inckley fox

Whether they are punished a lot, a little, or exonerated, the implications will be huge. Football, as many have said, will be played out in courtrooms and bankruptcy hearings for years to come. Ultimately the game has to decide whether it wants to be competitive and dynamic, or an elite sport. Do you set strict spending limits and block transfers the moment a club runs out of cash, which the richest outfits never will? Even worse, for most of us, do you allow a complete free-for-all? Or do you accept defeat, realise that the status quo can't be maintained, and cap at the top end? The 'third way' hasn't worked. But it's been the compromise that keeps the richest clubs on board, and everyone else happy that they still get a share of the revenue those clubs bring into the game. But is it specifically Chelsea, Spurs and co. who generate that money by the sheer force of their brand, or in time could you sub out a Spurs for a Leeds, an Everton, a Villa, or a club of similar historic standing? Or less? Is it the competitiveness itself that people are drawn to? Are we misled by the number of shirts Spurs sell in China compared to Newcastle? There's a theory that, in spite of those figures, many of the people who buy those tops don't put any more of their money into the game, and those who do are only inclined to do so because the game, and the competition, means something. If the competitiveness subsides, if we're hit with the La Liga-fication of English football, then maybe the revenue generated by the Premier will more closely resemble the far inferior revenue generated by other top leagues. Thus far, the majority of clubs challenge the elite here and there on FFP and its successors, but not too much. But as more and more of them wind up facing extinction or irrelevance while the wealthiest clubs threaten them with exclusive super leagues, escaping punishment for their own transgressions, then at some point the entire institution of football will turn into a farce. Existential threats shatter the urge not to go rocking any boats. And when the does descend into farce (which is clearly where it's headed) the weight of public opinion may be too great for nervy football club owners, hesitant politicians - and maybe even, at some point, broadcasters - to resist. If a huge percentage of football fans support clubs that aren't even in the league due to liquidation, then that's a massive number of fans, viewers and voters.

You're forgetting that 'aura' of his. I bet Russell Martin's got an almighty bastard of an aura about him too. Thank god for having a chairman who can spot that sort of thing.

It's amazing really that we're still talking about the same people making these appointments. I laughed inwardly when people held out hope that McCarron might change things. The truth is that if these people think you're the right man for the job, as player, coach, manager, scout or Sporting Director, then you most definitely aren't.

Well, it's proof that there'll be no reset or rethink. The failure to recognise the need to go back to square one, to divorce themselves from awful, demonstrably wrong misconceptions they had in the post-Ranieri era that this kind of football was the only 'sustainable' kind of football, to overhaul the boardroom, to accept that someone else may need to make the big decisions... it was always going to end badly, wasn't it? If you want positives, then I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility of it working in the short term. We might come back up, you never know. But it feels very, very unlikely to me that, in the long run, it'll go down as an astute appointment. And the chances of it going wrong from the off are immense. There's an unholy level of unrest and disapproval just waiting to re-erupt, and many erstwhile KP apologists will be as bemused by this appointment as I am. It's an utterly bonkers decision. A huge call. As childish as it sounds, it's as if Top is reminding us that this is his club and he'll do as he pleases with it. I believe he's capable of that degree of incompetence and egomania. There'll be fans who think that if this goes horribly wrong, and quickly, then that might work out better for us over time. Like Sousa in 2010. I'm not sure I agree, but you can see why people would feel that way. When you raise eyebrows at the decision-making at Leicester City, then as a general rule your worst fears about their ineptitude fall well short of how entirely useless they really are. It'd be wonderful to be reflecting, five years or so from now, on how insanely wrong I was. But the feeling is starting to creep in that, when people warned four or five months ago that the club was on a path to extinction if it didn't correct course, that we're seeing the first motions of a 'this is exactly what you're not supposed to do' masterclass. Or perhaps Josh Holland was right all along.

Shipman stood aside and he promoted Gordon Lee as the replacement for Pleat. He kept us up and George brought in Little, who revived the club. Then McGhee, who started the rebuild post-Little and established us in the promotion places to bounce back in 95/96. Then he brought in O'Neill and stood up to the likes of Shipman who wanted him out. And if I remember correctly Elsom stood aside for George when Adams came in for Bassett too. He still attends games so it might not be a terrible idea to pick his brains on the new boss. It's hard to imagine the Van Nistelrooys, Cifuentes and Martins of the world getting his seal of approval.

