Irrespective of the talents, or lack of depending on your view, of Mac, unless you are Wayne Bennett you have a finite life at a club as head coach. There comes a time when you lose it, whatever 'it' is. I think Mac is close to that point. Thankfully the 3 year licence has given some stability but if it wasn't for this, & the fact that Celtic & Salford are maing up the numbers ATM, I believe Mac would be out by the end of the month. The potential financial consequences would be intolerable.

There are fixed costs (administration on match days), the proportion of these to income increases with the reduced income.

I said yesterday that whatever anyone feels about him, the departure of McNamara does seem to have the same air of inevitability and resignation as his face when interviewed in France. Whether and when that will happen still depends though, and I entirely agree with you that the lack of a relegation threat has the effect of increasing what might otherwise be a very limited shelf-life of coaches whose teams are under threat. ( Though not in all cases, as the sacking of Lowes demonstrated. Ironic that some want him here, a failed coach with less experience than the incumbent)



But going back to Adey's point, there is a financial reason for that, and that of course is weighing the cost of sacking a contracted coach against the disastrous financial effects of relegation.

The proportion is not by itself relevant. You are stuck with fixed costs - including coaching staff salaries - regardless, at least in the short-term. What matters is whether you generate sufficient "contribution" (income less variable costs) to cover your fixed costs. If you do, then you are in profit. If you don't, you are in loss.



We can debate whether all fixed costs are really variable costs in the long term, whether many variable costs are really fixed costs in the very short term, and the behaviour of "semi-" or "stepped-" variable costs such as matchday stewarding all day, but the basic point remains.



Except what matters even MORE is whether you are generating enough contribution in CASH terms to cover your fixed-cost and capital outlays in cash terms. If you are not, then eventually you go bust - not through lack of profit per se, but through lack of cash.

Ah well, at least we can hope that in his meeting this afternoon, he presents his resignation

Shame some of them wont take a leaf out of Kris Radlinski's book and work for free till we get our selves out of this rut

It might yet come to that - or at least pay reductions.

But there's the thing. The team CAN play. We've got the players to compete on paper. However there's is clearly some very deepseated problem at the club be it clash of personalities, mental blocks or whatever. It's the head coach and his staff's responsiblity to get to the root of what's causing these collapses and put it right. They're clearly not doing it or what ever they're doing is falling short of what is needed

I'd say its a side with too many players that have quality (to varying degres) but are very inconsistent. Platt, Sherrife, Sykes, Halley, Jeffries, Solomona, Cook, Tupou (when he was at least half fit), Worrincy all seem incapable of putting together a run of consistent form. The trouble is I cant see these players ever developing any consistency.



Harking back to the past I know, but we need a few more Naylors, Dwyers, Gartners, Forshaws and McDermotts coupled with a small number of genuine class players.

What's causing it is we never look like we can defend and the players, by their body language, know that. IMO the defensive line has to be the priority to the extent of taking the money we have spare on the salary cap (and has been budgeted for unless we were going to pay Bird in seeds) to pay for additional coaching staff specifically to address this.

Agreed. I don't want them to sound like they are unaware there is a serious problem, when there clearly is. A bit of honesty would be appreciated, ie 'we are in the shoeshine big time at the mo'



On one hand it's good to see a bit of dedication to the coach (how many times have we criticised the quick sackings of a coach?) but on the other hand, it's almost impossible to see a way out of the current situation without a major overhaul. It's not as though he hasn't had time is it?



All we can do is stick with it until the good times roll around again.(as much as I felt like throwing my season ticket in the bin on Sunday!)

I find it hard to imagine contracts are not results based & appearance based. Taking on aged & injury susceptible players is a major risk which seems obvious to even those who do not run businesses.