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The sky is still black and a patina of dew sits on the cars as the first coaches trundle out of Hertfordshire. The destination is Middlesbrough – a 400-mile round trip and a fourth straight defeat on the road await Luton Town’s supporters.

The Championship is supposedly plagued with “yo-yo” clubs, robbing the league of its competitive edge on their way to a quickfire escape back to the Premier League. But what of those who go the other way, falling off the radar and into the void?

When Luton were relegated in May, Rob Edwards conceded that the mission to keep them up had proved “the impossible job”. On their way to an inevitability – made certain by an injury crisis decimating an already thin squad – they had surprised plenty of people: thumping Brighton, holding Liverpool and running Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City close.

That made the months that followed all the more bewildering. Luton return from the international break 21st in the table, kept afloat from the relegation zone by goals scored. They are 17th in the table for shots on goal and only newly-promoted Portsmouth have shipped more at the other end.

Edwards’ reign looked to have ended at the Riverside, the same ground where it began on an optimistic December afternoon two years ago, the mist clearing from the Qatar World Cup as English football’s wheels began to turn again. This time, jeered by his own fans, a cursory wave at the away end looked distinctively like a goodbye. He insisted he would not be sticking around if he was going to become a “divisive figure”.

Perhaps it is the hangover of the Premier League’s altitude that has made their descent from the mountain so stark, but some players are “waiting for the cable car to take them back up again, rather than fight their way back to the top of it”.

That is the view of Kevin Harper of the Luton Town Supporters’ Trust, who believes Edwards cannot bear the ultimate burden of responsibility for everything that has gone so horribly wrong.

“Ultimately, when players cross the white line, they have a duty to themselves to perform to the best of their ability,” Harper tells i. “Certainly [in the 5-1 defeat to Middlesbrough] very, very few could look in the mirror and say they’ve done that.

“Rob’s one of those managers that when everything’s going well he takes none of the credit, but when it’s all going wrong he takes all of the criticism. If the good times are the players, then the bad times can be the players’ fault as well. You win as a team, you lose as a team and the manager’s part of both.”

The process to identify Edwards as Nathan Jones’s successor was extensive, the 41-year-old hand-picked using data analysis in the same way players are recruited. That confirmed to CEO Gary Sweet that he was the right fit.

How Luton’s summer unfolded

Yet whoever was in charge would have struggled to withstand the departures of Ross Barkley – so impressive last season that talk of a shock England recall was mooted – as well as Chiedozie Ogbene, Ryan Giles and Andros Townsend. Barkley’s fee was undisclosed, but it was understood to be in the region of just £5m.

That is not to say the summer after relegation was totally without hope. At £10m, Mark McGuinness, a long-term centre-back target, was the most expensive arrival from Cardiff.

Luton kept hold of Manchester United academy product Teden Mengi when he looked destined to join Torino; he has since been rewarded with another England U21 call-up. In that light, it is easy to see why Edwards was not convinced he needed another defender. As a result, the move for Nathan Ngoy from Standard Liege collapsed.

Victor Moses was a free agent and had not been prolific in Russia, Italy or Turkey. Even if he had, it did not get to the crux of the problem in midfield, with too many ball-players and too few willing to put the proverbial boot in.

Whether the board did enough, or whether they took for granted that this was a squad that was ready to compete, is the question that will haunt them should they not turn around the latest in a string of poor starts.

“When we started the Premier League season, the accusation that was thrown at us was that we were recruiting for a relegation to the Championship,” Harper says.

“As the season went along, that narrative changed because of the performances that were taking place. Had it not been for injuries we might have stayed in the Premier League. So I can understand why the board thought they had a squad that was good enough.

“They’ll have known they were losing Ross Barkley from a fairly early stage. I’m sure they tried to replace him but they haven’t got anywhere near the guy who will take the ball in the centre of the park to drive us up the pitch with quality, and that’s where we’re lacking. Barkley was 90 per cent of our play, everything went through him, it literally was ‘give it to Barkley and let him do his thing’ at times.”

The end of the line?

Everything is caveated by the new stadium – due to open in 2027 – and the financial constraints that loom in the background as a result.

It is telling then that should Edwards leave Kenilworth Road, he will do so with reputation largely intact, the mastermind behind the club’s greatest day in four decades at Wembley 18 months ago. What will make or break his tenure now is whether he is willing to abandon his back three, a system that has seen Alfie Doughty thrive but which has also left them painfully exposed to quick wingers.

The five changes made for the Middlesbrough game were inevitable at the end of a three-game week, but there have been other interrogation points – discipline, for one.

The club was fined £15,000 in response to their behaviour against Sunderland, a fine made heavier by what an independent regulatory commission called an “appalling” and “dreadful” record for failing to control their players. It is hurting them not just in the pocket but on the pitch too; only Preston and Burnley are conceding more fouls.

