Alan Hardy is, thank goodness, irrelevant. He made big claims and came up short. He said he’d like to have Kewell for 6 years and sacked him after a few weeks. The Reedtz brothers like to back their own judgement and give a decent length of time to people to show what they can do. In sport there are few guarantees, but Maynard is being given an opportunity to grow into the job. It’s not a few mistakes that will define his time at Notts, it’s his ability to get players motivated and working for each other, and his ability to get them playing in effective patterns. It’s no surprise that he found it tough to come here and fill LW’s shoes. Going full time and coaching at a higher level in a far larger club meant that he had an awful lot to learn on top of the usual things like remembering a lot of new names, finding his way around and dealing with a much higher profile. He seems more settled, more confident. A few good results at the start of the season could work wonders for him and the team. If that doesn’t happen, life will remain tough for him and he will be horribly vulnerable to criticism, and the chances of him coming good will diminish rapidly, but they won’t disappear until he resigns or is replaced.