Big dose of realism required. If we accept NP is gone, we have to appoint a replacement. We can't hire another manager in his traditional managerial mould (i.e. Rowett, Jones, etc.). So the only way for the board to justify NP's exit is to pivot into a new route and then you're looking at Profile/Vanity appointment or New style/On-the-grass appointment.
Both seem a roll of dice. Neither will have consensus on here. And neither has a deep list containing candidates with either "proven track record with recent success" or "recent success with a proven track record" because as a Club we're not big enough to compete in those spheres.
So it's a case of sitting back and riding out the decision that's been made (accepting the NP thing is done, dusted and gone).
So if you look at the LM side of things his win record is pretty strong, especially when you consider there's a crappy 11 game period in that when he was sacked at MK Dons:
Context is also important in that he was sacked because his best players were sold and they had a slow start. Under the hood of MK, and before that, he took a bottom third team to third in 12 months. We all know MK Dons are a basket club. He's then repeated bottom third to top 2 at Oxford (admittedly it's November still........). So whilst he's only 140-odd games into his managerial career, achieveing over 48% win rate in English football at any professional level is something to take notice of.
The bigger concern is arguably the PR machine and fog. As @Davefevs has pointed out, Manning's playing style doesn't necessarily suit the players in the building. And if we look at when he struggled at MK Dons it was when the club hierarchy disrupted what he was building by selling his best players. Our club is talking about recruiting a head coach that can work within the current structure of the club, but given we are a selling club that tends to sell it's best asset each window it seems like a bit of a hit-and-hope that Manning can deal with losing his best players in the middle of building something when this is the only real blemish on his managerial CV to date (i.e. not recovering from the MK Dons rebuild forced on him when he lost his best players there one summer).
