Fulham are in no rush to name a successor to Lawrie Sanchez as manager and they will take as much time as is required to make what could be one of the most important appointments in their history.

The club dropped into the relegation zone of the Barclays Premier League on Boxing Day after their 5-1 defeat away to Tottenham Hotspur and Wigan Athletic’s 1-0 victory over Newcastle United. A club source said yesterday that Ray Lewington, the caretaker manager, is expected to stay in charge for the next two matches, away to Birmingham City tomorrow and at home to Chelsea on New Year’s Day, “unless there are unexpectedly rapid developments”.

A recent surge of bets has lent impetus to suggestions that the club would go for a partnership of John Collins, the former player-coach who resigned as manager of Hibernian last week, and Terry Venables, the former England coach and assistant head coach. However, Venables is understood to have received no approaches, while too much has been read into the availability of Collins the day before Sanchez was dismissed, according to the source, who described it as “a spectacularly coincidental sequence of events”.

Collins is seen to lack experience and with the new manager likely to be entrusted with enough transfer funds to keep the club up, someone with a track record of successful firefighting at Premier League level will be sought. The new man will have to act swiftly to determine how much of Sanchez’s squad can be salvaged and to identify affordable replacements.

Nevertheless, Collins remains favourite with Betfair, followed by Venables, with Roy Hodgson, the former Blackburn Rovers manager, third favourite despite not having worked in this country since November 1998.

Lewington claimed after overseeing the 5-1 defeat by Tottenham on Boxing Day that his application would be torn up, but he remains respected by the players. Slaven Bilic and Martin Jol have distanced themselves from the job and if either Glenn Hoddle or David O’Leary — both available — were serious candidates, they could have been installed before the holiday matches.