Luton’s 2024-25 summer window

Ins

• Mark McGuinness – £10m from Cardiff
• Lamine Fanne – £3.7m from AIK (loaned back, to join on 1 January 2025)
• Tom Krauss – loan from Mainz
• Reuell Walters – free transfer from Arsenal
• Shandon Baptiste – free transfer from Brentford
• Liam Walsh – free transfer from Swansea
• Victor Moses – free agent

Outs

• Chiedozie Ogbene – £8m to Ipswich Town
• Ross Barkley – £5m to Aston Villa
• Ryan Giles – £4.5m to Hull City
• Gabriel Osho – free transfer to Auxerre
• Fred Onyedinma – free transfer to Wycombe
• Luke Berry – free transfer to Charlton
• Andros Townsend – undisclosed fee to Antalyaspor
• John McAtee – undisclosed fee to Bolton
• Alan Campbell – loan to Charlton
• Jack Walton – loan to Dundee United
• Dion Pereira – loan to Dagenham & Redbridge
• Aribim Pepple – loan to Southend United
• Dan Potts – released
• Admiral Muskwe – released
• Louie Watson – released
• Elliot Thorpe – released

Edwards, for his part, is unrelenting. “If we turned up and decided to sit off the opposition,” he said before the 1-0 victory over Cardiff, “I think the fans would come and kill me.”

Maintaining that intensity has not been easy; a two-goal half-time lead against Coventry City turned into a 91st-minute 3-2 defeat. Too often they have talked the talk of possession football but in reality that has amounted to little more than playing for set pieces.

“I still think he’s a good manager, I still think he can do a job here but there’s two sides to it,” Harper says.

“Firstly, has the job run its course for him? If it has, it’s the best thing for both parties to go their separate ways. However if he still has motivation, if he still has energy, desire to do the job and motivate the players and get us out of this hole, then I still think he’s the best person for the job.

“I look at the candidates that are being bandied around for the Coventry job, there isn’t really anyone that’s standing out or making me think the grass is greener on the other side.

“If everything of the last 10 months – right the way back to the Tom Lockyer incident– if all of that has suddenly got too much for him, I would have no problems whatsoever if he said ‘look, this is the right time to walk away’ and he would leave with all of our blessing and thanks for two incredible years.”

Where Luton go from here is not entirely clear. Mark Robins is available post-Coventry, though the most natural option is another manager in the mould of Edwards and Joneses Graeme and Nathan. In fact that is the only personnel that is easy to change.

Parachute payments are offset by the Championship’s strict Profitability and Sustainability (P&S) rules, with clubs not permitted to lose more than £41.5m over a three-year period.

The winter window is not expected to be a busy one, not least, Harper admits, because “Luton are ultimately still a small fish in a pond that’s probably still too big for us”. The scars of the financial turmoil that saw them plummet to National League, following the FA’s heavy-handed treatment, are never out of mind. This is a club determined never to veer too close to the knuckle again. The loan market is more likely to yield fruit, Marvellous Nakamba and Cody Drameh respectable coups in recent windows.

But this weekend’s Hull City fixture is already being dubbed “El Sackico”, a who-will-blink-first with both Edwards and Tim Walter on the brink. January and all the promise of a new year may come too late.

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Pep Guardiola can expect to be backed in the January transfer window as reward for another significant commitment to Manchester City at a time of huge symbolic importance for the club.

Confidence has been growing at City that Guardiola would opt to stay beyond his current contract since positive talks with the club’s hierarchy in Abu Dhabi in October, at which – crucially – plans to break with tradition and potentially invest in the next transfer window were also discussed.

While there was never any pressure on the Catalan to reach a decision and no timeline was ever sketched out, the November international break always felt like the point at which there would be some clarity.

Guardiola has decided to stay at City for one more year, with the option of a further season, in what constitutes a massive show of faith in his employers as they fight serious financial fair play charges while also navigating a transition to new director of football Hugo Viana.

It is being viewed in the game as effectively a rallying cry to the club’s supporters and players from the most gifted coach in the world that they will not be moved despite the existential threat that the 115 charges represent.

One rival club executive told i: “Hoped Pep wouldn’t stay, expected he would. It doesn’t get any easier at the top.”

City are yet to comment on the now widespread reports of Guardiola’s decision but are expected to confirm details of his new deal soon, likely before the Premier League’s return this weekend.

The Manchester City manager will face the press on Friday to preview a crucial home game against Tottenham, and the smart money is on some form of official announcement before then.

There were those who felt after last season, and the shattering defeats in the Champions League and FA Cup, that Guardiola’s instinct was to leave.

But City, led by chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, were always going to make a major play to keep him – especially with the club at a crossroads.

Guardiola will know the symbolic and strategic importance of making his decision early. It will focus the minds of his players – they have just lost four straight games and are five points off league leaders Liverpool – but also allow the club to firm up plans for a significant dip into the market in the new year.

A midfielder to replicate the impact of Rodri – Atalanta’s Ederson and Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi are understood to be among the options – is high on the shopping list while City hope to make progress on other priorities, including extending Erling Haaland’s contract and renewing Kevin De Bruyne’s deal. Guardiola’s decision to commit will give both added impetus.

Guardiola’s decision is part a reflection of his deep connection with the club but also a sign that he is not yet ready to try his hand at international management, which has widely been viewed as his next step.

He had an offer from England – an opportunity that those close to him say intrigued him – but ultimately left the Football Association hanging as he weighed up his next steps.

He is manager who loves solving problems, and addressing the next stage of City’s progress as they attempt to consolidate their dominance of the domestic game and establish themselves as serial Champions League winners really appeals.