From what I've read, a few things strike me. First up, I wonder whether the Mercury feel Jordan had burnt his bridges with the club. Maybe the club have quietly suggested that a more sympathetic writer would get more access. And maybe the paper has memories of the halcyon days of Bill Anderson pandering to the club and, regardless of fans' views of him, having significant stories to break as a consequence. If these misconceptions and lingering memories were a factor, then I'd expect it to go very wrong for them. They might get a couple of early scoops, but nothing significant, and having a club-friendly voice in the paper would only make it seem like they weren't adequately representing the full range of the fans' views. It'd also make them seem complicit if things continued to go downhill - which they probably will - and Josh Holland will be laughed off as little more than a sycophantic irritant. The second thing is that I don't think, technically speaking, that he's any good at writing!

I would agree, but Enzo's career has followed an 'alright when the squad ****s on everyone else's, not so hot when things are a bit tighter' trajectory, and it's served him well. To me, that doesn't qualify you as a particularly stellar manager and I suspect there are a good few would-be bosses out there who could also pull that off, but they don't tend to get the chance because they have to serve their apprenticeship with clubs that require a lot of improvement. And when they play that kind of football, it often goes wrong. It's a scaled-down version of the old 'how would Pep have fared at Peterborough?' argument. Yes, I wholly accept that Guardiola is a pretty damn 'stellar' manager, but when you're comparing him with the Cloughs and Fergusons and even Mourinhos of the world, that's always the nagging question mark over his 'greatness'. He came straight in as manager of Champions League winners and has exclusively managed the biggest clubs in the world ever since. When he has improved clubs, he's been making elite teams even more elite. Obviously, that once-considered-vital lower-level 'apprenticeship' never happened with Pep. It briefly happened with Enzo, went wrong, and nobody read too much into it. And then, a long long way down the ladder, it happened with Martin, didn't especially work out in two different jobs, but the football community had already decided he was the next big thing, so why let actual outcomes get in the way of that? All that said, I appreciate the appeal to some clubs of managers who can deliver, or who have attributes that they believe can deliver, expected success to the best teams at a given level. That's what Scott Parker does in the second tier, even though he repeatedly leaves clubs ill-prepared for the step-up. I can't decide whether the reason for him never getting a chance with a top job is (a) he's not as bright as Enzo, Kompany etc.; (b) where others fly the nest, he's a decent enough human to stick around upon promotion and make things work... but repeatedly fails, (c) he's just not as glamorous as some of the others, or (d) he had a complete meltdown once and thus failed the litmus test for dealing with the sort of pressure you face at the top. I use him as an example because everything from the way his teams stifle games to the dapper dress sense reeks of someone who fancies themselves as an elite manager. On top of that, his record is actually a lot better than some of those who do get their chance. So is that also why those who know (or think they know) what they're looking for overlook the bumps in the road that Enzo, Kompany, or possibly even Martin, stumble on? Right or wrong, does the footballing community just decide, at times, that someone's face fits for top-end management, while others don't? Therefore the imitations you describe when it comes to Martin are also his appeal: we'll have quality which, the board believes, will put League One to shame, and need a manager who can motivate the squad and make the most of their superior technical attributes. It was a good fix with Enzo, after all, albeit a very short-term one. But there are problems. Firstly, does that style work in the third tier? Did it give us any chance of capitalising on promotion and cementing ourselves at a higher level the last time round? Are we foregoing the chance of a long-term root-and-branch rebuild - right down to the playing philosophy - which could make us a second tier force again, or possibly better? Is this squad, or what's left of it, really all that superior to the best teams in the third tier? Then there's the man himself. Is he really the brand of manager I just described - lined up for the elite, and therefore a genuine asset for the right club? Or is he one of those who was lined up for the big time, failed his audition, and is now in the dumper along with a whole host of others; a place from which only idiots like Top and Rudkin go fishing for their managers? Is he anything like the kind of manager who can correct the deep cultural issues at the club? Can he overcome the tidal wave of negativity and toxicity that will greet him? And, even given his supposed strengths, is he actually that good at playing the classic, so-called 'poundshop Pep'? Is he good enough to fully exploit technical superiority, if that's what we truly have? Sadly, I think this smacks of a very limited, unintelligent, under-researched, arrogant and unimaginative approach to appointing your managers. I wouldn't entirely rule out short-term success, but it's by no means a given in the current climate and would probably be costly in the long-term. Martin is not a good manager, even at this level, and won't be an asset. He may once have been billed as the next big thing, but isn't any more. In spite of his age, he's as much yesterday's man as the dinosaurs of the game who bronze themselves on beaches while the grandkids splash about, occasionally featuring on podcasts or midweek game pundit panels, surprising everyone that they're still alive and lucid. Above all, if it happens, it'd be as clear an example as you could have of a club which urgently needs a thorough top-to-bottom overhaul but which, instead of that, is digging in, misremembering what worked for them in days of yore, and repeating the same old mistakes all over again. And if it does work, which it most probably won't, it won't work for long.

