Marcus Bignot

Quoted from RichMariner

But what's odd is that the board sacked Bignot and then brought in a bloke who only released Pearson and Disley anyway, so if we were never going to protect the senior players then why not let Bignot manage his way through the transition?

Disley will always be a GTFC legend for what he did and how he conducted himself as part of that side.  However I think the decision to release him was the correct one.  

Slade entered that summer with 2 contracted midfielders in Summerfield and Berrett, he had no real option to offload either of them. Berrett had done nothing for us in his first season with us, Summerfield was at this point ridiculed beyond belief after a quite abysmal first season with us.    Perhaps in hindsight keeping Disley on would have served better than signing Mitch Rose, who was quite poor until Jolley arrived, but we needed to look to upgrade.  Only one player was out of contract, the other two wouldn't have had anyone lining up to sign them.  

Pearson's a different kettle of fish altogether.  By all accounts Bignot had promised Pearson a two-year contract long before he was sacked, we all know the club policy is to not make public on deals during the season.  How much truth there was in that, or if Bignot was in a position to make those promises I don't know.  What I do know is that Slade suggested the reason he couldn't give Pearson a new deal is because he wanted to bring Nathan Clarke in and already had Danny Collins & Andrew Boyce under contract.  He then subsequently offloaded Boyce and brought in Karleigh Osborne as a replacement.  Boyce wasn't exactly a success during that season, pale shadow of the player we had on loan I thought, but he was damn sight better than Osborne and Clarke.  Pearson was light years ahead of both.

Summed up Slade's attitude when he was happy to go into the season with a centre-back pairing of Collins in his late 30's and Clarke nearing his mid-30's with the fleet of foot akin to a fly stuck in a saucer of treacle.  Meanwhile he let the bastion of his dressing room and fans favourite Pearson walk away on a free transfer.  Weakened the team but also the team spirit.  There's something to be said about making a statement when you take over as the new man in charge, there's also something to be said about ripping the heart out of your team and making yourself look stupid in the process.