There does not appear to be any fear of the punishment that could come the club’s way if they are found guilty of a substantial number of the 115 charges either.

While that ongoing case is being conducted in secrecy can we read something into Guardiola’s decision and what it says about City’s confidence with the way the proceedings are going?

The club have certainly been bullish about their wins in the ongoing battle with the Premier League over associated party transactions. It’s worth noting they have consistently insisted they will be vindicated over the 115 charges – a message delivered privately to Guardiola with as much force as it has been publicly by club messengers.

That his new contract does not apparently include a break clause if they are relegated due to the charges is yet another detail that points to Guardiola singing from the same hymn sheet as his employers.

Upon learning of the charges Guardiola amusingly said he would turn back to Paul Dickov and Mike Summerbee if the club were relegated – it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he does have to rebuild in the lower leagues.

It was perhaps indicative of City’s confidence that they let it be known that there was no interest from their side in Sporting’s prodigious coach Ruben Amorim, subsequently snapped up by city rivals Manchester United to replace Erik ten Hag.

City sources indicated that his preferred playing style – he set Sporting up with a three at the back – jars with the Guardiola-flavoured philosophy which is now embedded at the Etihad from academy sides upwards.

But it was the wider message about Guardiola’s continuing influence at the club that told a bigger story.

It is a legacy set to stretch beyond a decade – by which time he will have cemented his place as one of the most consequential figures in the club’s entire history.

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It’s not every day one of Britain’s richest men knocks on your door to say hello, especially in Rochdale. Sir Peter Ogden’s impromptu doorstep in Percy Street met a typically unvarnished response delivered in flat Lancastrian: “You’re not trying to sell me summat are you?”

If the Ogden family are selling anything it is dreams. Giving, not selling, is the real game here, giving back to the community, to the town and to the club that means so much to its people.

Since the Covid torpedo hit four years ago Rochdale had been fighting a desperate rearguard against a fiscal hammer bashing them inexorably towards oblivion. And then in March, through the saloon doors walked billionaire Sir Peter, who not only picked up the £2m tab to maintain the National League club as a going concern, but pledged investment to fund a utopian future on and off the pitch.

This marriage of local boy made good and the town’s most significant identifying feature after Gracie Fields is one of the game’s great romances. Love was, however, slow to surface on the last day of August when Sir Peter chose the home match against Woking to celebrate ownership of his boyhood club with members of the extended family and to revisit with them his modest roots, including No 3 Percy Street, where he was raised.

Son Cameron, who assumed the role of co-chairman and describes himself as born southerner, bred northerner, recalled the family’s re-entry into the Rochdale atmosphere.

He told i: “We stayed over at the Hampton Inn down in town, had a nice dinner in Norden, and decided to do a little morning walk on the day of the match. Dad was keen to show us all the landmarks. We went to the Town Hall, which actually blew my mind. Amazing building.

“There was a guy there, a Rochdale fan and one of the historians giving a talk, which added a load of flavour. We went to the parish church where my parents were married. That was cool. And then we went on to Percy Street.”

The group were kitted out in their Rochdale gear bought at the club shop the day before, which prompted the neighbour’s defensive reflex.

“We knocked at No 3 but unfortunately the people, an older couple, were away. We were milling about and this little old lady comes out. [Cue selling rebuke]. My dad goes, ‘no, no, no, I used to live here.’ And she goes [in deeply sardonic voice] ‘you used to live here?’ We had a nice conversation with her after that. My dad remembers everything, where he used to play, where he went running, climbing down the drainpipe to avoid doing his homework. It was a lovely moment.”

The day ended positively with a 3-0 win to cement a solid start to the season, which sees Rochdale firmly in the play-off places. The Ogden mission mirrors the survivalist project at neighbours and Saturday’s visitors Oldham, a similarly distressed club rescued from the inevitable by its own white knight, self-made magnate Frank Rothwell, who rose from the same inauspicious roots as Sir Peter to fashion a different life than that of his forebears.

Where Rothwell flipped an impoverished education in Oldham that ended aged 14, Sir Peter was propelled towards nirvana by Rochdale Grammar School and subsequently via a PhD in theoretical physics from University College, Durham, an MBA from Harvard Business School, a banking career at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley and finally a computer empire that made him a fortune.

Sir Peter had been giving back for two decades via the Ogden Trust, a charity which focuses on various educational programmes promoting the sciences, before he answered the desperate plea from the club he supported as a boy. Whilst Rothwell can talk a rocking horse to sleep, Sir Peter rarely speaks on the record, leaving the delivery of the Rochdale undertaking to Cameron.

“We got an email in February from one of my dad’s old school mates from Rochdale Grammar saying these guys really need some help. He asked me to have a look. At the time there were quite a few suitors. We had been doing some things in the early 2000s from an educational perspective in Rochdale but I always felt that there were something more to be done.

“And I thought the football club could be an amazing platform for doing some of the stuff that we hoped we could do in the community. We were bowled over by what the club was already doing through their own community trust. My thought was, imagine what more they could do with the right resources.”

Co-chairman Simon Gauge, the long-standing board member who steered the club through takeover, remembers the date night when romance blossomed.

