THE Scottish Football Association will take their time appointing Gordon Strachan’s successor as Scotland manager and may not have a replacement in place until their opening UEFA Nations Cup match next September.

The SFA announced yesterday that Malky Mackay, their performance director, would take charge of the national team on a temporary basis for a friendly match against the Netherlands at Pittodrie on Thursday, November 9.

Scotland, who missed out on a Russia 2018 play-off place to Slovakia on goal difference on Sunday after drawing 2-2 with Slovenia away in their final qualifier, may take on international challenge games in March and June next year.

However, Stewart Regan, the SFA chief executive, stressed the governing body would not rush to fill the vacant position. “We might have a new manager in place for those friendlies, but if we haven’t it’s not the end of the world,” he said.

“In order to get the right candidate then potentially we will wait. If we have to do that. It depends on if they are in work or out of work. We have already, as you can imagine, had a lot of interest in the role, even overnight, but it is about getting the right person for Scotland. We are prepared to consider that.

“We agreed yesterday that we would start the recruitment process next week. I will lead it and I will be supported by a small number of my board colleagues as a little sub-committee of the board. We will then make a final recommendation to the board once we have considered a shortlist.

“Who that might include, in contract or out of contract, in work or out of work, it really depends on who we feel is the best candidate for the job.

“It would be my preference to try to do it sooner than that, but the next competitive match is September 2018 and it’s about making sure we’ve got the best candidate.

“The Scottish FA will try and get the best possible candidate and we’ll compete as best we can. It would be nice to have the resources of one of the big six FAs, that’s not the case. But we’ll fight for the right person and we’ll do what we can to attract the right person.”

Mackay, who was previously in charge at Watford, Cardiff City and Wigan Athletic, has been installed as one of the favourites to take over from Strachan as manager along with Davie Moyes, Paul Lambert, Alex McLeish and Michael O’Neill.

But Regan stressed the former Celtic and Scotland centre half, who has not yet expressed any interest in the position, would not be allowed to do both jobs on a full-time basis.

“The performance role is a very big job and there are some big challenges that we want Malky to deal with and put in place, so it is not something that we would entertain,” he said.

“We’ve asked him to do this as a one off and he has agreed. It’s too early to comment about individuals, but Malky has been very clear that he is stepping aside from his day job for a couple of weeks in the run up to that game. He’ll lead the team for that game, but then he’s going to be focusing on his performance role. A longer term interest in the manager’s job has not been part of the discussion.”

Meanwhile, Regan revealed the SFA had delivered an ultimatum to Strachan after Scotland had slipped to second bottom in Group F following the 3-0 defeat to England at Wembley in November – to come at least second in their section.

“We took the decision to back Gordon as a board and the thinking was that we would reach the play-offs,” he said. “That was our stated ambition as a board. But we never came out publicly as a board and said that as it would have put too much pressure in play.

“If you look back and see Gordon’s quote at the time, his quote was ‘I genuinely believe we can reach the play-offs and I’m the man to turn this round’.

“Gordon and his management team deserve a great deal of credit for the way they went about their business in the second half of the campaign. They really did turn things around and came very close.”

Regan admitted the fact that Scotland had gone undefeated in their final six qualifiers had come into the thinking of the SFA board members as they discussed Strachan’s future at Hampden on Thursday.

“We got 14 points from a possible 18,” he said. “But we felt we needed to have a new impetus and a new coach to try and get us to Euro 2020.

“That’s a key date for us because Hampden will be the host for the 60th anniversary of the European Championships and we would like to think that Scotland will qualify and play two of the four games that we have here .”