I don't really like the DoF idea, because the manager ends up getting the sack when perhaps someone above him has given him the wrong players to work with. If the manager has to carry the can then he should have the authority to run the show.

Before I moved into a management job I worked as an assistant manager. I learnt from my boss. I got promoted when I was able to demonstrate that I could do the job. That seems to me to be the right way to go about it, rather than throw someone in and see if they sink or swim.

I know that managers have to start somewhere. I like to see good ex-footballers cutting their teeth in management either by starting in non-league football or as coaches or assistants before they get their first job at a league club. Just because someone was a good player they aren't bound to be a good manager. Paul Hirst and Chris Wilder - there are examples of good pros who have learnt their trade as managers.

I wouldn't mind us giving a bloke his first job if he could show that he had done his schooling.

My problem with the Warne appointment was that he has had no such grounding, and by his own account never even wanted to be a manager. If his spell last season was an audition, it hardly went well did it (impossible job though it was)? Granted he is an ex-pro, great guy and a club favourite. But do any of those things make him a good candidate? I don't think so.

I would have thought that if we really think Warne is possible manager material the best bet would have been to make him assistant to an experienced guy with a view to him coming through in due course, either with us or elsewhere.

Now that he has the job I really do hope it works out well for him and I am behind him as I am sure we all are. I do just wonder though whether he has the backing that he needs, and I think that with all the 'top 5 budget' talk TS might just have set him up to fail.