I get your point, but some promotions are a good deal more impressive than others, just like some league titles - ours for instance - easily eclipse others in terms of the scale of the achievement. You only have to take a look at the list of managers who have won promotion to the Prem and that nobody semi-serious would countenance the idea of appointing. Aidy Boothroyd, Malky Mackay, Danny Wilson, Billy Davies, Neil Adams, Gary Megson, Phil Brown, Owen Coyle, Brian McDermott, Paul Jewell and, yes, Russell Martin all pulled off promotions, all should still be in management at a decent level at their age, and yet it's generally agreed that they're just not very good. I'm sure there are way, way more to add to the list too. Their success, it turned out, was down to a few twists of fate, or a perfect storm, the prior groundwork of previous managers, ample resources or maybe, if we're kind, a case of 'right man for that moment, but not for pretty much any other moment thereafter'. So of course you can be kind to them and pick out the one shining moment in an otherwise awful career and point out what a fine achievement it was, but those achievements still need to be reassessed through the lens of knowing what happened next. If we didn't do that then Garry Monk would still be getting top jobs. Now the reason for people not liking Martin may in part be down to his charisma and the sort of football he represents, but it's also down, in no small measure, to three key factors: (a) his career before Southampton was unimpressive, including at our current level (where fellow candidates like Challinor have done much better); (b) his career after Southampton was unimpressive (in Scotland, where fellow candidate Jimmy Thelin has done better), and (c) his career at Southampton consisted of a largely expected promotion followed by an outright humiliation. In short, up to now he's been, by and large, a mostly poor manager, and sometimes not at the most challenging of levels. As for him getting the support he needs from the SD, well, that depends what that support consists of. If it's the same kind of profligacy we saw under Maresca - which saw us ill-prepared for the next level in terms of personnel, playing style, form and finances, and in hot water down the line for our spending - then I'm not sure I want to see him amply supported. I don't think he, or we, have a good enough recruitment record for trusting him with a major rebuild. I think even if it worked out in the short term, past evidence suggests it's more likely than not to go wrong in the long term. Should the fans give him a chance? Of course they should, but they probably won't. That's the realistic truth, right or wrong, just as it was under Cooper. And I'll give him a chance, but we all know what we're going to think when we first lose a drab game to a mediocre outfit with 80% possession, and it's not what we might think if the same thing happened under Challinor. It'd be delusional if we preconditioned ourselves not to have those thoughts. And it'd help if Top or Rudkin were capable of coming round to that 'oh, here we go again' mentality too, because it would mean they'd finally learnt something from their litany of cock-ups. How they've managed not to, and why they'd choose to double down, defy all logic, and opt for the path which, from the off, is the most eyebrow-raising and divisive, god only knows.

Well there's someone else I'm never going to take seriously again. Along with Mr. Pye.

Superb post.

They were very similar protests in their execution but very different in their motives and outcomes. O'Neill was a manager who'd been at the club for 12 weeks or so and experienced poor results during a transitional period. Shipman a chairman who'd been in charge for around 12 years and overseen decline at all levels. One protest came way too soon, the other felt overdue. O'Neill stayed and brought us unprecedented success. Shipman quit when the board voted for Pleat's dismissal, and it was that change which played a key role in our resurgence. But you're right about the big thing they have in common: after Shipman left, the fanbase reunited and we stayed up. After the O'Neill protest, we won promotion. In the latter case, the 'before' was a prolonged period of poor form and the 'after' was an immediate upturn. I wouldn't want to claim that these protests did anything to improve our on-field performances, because I'm not sure there's any solid evidence that they were a decisive factor. You could argue that Shipman's exit paved the way for Gordon Lee to keep us up, but we were actually out of the drop zone at the time. You could also argue that the Sheffield United protest in March 1996 gave O'Neill the fire in his belly to take the team by the scruff of the neck and turn things around. But he'd probably disagree with you. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that there is no clear evidence that fan protests - and certainly not the ones which took place this season - provoke downturns in results. If you're looking for reasons for the relegation then financial mismanagement, subsequent punishments, lack of funds to rebuild, poor managerial appointments and years of awful player recruitment under different managers (but the same board) would be the obvious causes. All of those were Top and Rudkin's responsibility. The fact that some fans pointed this out and argued that things had to change has to be way down the list of decisive causes for our decline, and most likely had no impact one way or the other. The argument that they did smacks of someone not so much clutching as flailing hopelessly in a desperate bid for the last, elusive KP-branded straw.