“I had so many conversations with so many people who said they were interested. Some were just time-wasters. Some were crooks that you knew would do it but were not great,” he told i. “What makes a club, the fabric of the club would have changed. We didn’t want that. To be fair Sir Peter was on our radar because we knew he came from Rochdale. But they came to the party late in the day. We were quite a bit down the line with American investors.”

The critical moment came in the Bamford Suite, Rochdale’s premier hospitality space, on the night of Tuesday 12 March for the visit of Woking, inadvertent witnesses to transformation. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham was also present to demonstrate the support and involvement of the political class in this process.

“As well as the Ogdens, there was a representative of the American group from Texas. It was like trying to manage two girlfriends in the room on the same date. We told the Americans the Ogdens were interested primarily in the community side, which was their initial pitch anyway.

“But once we knew the Ogdens were really serious it was the perfect fit for us. We got a last-minute winner too. It was like a sign. They have been the perfect owners. It’s easy to smile when you don’t have to beg and borrow to pay the bills at the end of every month. We were trying to sell for a year, but the club was on a downward spiral and no one wanted it at that point.

“It is not easy trying to sell a National League club, because the only way to make it work is to throw a load of money at it and get back into the EFL. I felt like the whole world was on my shoulders. You are like, ‘this club had been around for a hundred years. I can’t let this go.’ It was such a relief when they said yes.”

The Ogdens’ philanthropy taps into a community thread enshrined in a town that gave us the Co-op, the nation’s first consumer co-operative predicated on the distribution of a share of profits, and a club rooted in fan ownership.

That sense of community endeavour, depicted in a mural of a father and son holding hands as they walk to the match on the wall of the Ratcliffe, the club’s social hub – “It’s not just a club, son, it’s a way of life” – is preserved under the Ogden ownership.

The social and charitable work previously undertaken by the club’s community trust delivering vital health and educational services was valued at £5m a year. That is expected to grow under ambitious plans funded by the Ogdens and related partners.

Discussions with architects are under way to redevelop the four-acre Spotland site, aka Crown Oil Arena, in order to host events, an NHS diagnostics centre, a 70-place school to help kids who fall off the curriculum and multi-use office space, which might yet be home to football’s independent regulator should an ambitious plan put to the House of Commons by Rochdale MP Paul Waugh, come to fruition.

“We know the football regulator will be based in Greater Manchester, which reflects how the North West is the beating heart of the national game,” Waugh told i.

“I’m really hoping that it can be based at a small club like Rochdale which does represent everything about community based football rather than one of the big boys. It’s an ambitious plan. I have no idea whether it will materialise but full marks to them for having the ambition to go for it.”

Waugh was born and raised in Spotland, “literally floodlights through the windows stuff”, is how he describes it. As the town’s MP under the Labour government he has a duty of care towards the club as well a season ticket holder’s enthusiasm. Together with the Ogdens, local councillors and Mayor Burnham, Waugh is part of what might be seen as a multi-faceted campaign to demonstrate the relevance of small-town football clubs to their communities.

“My role is to be a community champion, making sure that community assets like a football club, rugby league club, cricket club, boxing club, etc., get the maximum help they can get from central and local government and to make sure the support is joined up as much as possible from the public sector, private sector and all the agencies along the way.

“As a government we are looking at football in the round. You have this extraordinary inequity between the very richest clubs and those lower down the pyramid. The football regulator will make a big difference on that, hopefully, recalibrate the difference between large and small, and also recognise that football relies on grass roots.

“Rochdale is a genuine community asset. It’s a small club, the butt of everyone’s jokes. We are used to all that, but the key thing is we are survivors and always have been. It’s a similar story to the town itself, incredibly resilient.

“There are lots of challenges but despite everything it’s the people that make it, and the football club is exactly the same. I’m a season ticket holder, so I’m interested in what happens on the pitch, but I’m just as invested in what happens off the pitch, and that’s the key for any MP.”

Surrendering a winning position to goals in added time at home is football’s thumb screw, emotional wipeout for three days at least. This was the fate of Rochdale against Crawley in the first round of the FA Cup last month, an outcome that would have been a grievous hit in the all too recent doom-spiral when existence relied on cup runs and player sales. Not anymore.

Rochdale lose between £500k and £750k a year, and was not viable beyond March’s payroll. So the smile on the face of Gauge, who pumped in £500k of his own family’s money to keep the club afloat, is that of a lottery winner. “The club survived because of exceptional events. We drew Manchester United in the Carabao Cup, Tottenham and Newcastle in the FA Cup. That and player sales kept us going, but it is not sustainable. As soon as those things stop happening you are in trouble.

“What makes this worth doing is the custodians want the best for the club. They are not in it for personal gain. It is all about community and the culture of the town. They get Rochdale. We are so lucky to have them. Sir Peter gets so overwhelmed at matches because people come up to him to thank him all the time. He comes from Rochdale, a boy that has done well. That is where the warmth and admiration comes from.”

Waugh remembers standing at the Sandy Lane End cheering the likes of Mark Hilditch, Grant Holt, Paddy McCourt and, of course, Rickie Lambert, who went on to play for England. “That was such a buzz. McCourt was our George Best who had amazing dribbling skills and went on to play for Celtic. For a little club like this it is such a lifeline having an owner that really cares about the football and the community as well.

