OXFORD City will interview candidates for their vacant manager role over the next few days.

The Vanarama National League South club received more than 50 applications for the job, which became available after David Oldfield left for Weymouth last month.

City have drawn up an eight-person shortlist since last Friday’s deadline, with caretaker bosses Andy Ballard and Ross Jenkins also interested.

Initial interviews will take place over the next four to five days, before the club create a second shortlist for a final interview.

Director of football and co-owner Justin Merritt said: “It’s a difficult choice and it’s one we're not taking lightly.

“We’re doing it properly and really trying to think about what we’re looking for and who the best fit is for the club.

“There have been some incredibly strong candidates, so we go into the process with an open mind.

“I really want to assure everybody that the decisions of the panel will be based on a discussion of each and every candidate and on what they can offer to the club.

“They’ve been given a brief and our responsibility is to make a positive decision for the football club to enable us to look forward.”

He added: “The other thing to bear in mind is that we’ve got two caretaker managers who are doing a fantastic job and who are very valuable to the football club so they’re integral to this process as well."

Ballard and Jenkins have kept City in the National League South promotion hunt since Oldfield’s departure on January 18, winning three of their four matches in charge.

It has kept the sixth-tier outfit fourth in the table and well-placed to challenge for the play-offs, although Merritt wants more than just short-term success.

He said: “We need to consider where we are trying to get the club to go over the next two to three years.

“There’s a whole player recruitment model to look at and we’ve also got to be mindful of how we compete against these other models in the league.

“In the division there’s teams that are full time and teams that have hybrid models who train three times a week as opposed to our twice, so how do we start building those blocks to improve what we offer at Oxford City.

“If we want to compete at the top, we have to find a way of embedding some of the things that other teams are doing but with our own philosophy as well.

“In David Oldfield we had a very strong manager. I wasn’t anticipating it being over before the end of the season but what it has done is given us an opportunity to reflect on where we are and where we want to go to.”