Friday, November 22, 2024

Carlisle to appoint sporting director – chairman

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Carlisle United chairman Tom Piatak has confirmed the club are in the process of recruiting a new sporting director as part of a total restructure.

The Florida-based businessman parted company with manager Paul Simpson hours after United’s 2-1 home loss to Tranmere Rovers on Saturday.

United were relegated to League Two last season and the weekend defeat was their third from four league matches this term.

Assistant managers Gavin Skelton and Billy Barr also left the club, as did Simpson’s son Jake, who was the club’s head of performance.

Academy coaches Mark Birch, Steven Rudd and Jamie Devitt have been placed in caretaker charge until a permanent head coach is announced.

The Piatak family took over the club last November but their arrival could not stop Carlisle finishing bottom of League One in their first season back in the third tier for nine years.

Piatak admits that Carlisle did not have the tools to compete at that level.

But now he believes that it is the right time to take a more “strategic” view over how the football side of the operation is run.

“We really want to take more of a broader vision and move towards a sporting director,” Piatak told BBC Radio Cumbria.

“We want to have the coach focused just on the day-to-day operation, the match, the team selections, squad selection, the tactics.

“In today’s modern football, there are so many aspects going on – to have one person responsible for the broader vision, the budget, the recruiting, the academy, it’s just too much.

“We think that by having someone who is very focused on the day-to-day, the match selection, it’s going to help us win, it’s going to help us build for the future.

“We have a vision of where we want to go and to do that, it doesn’t happen overnight.

“You need some strength, so we need someone with experience on that sporting director’s side to come in with networks, contacts – someone who has been successful and done it before that can help strengthen the squad.”

Paul Simpson on the touchline for Carlisle v Barrow

Paul Simpson won 41 of 126 games in his second spell as Carlisle boss [Rex Features]

‘One and three start was not acceptable’

Carlisle were the only one of the bottom seven clubs in League One last season not to replace their manager or head coach as Simpson oversaw a record of 30 defeats in 46 games.

He was given the summer to overhaul the squad, with an expectation that the Cumbrians would be competing near the top end of the fourth tier.

But three points from a possible 12 has not met those aims, with two heavy defeats at Gillingham and MK Dons plus the home loss to Tranmere.

That was a 10th league defeat in 12 games at Brunton Park stretching back to New Year’s Day and sparked Piatak’s action.

“We wanted a different outcome but that just didn’t happen,” said Piatak.

“We worked through the pre-season to get the right players in here and we felt that we had assembled a very good squad.

“The results were not there, I did not expect to be 20th in the table with a one and three record.

“When I look at last year, I’ve stated that I don’t think Paul had the resources. I don’t think the management had the resources to be competitive in League One.

“That did come into a factor when we were making the decision why we didn’t do it [change manager] during the off-season.

“But going into this, we have the players and the talent now that we should be winning. To go one and three in the first four starts was not acceptable.

“We have internal metrics and we were not achieving those, so the question became, ‘Do we wait six games, do we wait eight games?’

“We thought it was better to do the reset now while we’ve got the majority of the season left and let’s get a fresh start.”

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