If rumours are to be believed, it’s one of these four. Who would you pick?

So, one guy who is only just better than York and Darlo, another guy who is only just better than the first, a guy who managed a team from ten places above Pools to two places below, and one who saved the Titanic with room to spare.
Difficult choice.

Hard to really vote as I don’t know enough about the other three as managers. Watson is the only one with experience of managing a full time club but is he doing that well? They finished below us. I have no problem with any of them getting the job particularly but at the same time I don’t think I have a preference either.

I wonder where Keith Curle is off to? He’s a bit of a bellender but he’s done a pretty decent job at Carlisle I’d have thought a League club is his preference but he’s surely worth an ask?

To be fair out of all the three you’d say Blyth’s League position is the biggest achievement as Armstrong has the smallest budget so based on that you’d go for him. I don’t mind us looking down and local rather someone on the merry-go-round with a list of failures on his CV. We need someone who can build a tight dressing room and work with Higgy.

Did Armstrong have a bigger budget than Bates? For example did he have to go out and find staff to work for free just to be able to do the job?

That’s a very fair point as I say I am not opposed to any of them getting the job, these splinters on my arse are killing.

It is a difficult one.

Ainsley has done a great job at Spennymoor but has been there for ever and much further down the pyramid than we have currently sunk to. This was his first season in National League North and on balance I wouldn't take the risk.

Watson hasn't done much of a job with Gateshead and also lacks wider experience so he wouldnt be my pick.

I have watched Blyth a few times this season and they play good football so Armstrong wouldn't be a bad choice. One or two of their players would doa job for us. However, again he has only managed one club and only for two years.

So on balance I would probably stick with Bates for now. He hasn't done a bad job under very difficult circumstances and probably deserves a chance. Whichever players remain clearly respect him and would play for him and phil makes a good point that unless Bates leaves it could undermine a new manager.

I think Higgy will have a big say and for some reason I have a sneaky feeling he isn't Bates's biggest fan so its anyone's guess.

Isn't Jason Ainsley gainfully employed as well, teacher of summit.

We've tried the successful manager from non league, that was a roaring success wasn't it. Stick with Bates if that's the options, but it's only speculation they are the options.

Ainsley

He’d prefer another Wembley final to promotion – “the chairman wouldn’t agree with me” – tries deftly to deflect the question of what he’d do if the club in turn became full time.

“I’d be very tempted, but full time management in football can be a very short-lived occupation. We have some very good footballers here who could also play full time but, like me, they have their careers to think of. My role at the college is pastoral, not academic, and I absolutely love working with the students. It may be that that’s the future.”

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/opinio ... bit_quot_/

There's got to be a no thanks from him then, unless Raj and Hignett have really sold him a dream....

if the choice is just one from four its got to be bates. prefer jim gannon from stockport. a similar size club to pools in attendances and finance.

Stockport are part time if they were the same as Pools as in finance then he’s doing a horrific job!

I’d put Gannon in the same pile as Martin Gray and Lee Clark the one for absolute cock wombles who I wouldn’t want within 100 miles of the Vic managers office.

The only problem with Bates getting the job, as soon as we lose a few games it will be 'oh he needs to go he doesn't have the experience' .. I think he deserves a shot at it after the work he's done off the past few months.

Bates's stint reminds me a bit of John Hughes's in our relegation season in 2013. Neither played great stuff but got much better results than the players they had to work with deserved. I'm not suggesting Bates is as good a manager as Hughes, but with hindsight I think we'd all have preferred Hughes to have stayed on rather than Colin Cooper come in. Don't want us making the same mistake with another manager getting decent results being moved on to accommodate someone else who's never managed full time at that level.

Not even with hindsight. I was totally prepared to give him a season where the writing wasn't already on the wall.
But ... Oldham, y'know.

13 games, more than a quarter of a season, with a barebones set of players he had no hand in recruiting, and obtaining 5/4/4 with a team that was lying punch-drunk on the ropes; having the nous to go out on his own initiative and find quality assistance and persuade them to work for free, and now being able to call on the support of a rated Director of Football. What the hell more do people need?

I don’t think any of them, it will be an associate of Hignett, Bates might do a job but could he attract the right players, the choice of players would down too Hignett I think.

Wouldn't have thought Alun Armstrong would have fancied football management after such a long and illustrious acting career, although he does look the part and i'm sure he could give a half time bollocking with the best of them.

He will go to training on his racing bike

He's come a long way since he was a barman in Get Carter

One short intake of breath and he'd have them all quivering.

Looks like Bates has it according to the Echo!

Probably right given the shortlist suggested.

