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That's the same degree of certainty that can be applied to every statement made as to whether we would be better of with or without SL. If you qualified it by saying we are better off with SL than with the Venkeys,Tan or Risdale then the percentage changes dramatically, and therein lies the nub of the problem as all SL's critics assume that a new owner would be better than the current one. If SL went everything depends on who replaced him and while we could be lucky in having a another billionaire fan of the club willing and able to lose a fortune on the club, the chances are that as a struggling league 1 outfit, we would have a wealthy, but nowhere near as wealthy, businessman, knowing just as much about running a football club as SL. With less wealth, the new owner would be able to risk less money, so would be more careful about how he spends it, would appoint his/her own people in key positions, who could be just as good/bad or even worse than the present incumbents. If the new owner had less wealth, then would he/she be prepared to fork out the money for a redeveloped AG ( forget AV as Lansdowns own the land so if they go I suspect a lucrative housing project is top of the list) and would he/she be prepared to fund the academy, bearing in mind the new owner might be more concerned about the return he/she is getting on their investment rather than subsidising a loss making business? Many fans have demanded a new manager at regular intervals, as we have struggled over the last few seasons, and their wishes have been granted and we have seen each new manager fare worse than his predecessor. Our track record for changing people only for things to get worse is 100% successful since GJ, and I worry that we could achieve the same 100% success rate by changing the owner. I'm not an SL arse/shoe licker but I think I am a pragmatist.

Probably, yes.

I would just like to convey, as a percentage, the certainty that you can make that statement with: 0%

Fair point - bad performance whichever way you look at it. What needs to be challenged is that they don't seem to be learning from experience. In this interview SL boasts of how much experience he and Dawe have - going back to 1996. Now he complains that SOD didn't turn anything around in 10 months. Part of the despair generated in the fans by the SOD dismissal is that he was positioned by them as being instrumental to the delivery of a long term strategy. The fact they they had a strategy was encouraging and they seemed to have a plan - one which included short term pain. We'll never know if SOD's infant team would have manned up and avoided relegation. SL has panicked into another short term fix. By all accounts Cottrill is a short term guy - He's been manager at least seven times as far as I can remember since Chelthenham in 1998. If you don't learn from experience, in life as in football, you die. If you won't take criticism and feedback, however it's delivered, you don't learn. Only arrogant, afraid ego-driven businessmen avoid putting strong characters with real expertise on their board.