I fear Ardley is being turned into a Stanley Aborah type of trojan horse.

The thing is, if Ardley couldn't help himself to have been that honest on the radio about his players and his own shortcomings as a manager, what has he been saying in private to the owners? What would he have said in private to people like Curtis and Slater? (who he was quite close to).

These media guys know more than we do, Mace included, so something is definitely not right, but I really don't think the owners had any choice but to sack Ardley when they did. He was clearly buckling under the pressure, partly the pressure he was putting himself under - it obviously got to him that he was the man who took Notts down and he needed to right that wrong.

The owners would have preferred to wait but their hand was forced. Often, in this situation, a chairman will install the no.2 as caretaker until the end of the season, but there's no way the fans would have accepted Greg Abbott, so they've had to install their own man early.

Problem now is, Burchnall could end up being shackled to the fact that he was the man who dropped us out of the play off zone - in the same way Ardley was shackled with being the man who took Notts down. Every time we have a dip in form, the doubts among fans will re-surface based on this failure.