Wolverhampton Wanderers interim manager Terry Connor has said that he would like to stay on to manage the club in the Championship. However, I think it is fair to assume that Wolves will be looking for a change in the summer.
In any case, Connor was only offered the job until the end of the season. Therefore, it is not a simple matter of allowing him to carry on for the time being. The club would have to offer Connor a new contract. Contracts may not mean much in modern football, but they are a suggestion that Wolves see Connor as the man to lead them over the next two to three years.
It is somewhat unlikely that the club would reach that conclusion. After all, they could have offered him a longer-term deal when they originally appointed him. The reason that the club did not do so was because he would be judged on results.
It is pretty clear that results have not been good, and Wolves have now been relegated. I think Connor had to keep the club in the Premier League to stand any chance of keeping the job. So, in that sense, Connor had failed with the task he was given.
I have said in previous articles that I thought the decision to appoint Connor was fundamentally wrong. However, I fully understand why he would accept the job. I would have thought that any coach working at any football club dreams of being offered the main role. So, for Connor, he never had any intention of turning the job down.
However, the Wolves board should have known that this was not the situation for an inexperienced manager to take charge. The club's relegation is just proof the club made the wrong call. But they now have the opportunity to fix their mistake.
It would be the wrong call to allow Connor to continue in the role. Such a decision would only continue to push Wolves further down the Football League, being a Norwich City fan, I have some authority on this very subject.
The appointment of Bryan Gunn was a similar farce, and it was fortunate that David McNally rectified the situation as soon as he was allowed to. Wolves must act with firm and decisive action to get the club back on track and in a position to challenge for promotion back to the Premier League.
Connor has suggested that he will seek employment elsewhere if Wolves do not want him. But this seems to be a U-turn on previous comments. Connor had earlier suggested that he would be prepared to perform in a different role at the club.
This is the problem when respected coaches/assistants take on the main management job, once they go for it, can they go back? Could Connor go back to his old role?
I think it would be very difficult, because the dynamic has changed with the players and he has gone from a respected coach to a failed manager. He would then have to go back to being a coach after being the boss.
Perhaps Connor had realized this and concluded that he has to be the manager at Wolves or move on to a new club. There is also the issue of the new manager wanting to bring his own backroom staff in.
What is not clear from Connor's comments is where he sees his next role if he is to move on. His performance as Wolves manager is not exactly a glowing reference to his next employer. Therefore, he may need to go right down the Football League to find a club willing to take a chance on him.
On the other hand, he had a very successful career as a coach prior to being offered the top job. So, it is down to Connor to decide where he wants his career to go from here. If Connor has now caught the management bug, then he shouldn't allow himself to be discouraged. Many managers have had tough starts before eventually rising to the top.
But if he decides that he wants to return to coaching then that is fine to. But it does look like his association with Wolves will end at the end of the season.
James Kent has been a fan of Premier League, Championship, and League One football for many years; follow James on Twitter and Facebook.