If thats what you have to choose from then I would stick with Bates.
Of the others, Armstrong has done well but they tailed off badly towards the end of the season and he seems to go after every job on the go having already been interviewed by Gateshead and Darlo. Watson is fresh into management in his own right so he would be no better an option than Bates IMO.
Ainsley is a great bloke but he has had virtually a blank cheque book from Groves to sign whoever he needed to. He also has a good career outside of football so it would take a big offer to get him. Plus with your chairmans track record of hiring and firing its hardly going to appeal to someone settled where they are already.

TBH with the budget we will have available there wasn’t much choice and has been said he was working with a very limited squad and did reasonably well.
We are always saying give a young manager a chance and hopefully with the addition of a few players we will be ok.

What I would like too know is why the rest of the back room staff didn’t come forward to assist him, they are employees of the club and should have been made too and if I was the current owner I would be asking them why.in the event we end up managerless again.

What happened too Harrison’s 2 assistants, hopefully we are not paying them wages as they walked in my eyes resigned.

Matthew Bates to get the managers job according to the northern echo
and the mail

There's a surprise, the two 'local' new outlets reporting the SAME news within minutes of each other. Yawn.

Wish i'd said that!

McGuckin and Sweeney are doing the job they are paid to do, working with the youth set up. Not going there.

Jenkins and Himer still seem to be on the payroll, which is ridiculous. Is being passed over for caretaker manager grounds for withdrawing your labour? Does Raj Singh have a free hand now to get rid, or are their deals part of the 'contractual issues' that held up the sale?

I would love to have had someone proven but obviously we have to cut our cloth.

You can't argue with Bates's record, if he can replicate the points tally since the win at Barrow next season we will be in the play offs. He's got my backing until it's clear he isn't the man for the job.

Billy Horner?

MaGuckin and Sweeney are employees of HUFC irrespective of their job descriptions, the past I believe McGuckin has stepped up when required.
On this occasion with the club is in dire straits why didn’t he or Sweeney, it took 2 unpaid volunteers to help guide Pools to safety.
If in any other walk of life if support was required by the management team to keep the company afloat people would step forward. I hope people remember that McGuckinn and Sweeney didn’t unless they had a very good reason not to.
I also hope Mc Guckin and Sweeney remember if not for the the fans generosity they might not be in job either.

Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky they didn't step up. Maybe Matty didn't think they were going to be much help. Whichever way, what he did was huge. That one move alone sets him apart.

rate him or not i think he deserves a chance.

What evidence do you have that Sweeney was asked to step up because he is adamant that the only thing he was asked to do was Poolsworld commentary which he turned up and did coming straight from a Youth Team game to do it. Just because Liam Kennedy says something it does not make it true I would have thought that was obvious by now as he has been wrong about just about everything. I know Tony personally and he would help Pools in any way he could and if he had refused to help out in the dugout that day I very much doubt Pools would have had him on official duty in the commentary box !!

Well it looks like Bates.

But given the majority of opinion on here it highlights the problems faced. It seems few people have the willingness to change especially when they know, nothing or very little about the alternatives offered.

Lets be honest Bates got us relegated from the Football League, not really his fault. This time he has had longer to do the job but was it that impressive? Results improved when he got a coach in and goalkeeping coach who taught Loach to leave his line.

We had some unbelievable easy games at home to the bottom 4 - Solihull, Guiseley, Torquay and mid tablers Orient. They all had no problem containing us and usually out performing us. Yes he had limited choice in the players but he couldn't motivate them. The squad he had was on a much higher budget than most in the league. His own personal wage for the last 3 seasons explains why the club ended up bust.

Someone with ambition and desire is what is needed. I doubt Bates has the knowledge of this level or the desire. Sometimes a calculated risk is needed. Though not like the clowns who have owned the club recently.

What about Scott Ruscoe?

His team, TNS, won the Welsh league by a clear 14 points!

Surely worth a gamble ...

Translation: One of the best managers in the country overstayed his welcome by about ten games.


Riiiiiiggggghhhht. Because a good manager wouldn't never have done that like.

I've said it before, but if Bates had rescued any other team from relegation we would all have been over the moon with this appointment.

He took a side who had won 1 game in how many - 18? to grinding out results that have resulted in play-off form.

If he gets the same points per game ratio next season will anyone be unhappy?

If its true who the candidates are for the job then I'd just stick with bates, not much to choose from by the looks of it. He certainly wouldn't be my first choice but anyone decent probably wouldn't want to come. Only time will tell how he does but he's done a decent job with the hand he was dealt so far.

Yeah, we get it, you don't rate the bloke

[quote="phil"]Blaming Bates for our relegation last year is hilarious. He played through the pain barrier on all kind of meds that were messing up his body, and beat the team at the top of the league whilst they were trying to win the title. That fault lies at the feet of Coxall, Goldberg and Jones.

If bates had got the job 4 games earlier pools would have stayed up for sure. kept the fat cardboard cutout too long.

Is that you Horden?