How former Portsmouth managerial target fended off staggering interest to land Oxford United role

The ex-MK Dons boss was appointed the new head coach at the Kassam Stadium on Saturday, succeeding Karl Robinson at the helm.

It comes less than two months after he was heavily tipped with the vacancy at Fratton Park, a job which would later be filled by John Mousinho.

But after being overlooked by the Blues, Manning landed the Oxford United role following a 13-day search.

And according to U’s CEO Tim Williams it wasn't an easy task to choose Robinson’s replacement, with more than 150 candidates applying for the position.

He told Oxford Mail: ‘We always knew that the process to get a new guy in was going to be diligent.

‘We weren’t going to do it in a hurry but we also weren’t going to take too much time over it.

‘We were absolutely inundated with responses, we almost didn’t have to go looking.

‘I think we had something like 150 people come and approach us.

‘What was really important to us was that we got the best of a sporting recruitment process – we had Ed Waldron and Derek Fazackerley involved – and then we also put in some what I’d say corporate discipline in that.

‘We made sure we were vetting properly and understanding who they were, doing background and due diligence, and asking the right questions of the numerous people that we know in the industry.

‘We did a full review of every single candidate that we took to the first stage.

‘We had something like eight or 10 people in the first week, and then whittled that down to a few people we saw last week.

‘The quality of the presentations that were given was absolutely outstanding, and we’ve got two outstanding guys here, but we did see some incredible candidates as part of this process.’

During Pompey’s search for Danny Cowley’s replacement, the Blues were heavily linked with a number of names including Ian Foster, Manning and Grant McCann.

Indeed, it took more than three weeks before Mousinho was unveiled at Fratton Park, with Richard Hughes and Andy Cullen conducting thorough searches.

And that is a process which Williams followed suit with instead of making a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction.

He added: ‘I think we got the best of both worlds, we didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction just to get somebody in the building.

‘What we did was follow a very diligent process to get the right people in the building.

‘I said it in my programme notes on Saturday, recruiting people is really easy but recruiting good people takes time.’