I do think managing an international team and a club side are so different in many ways.

The other difficulty we now have is that it looks like we are not going to replace anyone into the Director of football role (or whatever Dowlings title was). Not sorry to see him go but if we are going to just have a Manager doing the deals as well as managing the team then we need a different person to the one if the role is just to manage/coach the team. That of course assumes the DoF knows what he is doing!

In my opinion with just person we need someone with the attributes of a Big Sam. Someone experienced and someone who can spot a player and then get deals done.

For me it probably shows what’s shambles the club off the field is that he wasn’t persuaded to stay because surely this role would have suited him. Did he know Dowling was going to go when he left? Was it just about his salary/bonus? Was it about the spending budget? Did the club not want him, irrespective of anything that was said in the press announcements.

I still would not be surprised to see Big Sam come back as new Manager providing he is given the DoF role as well and therefore does have total control of who comes in and out, subject of course to financial limits.