“The Ogdens have reflected on the role of the club in the community, and want to do everything they can to help. The club helps veterans, young girls particularly, food banks, a panty at every match, cooking courses, mental health schemes. The community Trust motto is helping the people of Rochdale live, work and play. That’s why people turn up.

“As a lifelong Dale fan I can’t tell you what a relief it was when on the verge of collapse in comes a white knight, an owner who is a genuine philanthropist, born and bred in the town, made a huge success of business globally and is now putting something back in the area that raised him.”

Ultimately the arrangement is predicated on the success of the club. All else flows from that. This is the first year of a 10-year regeneration plan, central to which is a return to the EFL within three season. The Ogdens have worked out the correlation between wages and winning, the higher the former, the better the chances of achieving the latter.

“When you look at the data there is a high correlation between the amount of money spent on wages and promotion. The Wrexhams, the Chesterfields, the Stockports have all proven that,” Cameron says.

“It’s obviously high risk game. There are several other clubs, probably in the region of five to six, looking at having those budgets, well in excess of £2.5m-£3m. The opportunity to be in the league full time has its benefits.

“But the dangers are stacked if you fail. It can become quite an expensive project so we are taking it slightly more sensibly in terms of what we think is needed. I think we have supported our excellent young manager [James McNulty] as well as we can at this stage.”

The Oldham match, a “millionaire derby” in the foothills of the Pennines and an unimaginable occurrence not so long ago, is a litmus test of progress against a team considered the benchmark in the division – a Premier League founder member no less – with the same aspirations to meld football and community.

“We are making it a big family affair. My mum’s side of the family have all been invited so there’s about 30 of us coming,” Cameron said.

“It’s a big game. There are other big games for sure. I’m sure Oldham will feel the same, but November to February are tough months. It’s great to get some points because you come out the other side into that play-off run-up.

“To be there you can’t fall away in this period so we are excited about this game, a real derby. The sad thing is by being in this league with so many southern teams you don’t necessarily get teams with so much of an away following. So it will be nice to see the ground rocking.”

Waugh agrees, the more so after the loss of Bury, the team closest to Rochdale. “It’s tragic that a club like Bury would disappear. Bury lost their club and we lost the rivalry. The next best thing is the Oldham game, that’s why we are desperate to smash ’em,” Waugh says, temporarily setting aside his Westminster manners.

Ironically boundary changes at the last election mean the club is no longer in Waugh’s constituency. “It’s now in Heywood and Middleton North. Heartbreaking for me, I have to say,” he said, almost seriously.

Thankfully Elsie Blundell, a former Rochdale councillor who entered parliament in July at the same time as Waugh, understands the community value of ’Dale, so cross-border relations remain healthy. Besides, for all genuine supporters, football clubs are situated in the heart.

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Where is Graham Potter? When considering Crystal Palace and West Ham’s options should their spirals continue, this question rose to the surface and bubbled away with great curiosity.

Some out-of-work managers will persistently keep a high profile, but the quiet life has been the preference for Potter, who has donned an invisibility cloak since he was sacked by Chelsea in April 2023.

That is save for a mere handful public appearances. The first was uncovered thanks to a journalist’s greatest tool, the Getty photo archive, which pictures Potter in the stands at Tottenham’s Premier League match against Burnley on 11 May this year. Notably, it’s the only Getty photo of Potter since his Chelsea stint ended.

The second and third appearances have been more blatant, as a Sky Sports pundit, firstly in the Monday Night Football hotseat in place of Gary Neville on 30 September, and then for the Super Sunday match between Arsenal and Chelsea on 10 November.

After a while away, these appeared timely declarations of intent, of the cloak coming off and the desire to return to management now burning, with MNF in particular an ideal platform whereby every answer is scrutinised and plastered across sports news outlets countrywide.

There in the Sky studios Potter was belatedly quizzed on his Chelsea exit, such was the intrigue around his spell as the first hire and second fire of the Boehly-Clearlake era, while he was also asked about the potential of becoming England or Manchester United boss.

At a time when England were still considering their post-Gareth Southgate options and United were sticking with Erik ten Hag, Potter said: “I’m open to anything, to be honest.

“As an Englishman, of course it’s a fantastic job but I’m supportive of whatever the FA decide to do and whoever the coach is.”

Potter also refused to go into detail about United and the possibility of working with sporting director Dan Ashworth once more, adding: “I am the only coach in world football to be linked with Stoke City and Napoli in the same week.

“A lot of what I’ve read in the media is untrue and false. I take what the media say with a pinch of salt. I’ve had lots of conversations with lots of people. For the respect of everybody, it’s best I keep it private.”

Such conversations have indeed been kept from the baying press, but we now know for sure that those two gigs have passed him by.

FA chief Mark Bullingham claimed 10 candidates were spoken to for the England job, including some Englishmen, and it feels safe to assume Potter was among them before they landed on Thomas Tuchel.

Meanwhile, i reported Ashworth’s interest in reuniting with Potter at United back in March, but once Ruben Amorim emerged as the primary target to replace Ten Hag in late October, all other names dropped from contention.

