When you look back and you think we lost Nigel (Adkins), it was a daunting task for a new young manager to take over.

The year before we only 

escaped by the skin of our teeth, so one has to realise 

We'd known for some time we were likely to lose Nigel, not because it was imminent, but bearing in mind that if a manger is successful you're going to lose him, if he's unsuccessful, they usually get the sack.

If you're at a small club, you'd never say you'd reached the pinnacle of your career.

We thought we were doing right, planning for the future and I think, given different circumstances and again with the benefit of hindsight, we might have been able to guide Ian a little bit better.

One is we've had an enormous amount of injuries and when you think about the players that Alan has brought in, if you added up all the games they've played, it's not many.

Andy Barcham had a long spell out, Damien Mozika has hardly played any games for us, Jordan Robertson has been out most of the season and Nicky Ajose just hasn't been anything like the player he was when he was on loan at Bury last year.

All that has conspired against us and it was always going to be difficult to begin with because, for a side coming down, it's very, very difficult to get momentum going in the opposite direction.

Quite a lot of the players, if not all of them, were on a drop in salary, which hurts a player to start with, so you've got to get over that hurdle.

There's an awful lot against you. That's why so many clubs, when they start to slide, find it difficult to stop.

The other thing is, it's a bigger drop financially than it's ever been before.

When we came down last time, there wasn't the solidarity money from the Premier League. So this year, instead of being a £2million drop, it's a £4million drop.

That's an awful lot of money to take out of your budget. You can't do that in one year.

But hopefully the win at Hartlepool will see us kick on.

I'm sure it won't be all smooth sailing from now on, but hopefully we'll keep clear of the bottom area.

As the pressure mounts, for whatever reason, I know you will say players shouldn't lose confidence, but it happens.

You can see, when they're at home and you can hear a pin drop, they're that little bit too nervous.

Every time a manager has a few bad results, he's asked about whether he's under pressure and if he fears for his job.

Most times people say no and the board give him a vote of confidence, which is like a kiss of death.

I would say, judge us on our record and we haven't employed many managers during the period I've been involved at the club.

We've only dismissed one manager and that was very, very reluctantly.

We're not likely, I wouldn't have thought, to act on impulse.

Alan took on a big job and the things we liked about him when he took over, we still like about him now.

We believe he's the sort of manager to get a team that will represent Scunthorpe well and be one we can support.

For us to bring players in, we have to get some players out.

The only exception, as I've always said, is that we'll do our utmost to find extra money if we can find what I would term 'investment players'.

You might pick me up on that and say 'why did you do so and so', but of course there are exceptions to every case.

Generally speaking, money spent in January, is panic spending and clubs always put prices up.

For a lot of them, venting their anger is a way of letting off steam.

I love to see them elated with joy, so we'll do our best to get a winning team.