A COUPLE of highly-regarded City fans have given their take on the managerial speculation around the club, as well as the raft of departing players.

Jason McKeown, editor of the award-winning Width of a Post website, and author of two best-selling books on City, said: “If you read up on the (manager) speculation, Derek Adams has been getting a lot of attention.

“It would fit in with what Ryan Sparks has been saying about waiting for the right man too.

“The delay suggests it is someone under contract too.”

Asked who else City fans would like to see, McKeown said: “The obvious one for me is Richie Wellens, who impressed in the job at Swindon with his ‘Wellens-ball’.

“It would be interesting and having a clearly defined style would benefit us.

“But he’s probably got a lot of other lower league clubs after him and we’ve had a lot of instability in the last few years, going through managers, so we might have to be realistic on whether he’d want to come to us.”

Asked for any left-field calls, McKeown said: “If we had a blank sheet, someone like Phil Parkinson would be amazing.

“He did such a good job here last time and we’ve not prospered since he left in 2016.

“But he’s had bigger jobs since, and I imagine he’s had good payouts, especially from Sunderland, so there’s no real need for him to come back to League Two. It would get the fans excited though.”

Discussing the raft of player departures earlier in the week, and whether any of the decisions shocked him, McKeown said: “Connor Wood is probably the main one I’m surprised at being released.

“I don’t know what conversations took place with agents or anything like that, and he’s not had a vintage season by any stretch of the imagination, but we’d invested a lot in him.

“He’s developed over his three years here, so I’m disappointed to see him leave.

“After this season, his value might dropped a little, but I’m sure he’ll have plenty of clubs in for him.

“If you don’t include (fringe players) Will Huffer and Connor Shanks, the other six are at an age where they’re probably in decline, and we do need to move forward as a club and invest in better players.”

City Gent fanzine editor Mike Harrison gave his thoughts on the managerial situation too, adding: “No-one knows exactly what’s going on in Ryan’s mind.

“It does sound like he knows, but he’s not going to tell us, so it would just be pure guess work.

“All I can speculate is that if there’s no announcement this week, they’re probably still managing a team in the play-offs, and you can draw your own conclusion on that.

“I would like to think we’ll have a new man in ASAP, as it’s mid-May and pre-season will be starting soon.”

Interestingly, Harrison added: “Who knows if they’ve had their say already, because I would be slightly surprised if the new manager wasn’t involved in the non-retained list.

“He might have fancied some of those players who are going otherwise.

“Even after he comes in, the club might not say if that was the case.”

Discussing those players who have been let go, Harrison said: “I wasn’t surprised with the list.

“Being a football fan, and a City one especially, it seems to be a cycle of players that come in for two years, then go.

“Money is tight because of Covid and there’s been no fans.

“Though the club have announced healthy earnings from iFollow, there’ll be a certain budget for next season, and it’s difficult as players’ wages may have just been too high (of those who have left).

“There is that constant cycle, but the mitigating circumstances are that every other club in League One and Two is the same.

“Ours who have left will soon turn up at other clubs, and we’ll end up with some of those who were let go from elsewhere.

“You’d like to think there’s a clear purpose to bringing those players in, like there seemed to be in January, and of those who are still left, I hope the new man likes them, as all we can hope for is to be better on the field next season.”

Pressed on who he’d like that new man to be, Harrison said: “First of all, I admire Ryan for making that brave decision on Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars, how the club have treated the two of them since, and the statements that Mark and Conor have made.

“The decision will have been taken to move the club forward and maybe they just needed more experience, like with Derek Adams, or even Michael Flynn at Newport, though I can’t see why he’d want to move back up North.

“As much as you’d love to see Parky back, unless he wants to prove something, he doesn’t strike me as someone who goes back, he wants to move forward.

“But we do need a Phil Parkinson-type manager, someone who’s no nonsense with grit and determination, maybe with Mark and Conor still in the background as coaches.

“The pair of them have proved they have something about them, but then they couldn’t handle it at the back end of the year.

“But it must have been tough, as they were using players who probably knew they'd be leaving and struggled to get them motivated.”