Though not alone in being the bridesmaid for such roles, reservations at both United and within the FA regarding Potter must surely extend to Palace and West Ham, and perhaps elsewhere too.

Palace plumped for Oliver Glasner at a time when Potter was free back in February, while West Ham chose Julen Lopetegui in the summer.

So if Potter was not deemed the solution then, has anything changed in the months since? His only saving grace may be their respective results, and performances, so far this season.

At West Ham, Lopetegui’s lacklustre start smacks of a club who know they have chosen the wrong path but remain hesitant to admit it, having taken the big decision to move on from David Moyes’ brand of football – only to circle right back to it.

Nevertheless, Hammers chairman David Sullivan may well have his doubts around Potter, who feels like an obvious replacement and yet undoubtedly has flaws.

Potter was unable to bring his Brighton magic to Chelsea, where he was dismissed after just seven months and 31 games in charge, making for a record of 12 wins, eight draws and 11 losses.

That was in fact an improvement on his win percentage at Brighton – 39 per cent versus 32 per cent – but down on the south coast he was defying expectations, while in London he failed to live up to them.

Now without a job for 19 months in an industry that doesn’t stand still, we could soon find out if Potter really is deemed yesterday’s news, especially if owners put his Brighton success more down to their revered recruitment strategy rather than his coaching.

It feels likely West Ham or Palace will make a change soon, and if not then at least one of Southampton or Wolves, and if Potter is not under serious consideration, then the blot against his name must be bigger than first thought.

And the more time goes on, the blotchier that will get, meaning Potter may have to drop down a tier in order to secure a return to management.

Just as likely, though, is a move abroad. Having made a name for himself at Ostersund in Sweden before joining Swansea, Potter may see value in a European role.

After all, he has clearly enjoyed his time away from the limelight and British back pages, while his prospects of re-climbing the ladder in England may only be boosted by going to the continent.

Recent Premier League appointments would suggest this is the case, too. United poached Sporting Lisbon’s boss, Liverpool hired Feyenoord’s and Brighton St Pauli’s, and with a keen eye on such matters that will not have gone unnoticed by Potter.

What awaits Potter therefore is a matter that could be resolved in weeks, but should the Premier League’s struggling pack take another route, such curiosity will bubble over by the New Year.

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Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. The best way to follow his journey is by subscribing here.

At Oxford United’s home win over Hull City on 5 November, Head of Media Ryan Maher was excited to tell me that 100 people had signed up for the club’s event the following Monday. As I enter the Kassam Stadium six days later, Maher is buzzing around doing three jobs at once. It turns out the number of participants has doubled in six days. The room will be at capacity in an hour’s time.

This began in preparation for World Mental Health Day on 10 October, for which Oxford United created a magnificent and moving video. They wanted to follow that with something more personal that continued the conversation around suicide prevention, a Can We Talk? campaign. This is the first Oxford United mental health workshop. The club is working alongside Oxfordshire Mind and The Joey Beauchamp Foundation.

Oxford United is a club that has been affected by suicide. Joey Beauchamp was one of the most talented players in the club’s history, a Manor Ground hero who played more than 400 games for the club. In February 2022, when Joey was 50, his brother Luke found his body. Joey had taken his own life. “I just told him that I loved him,” Luke says in the Can We Talk? video.

Jack Badger was a footballer for local non-league side Abingdon United and a huge Oxford United supporter. He was one of twins and had five siblings. In September, Jack’s mum Sharon got a phone call from the police to say that a body had been found on the train tracks at Challow that morning. Sharon instinctively knew what had happened. Jack Badger was 24 years old.

Oxford United wanted to pay tribute to Jack and, during the 24th minute of their home game against Burnley on 28 September, a minute’s applause rang around the Kassam. Throughout the game, manager Des Buckingham wore a black hooded jumper with a message, “Boys get sad too”. That it became a news story in itself would only help to raise more awareness.

“We all have a role to play,” Buckingham tells me before the workshop event gets underway. “The fact is that, standing on the touchline, I am a little more prominent and thus able to get that message out, whether that’s to people in the stadium or otherwise.

“The more we can make things like this visible, the more we can help people understand the work that is being done in this space now and the more that people who are suffering can see that they are not alone. If I can play a tiny part of that, we owe it to the supporters and the community to do it.”

This summer, Oxford United signed midfielder Will Vaulks after he rejected a new deal at Sheffield Wednesday. Vaulks was front and centre of the Mental Health Day video, in which he sits down a chair on the centre circle and begins to tell his story. When Vaulks was 13, he lost his paternal grandfather Tom to suicide. Just 13 months later, his mother’s father Hywel also took his own life. At 15, Vaulks knew the impact of feeling unable to speak about mental health struggles.

“My personal experience is losing people to suicide,” Vaulks says, and his work in the area is extensive and admirable. “That was the end result of poor mental health. The earlier you can notice those small signs, the better you can help yourself and help others. Because then you might not end up losing family members, as I have.”

“It says a lot about him as a person,” says Buckingham of Vaulks’ work. “Football traditionally wasn’t an environment where you could speak about mental health, but even in the modern world it can be seen in some quarters as a weakness. We’re trying to quash that. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a young player or a senior player, if you have a role model who is confident enough to feel safe when speaking out about those issues, it will have a massive impact. People will look at Will and think ‘If he can, we can’.”

