Decisions, decisions, decisions.
At some stage today, I suspect, the board of Norwich City Football Club will sit down for the first time properly together and, manager-wise, sort the wheat from the chaff. At which point the assistant coach of Loddon Grasshoppers Under-Eights gets the chop. Unlucky, Dave. Next time, eh…
But as they arrive at a three or four strong short-list – or, indeed, set their hearts on securing the services of one man in particular – so they will, in every likelihood, decide just what kind of institution Norwich City Football Club will be for the foreseeable future.
The 'foreseeable future', in football's case, amounts to about nine month. Tops.
But at some stage in the next 24 hours – certainly by the time tomorrow night's AGM comes around – they are going to have to come to a 'joint vision'; of where, exactly, they plan on taking us all.
Is it to Elland Road and the City Ground, Nottingham? Or is it to the City of Manchester Stadium for more than a Coca-Cup tie against Sven's Ressies?
I say 'they'. At some point in the none too distant future – like, today – the Turners are going to have to declare their hand.
Because, to borrow from the chairman of Middlesbrough, if you can only afford to shop at Tesco's, don't come shopping at Harrods… a put-down to the luckless Peter Grant that remains just as applicable as ever.
That unless you know what's in the Turners' purse to spend, you don't know where to go shopping for a new manager.
That you can have a short-list of five or six but if we're all working on the set of accounts as published last month then, basically, only those boys in the bottom drawer need apply.
Because without a fresh injection of cash, that's the only level of candidate that City can afford.
But – and this is just the same argument that needs to be nailed down amongst 'the club's got no money' brigade – if the Turners decide that this 'project' is very much to their liking; that events of the last five months have only hardened their resolve to get the Canaries back into the Premiership and not weakened it – then the club's financial position changes in an instant.
So, you can only presume that a list of potential candidates will be produced today, someone will mutter 'Well, we can't afford him… can we?'; that the question will then be left to hang in the air as all eyes turn down the table to where the Turners sit.
And, at which point, they either say: 'No, you're quite right… we can't. Next….' Or else they say: 'Well, maybe we can… we've been thinking…'
So – and this is purely for argument's sake – on the one hand you're left looking at some bright, young thing of the Martin Ling mould who is probably on not a lot at Leyton Orient or else one of the usual suspects desperate enough to take peanuts to be proved a monkey again…
Or on the other, you'rein the market for, say, a Steve Bruce if he reckoned his card was well and truly marked at St Andrews. I would, however, suspect that his much-mentioned trip to Loftus Road was more about seeing what the on-loan Rowan Vine was up to than on the off-chance he might meet Andrew Turner in a corridor somewhere.
Again, until you know what hand you have to play with, so when it comes to the full-scale interviews that the club will launch over the next week to ten days, there's no point in asking a manager what players he could bring in until you know what money he is likely to have at his disposal.
If the Turners give the green light to go and stand at the head of the queue for the next Luke Varney – this time armed with a five-year contract and ?20,000-a-week – then you can say to, say, a Martin Allen. 'We're on it, Mad Dog…'
If the Turners are stuck on red and are sitting there thinking: 'Oh my God, what have we let ourselves in for here… this is a shambles…' then you have to turn round to Bruce, Allen, Littbarski and whoever else and say: 'Right, you've got ?800,000 to spend, we need three players, don't give anyone over ?4,000-a-week… anyone fit the bill?'
That's the kind of crossroads upon which the club sits. And it is a wholly fundamental one. What do we want to be? Do we want to be big, small or a Leicester-like indifferent?
Do we want to think big and bold manager-wise? Or we going to go shy, cheap and retiring?
If a Martin Ling has only ever had peanuts to spend – and if you've only got peanuts to give him – then he's probably a half decent bet. He probably knows how to make his peanuts go further than most.
If you've got a shed-load of cash suddenly at your disposal, are you going to give a Martin Ling the keys to the Central Trust safe and let him fill his boots and fling the bling all ways?
Or else are you going to employ someone fom the start who has been playing with the serious dough before? That won't be out of their depth handling an ?18,000-a-week offer?
That's why, I suspect, in the course of the next 48 hours – be it in terms of either the letters that go out inviting people in for a full interview or the message that the Turners, in particular, send out tomorrow night at the Annual General Meeting – you will learn far more about the direction in which your club is heading than you have done in probably a long, long while.
What do we want to be? Where do we want to go? And what kind of money do we have to get us there?
And it's a decision that someone needs to make now. Because if you play the wait-and-see card now and get a Martin Ling in and only give him the keys to safe next summer, then you're taking the risk that he knows what to do with that level of cash.
Get a Bruce in now and play the wait-and-see card and then you're taking the risk that he ends next summer disappointed and disillusioned at the peanuts you've given him to spend.
Each and every candidate comes with risk attached. But you can still minimise that risk. And you do that by clarity. By everyone knowing the criteria within which the next manager can work.
And as everyone sits down over today and tomorrow and ponders 'What next?' that's what you've got to come out with. With a vision, a plan and, above all, a budget. Without that, you're fumbling about in the dark – not the best way to make the managerial appointment of your boardroom lives.
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