ADELAIDE board member Mark Ricciuto says the Crows do not have a replacement coach in waiting after sacking Brenton Sanderson on Wednesday.

The former premiership player told Triple M Adelaide the club would not have talked to a replacement before informing the incumbent he was no longer required. 

"I can guarantee we haven’t done that," Ricciuto said.

"You don’t go looking at coaches. Well, some people do go behind your current coach’s back and start talking to people - some people choose to do things like that. We haven't."

Ricciuto said the club had consulted key staff and players before making the decision to sack Sanderson who still had two years left on his contract.

"Basically we spoke to all the key people that you need to speak to, that the coach has got to have relationships (with) if it’s going to be a successful football club," Ricciuto said.

"The players were one of those groups and obviously formed part of the reason why he is not there from next year onwards."

He said if the Crows did not act now it risked things going "from bad to worse like they have at other times in the club's history."

Adelaide is expected to seek out premiership player and former captain Simon Goodwin as a candidate.

Goodwin is the latest coach-in-demand.

The senior assistant at Essendon wants to become a senior coach and by all accounts has been very capable in his four years at the Bombers. 

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A dual premiership player, former Crows captain and three time best and fairest winner, he is a hero in the City of Churches.

He is also a great mate with Ricciuto, whom he played alongside from 1997 to 2007.

Both played under Malcolm Blight (now a football director at Gold Coast), Gary Ayres and Neil Craig.

The Brisbane Lions interviewed Goodwin for its senior coaching position at the end of last season but, despite being impressed, preferred favourite son Justin Leppitsch.

With the supplements saga at Essendon at its height, it was a tough time for Goodwin to be interviewing and the 37-year-old knew he would have to bide his time.

He put his hand up to step in for the suspended James Hird but Essendon convinced Mark Thompson to take the job for one season.

Goodwin stuck at it and was considering taking on the job as senior assistant at Melbourne with the promise of succeeding Paul Roos in two years when the guru’s contract expired.

Now Goodwin has a decision to make.

Crows deny they'll try to poach Goodwin

The Adelaide job is understood to be as good as his for the taking or he could still opt to throw his hat into the Demons’ ring.

While Adelaide said publicly last night it would cast the net wide to find its next coach, many suspect the decision to sack Brenton Sanderson two years before his contract expired was partly motivated by a desire to have Goodwin as a candidate.

The Crows announced Andrew Fagan as their new CEO on Monday and the list manager job remains vacant.

Star players such as Patrick Dangerfield are coming out of contract at the end of 2015 as free agents.

Now the position of senior coach is up for grabs.

Goodwin, who played 275 games with the Crows, is favourite for the job and will remain so unless he rules himself out of the race.