The room on Monday evening is diverse. It contains the young and the old, women and men, small groups and those who have come on their own. Some participants will be there because they are looking for help for their own mental health, others because they are seeking tools to help others close to them and some simply wanting to know how to help anyone at all. The audience contains supporters, members of the wider community, Oxford United players and club employees. All have the same broad belief: we have to look after each other a little more.

The workshop begins with an introduction from Oxfordshire Mind, a mental health charity, that details their own work and provides information about where people can seek help and support according to the needs of their situation. There is then a talk by Luke, a mental health professional, about the five steps to wellbeing. This is deliberately relaxed and offers broader tips about how to reduce stress and make connections with others, two strong measures in improving mental wellbeing.

There is then an extended panel session during which Buckingham, Vaulks, Beauchamp and Oxfordshire Mind CEO Jess Willsher all answered questions about how they manage their own mental health, ease the pressure on themselves and how they could do better.

Buckingham tries to walk outside for a short while with earphones in at both ends of the day and doing it near water helps to clear his head. Vaulks says that moving away from his friends means that he uses car journeys to ring them and chat about nothing in particular, which calms him. The point is obvious: if those in the public eye can speak openly about the need to focus on their mental health, it sets an example to others.

The final session sees attendees at their different tables break out to have conversations with each other. They might focus on tips they have taken on board during the evening or simply have a friendly chat, introduce themselves and ask how each other are doing. If there is any awkwardness at the start, within a few minutes the room is buzzing.

The first obvious aspect of the workshop is how simple the whole process is. Of course it took organisation, some advertising and the time of those panel members, but comparatively it was remarkably simple to get 200 people in a room to speak and learn about a worthwhile cause and important topic with a fortnight’s notice.

Were this a community hall down the road, the turnout would not be the same. That is the power of a football club. They are deeply important pillars of their community and they are important to enough people that they become influential. They can be leaders of social change as well as facilitators of it.

Oxford United 1-0 Hull City (Tuesday 5 November)

• Game no.: 33/92
• Miles: 198
• Cumulative miles: 5,413
• Total goals seen: 100
• The one thing I’ll remember in May: Oxford United’s three-sided stadium. Watching in from the outside is like peeking in at someone else’s joy, like seeing into a lounge from the street on Christmas Eve.

“Even being here tonight, I hope that shows the type of club that we are, the type of coach that I am and the type of environment we’re trying to create,” says Buckingham. “Speaking openly here isn’t a weakness. It shows that we are willing to be vulnerable. That will come with scrutiny, but we don’t care. If it can help people then it is the right thing to do.”

Secondly, this isn’t the only thing that Oxford United will do; that is important. There will be other initiatives announced and they will change and save lives. As Vaulks tells me, organising one thing and spreading the word is not nothing. But there is a chance to go above and beyond here. You see the difference being made in action.

“It’s brilliant that the club is willing to do it,” Vaulks says. “I’ve played for a number of clubs and not every club wants to. But what football does is to bridge a gap. It has made people want to come here. I think if this was just a regular mental health workshop held somewhere else then we would have had over 200 people here. But we have to get them in.

“Football has to make peace with that power. My main thing is that we cannot just talk; there has to be action. We have to put systems in place, through that action, that tries to stop people taking their own lives. That’s my mission.”

It’s obvious to say that this stuff matters and that football can, and must, make a difference. This week is the EFL’s Week Of Action, during which the governing body and its clubs demonstrate the myriad ways in which they can help to make life better for so many. As the EFL say, 49 million people in England and Wales live within 15 miles of an EFL club, more than four in every five people. This is not just a way of getting to them; it might just be the best way.

It also works here more than at most clubs because they know tragedy and they know the importance of mental health provisions. The importance of the work is reinforced by the video that includes Will, Luke and Sharon. Oxford United have the platform and the power; that applies to every club. Oxford United exists in an environment in which precedent suggests people are less likely to talk; that applies to every club. Oxford United have a personal connection to making it work. Thankfully that is not the same everywhere, but Oxford can rebuild something out of loss.

“Sometimes people just do not know where to go,” says Buckingham. “Sometimes people are worried about speaking to friends and family because they don’t want to burden them with things. So these types of events hopefully highlight that there are multiple avenues in which to seek support and solace. 

“This is one of the most neglected areas, not just in football or sport but in life. And it’s becoming far more prominent now than it ever has been, for many different reasons. If we can play a small part in raising awareness to even helping one person, that makes a huge difference.”

You hear that line a lot: helping one person is enough. It’s entirely appropriate, of course, because it helps to personalise and individualise the work and also because it doesn’t attempt to move mountains with a single push. You start with one person and a movement grows. It’s also wrong: Oxford United can and will help far more than one person. But it starts there.

At the end of the evening, the microphone is briefly handed around to anyone who wishes to say a few words. The last contributor is a gentleman on one of the front tables, who has come by himself. He explains that he has been in a dark place and sought help. He initially believed that professionals and treatment was out to kill him, not help, but has come to terms with his diagnosis and is now improving. He is no longer afraid of the stigma.

