Alistair Clarkson is officially entering the twilight of his coaching career. That is at Hawthorn at least.
Clarkson will hand over the keys to assistant coach and former player Sam Mitchell at the end of 2022. No future role has been identified for Clarkson beyond that point.
The master coach has long been linked with a move to Carlton who are currently conducting an external review of their entire football department including the position of head coach David Teague.
North Melbourne offered Clarkson a monster deal at the end of 2020 but he declined. There also remains a vacancy at Collingwood should Clarko want to take a new head coaching role before 2023.
Clarkson has reiterated that he will be remaining at Hawthorn until his contract expires but we have seen this move before. Mick Malthouse said he'd be a coaching director when succeeded by Nathan Buckley at the end of 2011 before he walked away from the role.
With that in mind we take a look at some of the best possible landing spots for the four-time premiership coach.
1. Carlton
The Blues may or may not part with David Teague at the end of the external review being undertaken at the club. If they don't, you feel that Alistair Clarkson being available may be the straw that breaks the back on Teague's tenure.
Carlton have long been prone to bringing in the "Godfather" figure to fix everything. Look no further than Mick Malthouse, Chris Judd, Dennis Pagan and Ron Barassi.
Some of these have been complete disasters, none more so than Malthouse who came to the Blues after being on the exiting end of a succession plan, just like Clarkson. However, Clarkson won't have the point to prove Malthouse did.
Clarkson is widely acknowledged as the greatest coach of the modern era and him going to Carlton to essentially finish the build and return them to their past glories would be very nice cherry on top of the cake.
If he takes them to flag 17 he could leave as the greatest coach of the modern era at the most successful team in league history.