Isn't he supposed to be a long ball specialist? Not an expert, so I may well be wrong, but I vaguely remember that being the case when we were last linked.

Yes, I have to be honest, if it were Martin I might slip into the 'let it all go to s**t as soon as possible, because only then can we move forward' camp. I think a lot of people who previously toed the line would feel that way, and it would even fracture the KPFC bunch. As someone said earlier, instead of galvanising the fans it would pit them against the club. It'd be suicidal. The problem is, we've already gone through half a dozen 'surely we have to change course now' moments without changing course. The chairman is comically incompetent, and the only real question is whether we survive him.

I would prefer Top or Rudkin not to decide how we want to play. We need the right boss, and to empower him. Which is a long shot, admittedly.

Are they decent numbers?? Was it really 29K?

He's even crapper than you thought!

Is that what they're saying?

I can't for the life of me understand why they're negotiating to renew Begovic's contract. He was dreadful and clearly well past it. He managed to be no better than Stolarczyk, which is really going some. Incredibly, Hamer wouldn't be any worse than either of them.

He didn't win promotion with MK Dons did he? I thought that was before he took over. They were lower mid-table in League One under him, I think.

Obviously if it were Martin he'd have to get off to a flying start. In the unlikely event that he took us up two divisions over the next few seasons, I suppose that would be the perfect redemption arc for Top and his ideology. In fact, I'm sure the pro-KP faction would consider promotion from League One alone worthy of vindication. And you'd imagine we'll be the favourites, so a lot of people are going to be of the view that there's a good chance of Top being proven right whoever he chooses to bring in. There are three huge, glaring problems with this, however. Firstly, that it would be proof that nothing has really changed at a time when drastic change is required. Proof that Top is still fixated with possession-based football - an obsession which most likely contributed to us parting ways with Pearson in 2010 and setting our progress back by years, appointing Sousa then Sven. And which - back in 2017 - was deemed 'the only truly sustainable way forward' for the club (at a point in time when two promotions and a league title were our recent past, and a collapse of existential proportions our not-too-distant future). Proof that we can't look beyond gradually replacing everyone at the club with someone who was a bit of a failure at Southampton. Proof that 'outside the box thinking' doesn't exist in our boardroom, and that we can't get 'inside the box thinking' right either. Secondly, this would either mean that McCarron was another 'yes man', handpicked because he roundly reflected all of Top's and Rudkin's ideals, or that Top was still making the big calls, and McCarron is an utter irrelevance. The rule of thumb for some time has been that if Top thinks something is the right way forward, then it's probably the very opposite of what we should be doing, and so the same would have to apply to Martin's appointment. And to McCarron's. And, while we're at it, Glover's. And everything else from top to bottom of the club. Finally, the chances of it coming off would be slimmer than the average pundit might think. Many fans will make their minds up before a ball is kicked, and as we saw with Cooper, that in itself can make it very hard for something to work out. Even if - like most of us - you resolve not to boo him from the off, if the football is frustrating and pedestrian in Game One, there'll be restlessness. And even if that works out for him, when the first defeat comes the sense of 'here we go again' will be far greater than it would with other managers. Sometimes an appointment is so monumentally unpopular that it's really hard for it to work out, even if it should. And when you actually look at his record with clubs like Rangers, Swansea, MK Dons, and even to a degree with Southampton where he rather unspectacularly pulled off what he was widely expected to pull off (before it all went wrong) it all reeks of style over substance. Hype for doing things in an interesting way - the 'right' way, if you're of a particular school of thought - but not in a very effective way. Even in the third tier. So the chances of it working out with a crap, unpopular manager appointed by a chairman whose key decisions have almost exclusively been proven to be wrong, and at a club which is plummeting fast and opting to change pretty much nothing, are not all that great. Perhaps, as with Southampton, Martin will achieve what everyone expects him to next season - you can't discount the possibility - but even then I'd be very dubious that we'd learnt our lessons, fixed the club, got back on the right track. Instead of that, the club needs a genuine upheaval of its long-standing, failed ideals, for other people to make the big calls instead of Top or Rudkin, for a manager to come in who is custom-made for a budget rebuild and success in the third tier. It shouldn't be too hard for them to realise this, but we all know what past evidence suggests on that score.

