00:00I was surprised, Rich. I have to say, I think as a lot of Pools fans pointed out, nothing necessarily surprises you following Pools.
00:08Obviously, the current regime do have a record of sacking managers pretty early on into their tenure.
00:13I think of the last five permanent managers, none have managed more than 17 matches at the helm.
00:20Four of those obviously were sacked. Lenny Lawrence, of course, decided to step down.
00:25I think of the 13 permanent appointments made by Raj Singh, only Dave Chaloner has managed more than a year in the role.
00:31So in that sense, it wasn't a huge surprise. Clearly, they had been on a pretty poor run, one win in XI at the time that Pools made the decision to part ways with Simon Grayson.
00:45But in another sense, I was really surprised. I thought it was a crazy decision, if I'm being absolutely honest, Rich.
00:50You sort of alluded to it there. They appointed him in June, and then they obviously worked really hard to recruit players according to the way that he wants to play.
01:00Initially, they had some success with that 10 points from the first 12 available.
01:05Yes, it tailed off, but at the same time, I think Pools only four points outside the playoffs.
01:11The season is certainly salvageable. I think they've given themselves more work to do because of the response to the decision to sack Grayson.
01:20I think they've made it more difficult now for them to have a successful campaign moving forward.
01:26They had very similar issues last season, didn't they, in that they hired someone in, Darren Sahl, who likes to play a certain way over the summer.
01:34And they recruited, according to that philosophy, all the players that they signed were signed to suit Sahl's system and set up.
01:42And we've seen something very similar this summer under Grayson.
01:45And given that, I was really surprised that they made the decision.
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