Dermot Drummy has emerged as a surprise frontrunner to replace Mark Yates as manager at Crawley Town.

The former Arsenal and Chelsea youth coach is believed to have already held talks with Reds owner Ziya Eren and could be put in charge in time for Saturday’s penultimate League Two game at Dagenham and Redbridge.

Eren sacked Yates and assistant manager Jimmy Dack yesterday following a run of six consecutive defeats but The Argus understands he was keen to bring in his own man during the summer even if results had not tailed off so alarmingly.

Drummy has no experience as a first team manager but spent ten years coaching Arsenal’s academy before being poached by Roman Ambramovich and leading Chelsea to the Under-21 Premier League title in 2014.

The 55-year-old former Arsenal trainee left Stamford Bridge last January and is keen to emulate the likes of Brendon Rodgers and Paul Clement who both coached at the Chelsea academy before going on to manage at the top level.

Hakan Hayrettin – who left his role as first team coach at Luton in January – is also thought to be in the running to become Crawley’s eighth manager – permanent and caretaker – in four years since Steve Evans left to join Rotherham United in April 2012.

Yates was appointed last summer following relegation from League One and comfortably guided Crawley to safety despite a limited budget and the uncertainty created by the sale of the club to Eren.

The writing looked to be on the wall for the former Cheltenham boss when Eren said he was being “assessed” in his first public statement following his takeover.

A club statement said: “The recent form and performance of the team suggests change is needed. The board will be interviewing potential candidates in the next few days to make the right appointment to move the club forward.”

Yates had a year remaining on his contract and is not allowed to comment as part of his pay-off but did release a joint statement with Dack which said: “We are obviously disappointed.

“Everyone knows how tirelessly we have worked to preserve Crawley Town’s Football League status but with new owners coming in it is often inevitable that they want to do things differently.”