Three things would concern me most if there had been even a hint of truth in our interest. The first is that he's not particularly good and is unlikely to get any better. He's pretty much a tier three-level player, so it would indicate another transfer window of trying to bring in 'oven ready' players for our level rather than any sort of building for the long-term. The second is that, for once, I do actually know a bit about Max Lowe, and there are certainly a good few Derby fans who felt that he lacked a bit of fight and desire when they were struggling and that he was also a tad too big for his boots. I even remember one incident where he himself admitted that his head was up his own arse. Pretty much verbatim. So that would suggest that we've not learnt anything about the need to scout character rather than simply playing credentials. In fact, it would indicate that instead of trying to bring in PL-standard players regardless of whether they're ****heads, we've dropped down a couple of divisions and are trying to bring in 2nd/3rd tier players who may well be ****heads instead. And the third very concerning point is that we don't have a manager yet. So that would indicate that Top, Rudkin, Glover (and possibly their new friend on the board, McCarron) are still plotting the future course, recruitment strategy, playing style and personnel of the team without any input from whoever is going to have to actually manage them, or stick up for them next season. I mean, that worked out well in January, didn't it?

The problem with Warne is what happens after promotion. His record in the Championship is absolutely abysmal, and while it'd be foolish to understate how crucial a promotion might be for us, I do think we need to look further than the short-term fixes for once. Going up and needing to either fire a popular manager, overhauling his style of play in the process, or get relegated, isn't a great choice. If we want a promotion specialist then someone a little less tainted like Challinor might be the better bet.

As others have said, it depends on what you define 'world class' to be. It's like when people coin the term 'club legend' and debate whether it should be applied to King at one extreme (great servant, great trophy haul, not a major factor in much of the success he enjoyed) and then, say, Kante at another. It's clear that you consider 'world class' to mean the best in the world at what they do, especially if you can only think of four PL players right now who are 'world class'. On that basis, you'd struggle to argue for even Banks and Lineker. Kante may well be the only one, in his City days at least. And no, Ricardo (who was second or third choice RB for Portugal even at his peak) wouldn't come near. I'm not entirely convinced, by that measure, that Rice would apply now, as great a player as he is. For me, though, 'world class' is to be among the very best in your position: To be able to truly excel internationally, continentally and/or within the best teams in the best domestic leagues. That would mean Vardy, Mahrez and Kante were nailed-on, because in terms of what they offered, they were among the best. Possibly even the best. And probably Kasper too, who I honestly thought was one of the best three or four in the world at his peak. That really is a reminder of how amazing Pearson/Walsh were, isn't it? And how our success had more to do with their immense ability to forge an elite side on a shoestring budget than with the investment in the club, as important as it may have been. The six or seven million we spent on Vardy/Mahrez/Kante was by no means an exceptional outlay. The fact that superhuman scouting brought us talent worth twenty or thirty times that amount goes a lot further towards explaining our ascent. And, of course, the people responsible for that were at the club a good while before KP were on the scene.

Ex-players turned manager certainly have a very up-and-down history at the club. There's a case that one of them was our best ever manager: Gillies had ten years in charge, our first major trophy, three more finals, our first European outing, four top-eight finishes and many of our greatest ever acquisitions. But if you look at the others (Gardner, Lochhead, McLintock, Kelly, Rowett, unless I'm forgetting someone) you've got just under six years of management in total... With a return of a bottom place finish in the Midlands League, three relegations and two of our lowest ever second tier finishes. I'm not sure what the lessons are from all that. Things can go badly if you're swayed by the fact that someone's an ex-player (e.g. Lochhead, McLintock) and less so if it's not a factor (e.g. Kelly). And then you've got Gillies, and there was no reason to think he'd be the right man to keep us in the top flight whatsoever, but he did, and then became one of our finest ever. Which category Fuchs would come into, I don't know, but I do know that we're either going to go for a very predictable, safe and totally inappropriate manager for the scale of the task, or take a punt on a wild card who'll either be a complete revelation or, more likely, an absolute disaster. Of the two ex-players that are being linked with the post, Rowett probably comes into the first bracket, and Fuchs the second. You never quite know who'll be the right man for the moment. Who'd have thought, given their background, that not only Gillies, but also Bloomfield, Hodge, Little, O'Neill, Pearson, Ranieri and arguably even Maresca would do as well as they did? And who'd have thought managers who seemed to be a league above us, like Pleat, Eriksson and maybe even someone as well-loved as Wallace would have ultimately endured such mixed (and worse) fortunes?

I don't know. Everyone was pretty sure it was going to be Gary Rowett about four weeks before the board realised that literally nobody else wanted the job.