The frontrunner for the Carlton coaching position is not John Barker, even if he leads the Blues to another victory this weekend. It is not Stewart Dew, or Brenton Sanderson, as some have speculated, with little foundation.

John Worsfold has more or less ruled himself out of contention, ditto for Michael Voss. Alastair Clarkson might be politely asked if he's interested, but should be viewed as longer odds than Kevin Rudd partnering Julia Gillard on Dancing with the Stars. He's not ready to leave the Hawks. Not yet. Ross Lyon, too, has a contract and obligation to stick with Fremantle. Chris Scott seems committed to overseeing a Geelong rebuild.

No, the man who will coach the Blues in 2016 and beyond - hopefully for longer than the standard Carlton tenure - is X. All we know about X is that he will emerge from a large pool of candidates, that he will have worked as an assistant or senior coach in the AFL system and the Blues will give him riding instructions about how the club's playing list will be reconstructed.

Carlton's coach X is an unknown - not in the sense that he will lack profile. There is no frontrunner for this job, because the Blues have barely started the process of deliberating. X could be a youngish assistant, an experienced assistant or a current/former senior coach from another club. Carlton doesn't have a particular leaning towards one type or another. The situation is genuinely vacant.

X will be whoever Carlton's selection panel, headed by chief executive Steven Trigg and boasting Ange Postecoglou and Chris Judd, believe has the right stuff to coach this club. They are open minded.

But the panel knows that X will need to be a leader, with the strength of character to stand up to the immense pressures that this job - and club - demand. The Blues are facing a rebuild and some pain and they aren't a club for the meek. They have powerful people on the board - with money and strong opinions - who are accustomed to closing deals and getting their way - immediately. X will need to win their confidence, in the same way that Nathan Buckley, despite turbulent times, has been backed by the Collingwood hierarchy.

Clubs often treat the next coaching appointment as a corrective to the previous coach. Mr X, thus, will almost certainly believe in empowering the playing group - a philosophy that Mick Malthouse did not follow. Mick did not like the Leading Teams model, in which players are assessed by their peers. He preferred for the shepherd to exercise control over the flock.

Carlton, as this column observed after Malthouse was removed, are trying desperately not be the Blues. This means that The Process decides the coach, and that the search will be akin to executive search (head hunter included). But committing to an "exhaustive" search makes it harder for the Blues to poach a senior coach who is under contract. It can be done, but would mean assessing all the assistants, judging them to be not quite right and then offering the job to the seasoned man.

If Clarkson, Lyon, Chris Scott and John Longmire are longshots, the best gettable current senior coaches are those who have been at their clubs for a reasonable period - five years plus - whose future is uncertain beyond 2016. Damien Hardwick would have been in this category, clearly, if the Tigers had not awoken.

Brad Scott appeals as one senior coach whom the Blues can consider, given that he has only a year to run on his contract, is in his sixth year at North, and might have a list that can't progress beyond the lower reaches of the eight. James Brayshaw has backed Scott to the hilt, but the North chairman finishes up at the end of 2016. If I was in Scott's position, I would certainly be amenable to a Carlton approach.

The Blues, though, might not be so amenable to Scott. In seeking to create a New Carlton - one that is more methodical, less rapacious and impatient - the club hierarchy has, in effect, outsourced the coach search. Trigg is the only senior executive at the club who is on the five-man panel.

Postecoglou's involvement is certainly a plus. It matters not that the Socceroos coach isn't an AFL person. He brings the same kind of expertise that basketball coaching great Lindsay Gaze lent to Richmond, when the Tigers did their homework and finally plumped for Hardwick, just ahead of Ken Hinkley and Alan Richardson.

Hinkley, Richardson and Phil Walsh, indeed, represent a new cohort in AFL coaching - the assistant who served a longer apprenticeship than Prince Charles. Thus far, this heavily road-tested trio have had encouraging results.

Carlton's choice, thus, consists of three species of coach. Category 1 is the experienced senior coach - active or inactive. Category 2 is the youngish assistant, no older than early 40s, who has been in the system several years. West Coast's Adam Simpson is probably the template, along with Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge. Then, there's the Prince Charles apprentice, who aren't as obvious in 2015. West Coast's Don Pyke, who has been around in coaching for well over a decade, has a tertiary and business background and was on the Eagles board, is one "mature" assistant option. Hawthorn's head of football, Chris Fagan, who's in his 50s, would be another left-field version. North's Darren Crocker fits that bill, too.

Typically, clubs tend to hire assistants only from teams that are winning. This narrows the field - perhaps wrongly, because results are talent-driven. The Hawks have been prolific breeders of senior coaches under Clarkson. Their success means Brendon Bolton will be discussed by the Blues. The starting field for assistants will be the level four coaching group, which comprises Bolton, Barker, Port's Matthew Nicks, Sydney's Stewart Dew, Fremantle's Simon Lloyd, Geelong's Blake Caracella, St Kilda's Adam Kingsley and Collingwood's senior assistant Rob Harvey. But to confine the search to these eight would be like a recruiter dismissing kids who didn't make the AIS academy squad - ie, stupid.

Barker is in the seat today, and whatever happens, has enhanced his standing in the coaching fraternity. The Blues have been far better on his watch, even if Carlton's improvement proves ephemeral, or what stockbrokers call dead-cat bounce.

But if Barker has the advantages of incumbency - principally, the opportunity to show his wares - New Carlton's desire for rigour might work against him, since the hiring of a caretaker always looks more like happenstance than the result of laborious research. The Blues have no need to rush - they're the only club with a vacancy.

They can take their time, and whoever the panel choose, coach X will need time, too.