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After leaving Bolton in unceremonious circumstances, Ian Evatt is now the favourite to land at the tail end of English professional football.
Evatt was the second longest-serving manager in the EFL up until January 22 when a video of him appearing to tell fans to ‘f*** off’ became the final straw for Wanderers’ board.
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Just ten days earlier, the 43-year-old even turned on his own players, suggesting they were ‘mentally fragile’ after a 3-1 defeat to Rotherham.
Those incidents brought his four-and-a-half year spell at the club to an end, but Evatt could soon be back in action, just far further down the pyramid.
The Coventry-born coach is now the favourite to take over Carlisle United, a tier below Bolton in League Two, in fact at the very bottom of it.
The Cumbrian side are 24th out of 24 teams in the fourth tier and five points from safety with five defeats in their last six matches.
On February 3, following a 5-1 hammering at home against Swindon Town, they sacked manager Mike Williamson, paving the way for one of the most difficult vacancies in England.
That’s because Williamson had been backed extraordinarily in the transfer market, with Carlisle bringing in a whopping 12 new players to ward off a catastrophic relegation to the National League.
Evatt, should he take the role, would be tasked with making essentially a whole new starting line up gel for the remainder of the season, a thankless task for any coach.
Among those who arrived were former Newcastle and Premier League regular Paul Dummett and Manchester United prospect Joe Hugill.
Yet such quality signings were seemingly not enough to tempt one other manager - Steven Gerrard - who was linked to the post shortly after Williamson’s dismissal.
The Liverpool legend had just left his post in the Saudi Pro League with Al Ettifaq and could return to Britain where he had more success, particularly with Rangers, winning the Scottish Premiership for the first time in ten years in 2021.
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League Two relegation is arguably the most damaging prospect in English football, given the tall order of promotion back up to the top four tiers.
Only two teams are promoted from the semi-professional National League, with the champion automatically going up and then the next six sides involved in a play-off.
That number, which is unique in English football, has been challenged by the National League, with general manager Mark Ives calling it ‘unfair’.
On February 4, all 72 National League teams wrote a letter to the EFL asking for three promotion spots, with Ives saying: "The regulator will be set up in law this year, I am fairly certain of that.
"But by the time it is set up, started, staff trained and all the elements of the Bill are in place and then, potentially, the dispute between the Premier League and EFL has been aired with a backstop, that could be three years.
"Then we have the discussion on the three-up campaign, which will delay it by another year. That could be four seasons.
Former Carlisle United goalkeeper Jimmy Glass reflects on his historic goal 25 years on from that famous game against Plymouth Argyle that kept them in the football league
"We have a pyramid that is the envy of countries worldwide because you can go from the very bottom to the top, purely on sporting merit. But there is a blockage in the jump between National League and EFL. Two-up, two-down is simply unfair.
"I would think the vast majority of fans, looking at it objectively, would see the unfairness. We want a fairer system."