The guy doesn’t want to tell the room anything that he has learnt on this Monday evening and he certainly doesn’t want to try to pass on advice. He just wants to say thank you: to Oxfordshire Mind; to Oxford United; to Des and Will; to the people on the table who he’s just had a chat with.

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As the Lee Carsley interim era comes to an end, Thomas Tuchel must now set to work shaping an England squad capable of winning the 2026 World Cup.

Yet whereas he has a plethora of options in outfield positions and the difficulty will be fitting them in a cohesive team, goalkeeper remains a problematic position.

Jordan Pickford has been England’s No 1 throughout Gareth Southgate’s time, but in seven years he has rarely had a convincing challenger for his place and has always been the solid, dependable goalkeeper, rather than an outstanding one.

The most obvious options for Tuchel to try a different approach are Dean Henderson, at Crystal Palace, Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope, and Aaron Ramsdale, forced to move to Southampton in the summer after he was replaced as Arsenal’s first choice. None feel like a significant upgrade.

Is it time for a fresh approach to find England’s next No 1?

There is a young wildcard quietly working wonders in the Championship, a clean sheet specialist who set records as a European Championship winning Under-21 goalkeeper and honed his passing game at Manchester City — the latter a vital attribute under Tuchel.

James Trafford is the 6ft 6ins 22-year-old helping Burnley maintain the best defensive record in the Championship. He’s kept eight clean sheets in 14 matches, while Burnley have conceded only six times in the league all season.

Trafford left Manchester City in a permanent transfer to Burnley in 2023 for £19m – making him the third most expensive English goalkeeper ever, behind Pickford and Ramsdale.

Playing for relegation favourites in the Premier League at 20 was always going to be a brutal introduction to elite senior football, and his struggles matched Burnley’s. But his reputation is soaring this season in the second tier.

Those who know Trafford speak of a humble lad from a farming family in Cumbria (he went viral after signing a five-year contract at City and saying he didn’t want much and would probably spend his wages on ice cream) with an impressive inner confidence that does not cross over into arrogance.

When he went on his first loan at Accrington Stanley as an 18-year-old he told people he would play for England. And he has matched his confidence with performances.

On loan at Bolton he became the club’s first goalkeeper to keep four clean sheets in his first four games and later set a record of nine consecutive home clean sheets.

When England Under-21s won the 2023 European Championship he became the first goalkeeper to keep clean sheets in all six games and was the hero of the final when he made a stunning penalty and rebound double save in second-half stoppage time with England leading Spain by a single goal.

“I told everyone this morning I was going to save a penalty, I knew I was going to save it,” he said afterwards.

City signed Trafford from Carlisle when he was 12 and he was a teammate of Cole Palmer in the youth team. “Even in training, he’s so hard to score past,” Palmer said. “I’m just glad everyone else is seeing it.

“He knows himself how good he is but he’s not arrogant. He’s a nice lad. He’s a normal lad who believes in himself.

“When he first came, everyone was thinking, ‘Who’s this kid?’ As time went on, everyone was looking at each other, like ‘wow’.

“He just goes about his business on his own. I always say to him – even when we were little – that he is going to be world class.”

Guardiola took a shine to the player when he saved his penalty in a training ground shootout. He liked his personality – as well as his ability – and took him along with the squad for the 2021 Champions League final, in Porto, for the experience.

City were clearly aware of the talent they were letting go when they insisted on a buy-black clause being included in the deal and another ensuring they received 20 per cent of his next transfer fee.

Maybe he will need to take that step up to be considered for England. But Tuchel has been known to make left-field choices – like the time as Mainz manager when he commissioned tactics bloggers to work on opposition scouting reports, including Rene Maric, who went on to become Bayern Munich’s assistant manager. If there is a box, Tuchel will happily look outside it.

One of Southgate’s great strengths was using England to give talented young footballers coming through at academies a platform to prove to their clubs they could compete at the highest level. Mason Mount was a prime example.

Southgate was impressed enough by Trafford to include him in the provisional England squad for Euro 2024.

Pickford is a great shot-stopper, but his distribution is below the level of rival goalkeepers and he has often felt like an accident waiting to happen.

England were reminded of that in the shock defeat to Greece at Wembley in October, when he tried to control the ball outside his area only to give it away to Anastasios Bakasetas, who went for goal and was denied by a phenomenal sprint back and clearance on the line by Levi Colwill.

And in March against Belgium, in England’s final game before travelling to Germany, when he passed straight to Amadou Onana before conceding.

Tuchel’s appointment is arguably the greatest challenge Pickford has had to his dominance of the England goalkeeper jersey. Confronted with the prospect, he responded in typically bullish fashion. “I’ll work my bollocks off,” he said.

Tuchel made no bones of the fact he is prepared to upset people when he starts work.

“This comes with the job, unpopular decisions and, of course, with a job as a national coach, decisions that some supporters maybe don’t like or don’t understand,” he said at his first press conference. “But we will from January look for the best group of players. We will maybe not necessarily look for the 24 best individuals, but we will look for the best group.”

Adding that the job “comes with difficult decisions” and that he “will not be shy of taking them”.

If England are to win the next World Cup, choosing who should play in goal may well prove the hardest of them all.

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