[Devongone]

Course you could have said straightaway that you were flattered a club like Plymouth were interested in you, but you promised to get Chesterfield back in the League and you wanted to finish the job.

You could have made it clear that Plymouth was too good a chance to miss and if you were a runner then you only get one shot at life don't you?

Or you could have destabilised your own team and helped to end its winning run by prolonging the agony.

Remember Portsmouth and how you reticently led us into the League One play offs, knowing half your squad's contracts were nearly up and you and everyone else knew you were off to Pompey however we performed? And we ended up playing a keeper who hadn't played a competitive game in two years?

Thanks for all the good times you've given us. You are nearly as good a manager as you were player. Course we'd like you to stay. Course we want to win our league and get back to the EFL. Course we'd cheer you, but hey don't just return us to the shelter like some unwanted unfashionable dog. If you've got ambitions beyond Sheffield Road, just say so ..... because results speak for themselves.

[Lord Snooty]

I was looking at the league table the other day and noticed you were ten points clear.

Was wondering how you could possibly cock this one up.

[Devongone]

A friend of mine said the other day we had it all stitched up.

I replied nothing in Chesterfield's past or present is stitched up - except the stitch-ups of course.

[SaltergateBorn]

When PC left us to go to Pompey a few years ago, I could sort of see his point. I don`t think it had a great deal to do with players coming to the end of their contracts; I think it was more the case that Dave Allen (whose understanding of football, it has to be said, could be written on the back of a postage stamp and still leave enough room to lick it) had announced that the playing budget was going to have to be slashed. PC obviously saw what the future held and could see his own career going with it so bailed out before the inevitable happened.

This time, things are very different. The future looks brighter than it has for many years and he did indeed say when he came back that his ambition was to take us back to where we were when he left; the top half of League 1. Personally, I think he`s well on the way to doing it. If we can keep this squad together with just one or two additions / replacements I can see us doing it within a couple of years, as both Stockport and Wrexham show every sign of doing. I think our squad now is just as strong as theirs when they went up. So if he did decide to move on now, I would find it much harder to understand – or to forgive.

At the moment, however, I`m not aware that Argyle – or any other club, for that matter – have made an official approach for him. As I understand it, it`s just speculation on the part of some bookies and some elements of the Press. That being the case, I don`t see that there`s any onus on him to say anything at all publicly until or unless they do. What`s being said internally is another matter and I would hope that he has made his position clear to the directors, to the back-room staff and to the players. I`d be very disappointed in him if he hasn`t.

If he does decide to go, then so be it. I`d be saddened, obviously, but I would assume that DW would stay and I think he has the ability and the standing at the club to keep it on a straight course. (That being said, I have been following the Spireites long enough to be fully aware of our capacity for cock-ups of any magnitude.)

We`ll just have to wait and see what happens, I`m afraid.

[spireitematt]

Gus Poyet and Dean Holden are favourites for the Plymouth job. Neil Warnock lives down that way so wouldn't rule him out. I can't see Cookie leaving to go to Plymouth because when he was Pompey manager he had a few run-in's with them, plus he said he would get us back into L1 and the team we have is good enough to get back to back promotions.

[Devongone]

I cannot imagine a world in which any club would sooner have Dean Holden as manager than Cookie.

If I were Plymouth I too would go for Warnock who doesn't get a mention. He has a home in Cornwall ...... and another in Scotland ...... and he was disappointed Huddersfield let him go. Warnock, or Colin as he is known, would keep them up for certain and if they were sensible they would do what Huddersfield should have done, discuss succession with a young manager eventually coming through and Warnock remaining in an influential position in the club as long as he liked. Football's obsession with a new face and a fresh start every two years at the outside is simply nonsense.

Salts is right, David Webb's lad looks an ideal replacement if Cookie goes, despite his dad's often crazed performances on-field. BUT if Cookie had followed the maxim that there is no i in team he could and would have strangled the nascent rumours at birth. The results of that failure were seen at Solihull in the result and our idiot captain getting himself sent off.

Though Salts is right that with Pompey Cookie was doing a Bob Dylan -"you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind's blowing" - he certainly wasn't blameless in football's most open secret clouding our ignominious end to that season. Though it was Dave Allen's doing, it was the start of the process of decline which saw us exit the football league and the manner of Cookie's departure wasn't much help.

If I were Mr Cook I'd stay and try to fulfil the boast about our getting back to Division One. But Plymouth is a good club with an owner determined to finance it prudently. They have a few very good players in their ranks, but whether they are anywhere near being able to mount a challenge to get to the Premiership, which would be appropriate for a city of Plymouth's size with a catchment area for potential support encompassing two counties which are semi-deserts as regards pro' football, remains a moot point. Potential is a young man's game and Cookie is no spring chicken.