PAUL Roos is in no rush to anoint his successor as Melbourne coach, saying the club had put off its search for a senior assistant until next year and may ultimately promote from within its existing coaching team.

Roos said on Monday the Demons' search for a senior assistant to succeed him had not been the club's biggest priority this year.

"The priority was to get the coaching staff. If that involved a senior assistant, well and good. If it didn't, fine," Roos said.

"The next priority was to get players to help out these boys, which I think we did."

Roos recently oversaw a massive revamp of the Melbourne coaching team, with George Stone, Ben Mathews, Daniel McPherson, Brett Allison and Brad Miller joining the club, with Jade Rawlings the only member of the 2013 group to stay on.

Melbourne also unsuccessfully pursued Sydney Swans assistant Stewart Dew for the senior assistant role, with Dew ultimately recommitting to the Swans for another three seasons.

Roos said Melbourne had plenty of time to target another senior assistant to take over from him when his contract expires at the end of 2014 (he has an option for 2015), but conceded the reluctance of coaches to put their names up for jobs had made the Demons' job harder.

"What we've found through the process is coaches are reluctant to put their names up because if they get knocked back a couple of times they get a bit scarred," Roos said.

Roos said the Demons' inability to secure a senior assistant could open the door for one of his current assistants to stake a claim for his job.

"There's a chance over the next 12 months someone could definitely bob up," he said.

"As with John Longmire in Sydney … Bucks (Nathan Buckley) was a little bit different at Collingwood, but certainly that's a possibility, there's no question about that.

"And then we can reassess it at the end of next year."

Asked whether the delay in appointing a senior assistant could extend his tenure as coach to ensure he had enough time to groom his successor, Roos said it would depend on the assistant's experience.

Roos is yet to appoint his captain for 2014, although Jack Trengove, co-captain with Jack Grimes for the past two season, has already said he does not want to continue in the role.

Roos said a decision was unlikely to be made until next February, but said the appointment process would probably begin on Tuesday when the club discussed the leadership program it wanted to implement with Leading Teams.

Roos was speaking at the announcement that Melbourne had signed Automotive Holdings Group (AHG), the largest automotive retailing group in Australia, as its major sponsor for the next three years.

Melbourne CEO Peter Jackson acknowledged 2013 had been "pretty awful financially" for the Demons, but said the club had addressed its problems and with AHG on board was now on a sound footing.

"We'll be back in the black in my view in 2014," Jackson said.

"I think we've got a good base going forward, something this club didn't have at the beginning of last year."