it clear what we’re about.
“Off the field we’ve made a number of positive changes. Rob Wicks coming on board as our commercial director and Kevin McIver as our finance director.
“Similarly with the football operation, we have a clear strategy of how we want to play and bringing younger players through.
“We have a clear criteria of what we’re looking for and we’ll get through the application as expediently as we can get. It will take as long as it needs to take. Aberdeen is a storied club and a highly-sought after position.”
Cormack has been criticised in some quarters for ending McInnes’ eight-year spell in charge, but the chairman makes no apologies for wanting more for Aberdeen.
He is also making plans to return to Scotland soon and he says his time back in the Granite City will not be fleeting.
The chairman said: “Constructive criticism is healthy. None of us are perfect, I’m not perfect, far from it. But I say to people ‘judge me on how I respond.’
“Constructive criticism is fine and fair and it is important to be transparent about that, but it is part of the territory of being chairman of a football club, particularly Aberdeen Football Club.
“Some of the criticism from some of the media pundits and ex-players, criticism of me and of our fans of expecting too much, there’s a lot I’d like to say, but I will hold my tongue and rise above it.
“But what I will say is this, is it wrong of Aberdeen fans to want more than one trophy in 26 years?
“It is my plan to come back over in the coming weeks for a good period of time and I’m just trying to navigate through the testing and everything I have to do as the last thing I want to do is fall foul of any of the quarantine requirements.”
