What we need - apart, of course, from someone with good managerial skills - is a CEO who can really schmooze at Premier League and FA committee meetings. Ayre is loathed at those things; he's never recovered from his 'little clubs' comment, and he hasn't even tried to make things better. The result is that, whenever we have problems, be it Suarez or a transfer tap-up accusation, we are hung out to dry because we have no friends where it matters. Whether we like it or not we're in a political world, in a football sense, and we have to have people on the inside. Parry had that influence by default, because he came to us from the Premier League, and even a sleepy-headed twit like him still knew who to call when we needed a bit of assistance. We need someone who knows how to play the system to our advantage.