The Michael Skubala leaving story got brought back to life this week, but the funny thing is that beneath all the noise, all the headlines and all the social media panic, there does not actually appear to have been a huge amount of movement at all.
That is probably the strangest part of the entire saga. Lincoln City supporters woke up this week to what felt like a fresh development, a fresh twist and a fresh reason to panic, only for it to quickly become clear that most of what was being circulated publicly was information that had already existed for several days. The release clause being triggered was not breaking news in the traditional sense. It had already happened. Speculation on the subject of Bristol City had already taken place. Other journalists had already indicated that Skubala was likely to stay put. Yet suddenly the story had another life.
That is modern football media in a nutshell. Once something gains traction, once one outlet pushes it hard enough, everybody else piles in behind it because nobody wants to be the publication that misses the story supporters are searching for. It becomes self-sustaining. There might be a new angle to old news. Radio clips become articles, articles become podcasts, podcasts become social posts, and social posts become “reaction”. Before long, a situation which may have been relatively calm behind the scenes suddenly feels like complete chaos externally.
The reality is probably far more straightforward.
Bristol City admired Michael Skubala. They triggered the clause which allowed them to speak to him, and that was not common knowledge. That much appears undeniable, and this week’s story picked up on a salient fact others had not: the trigger being met. Beyond that, however, the picture becomes far murkier. Reports over the weekend suggested Skubala was remaining at Lincoln. Other names, particularly John Mousinho, started emerging as genuine contenders for the Ashton Gate job. If Bristol City were deep into negotiations with Skubala, it would seem strange for another candidate to suddenly become so prominent at the same time.
There are logical reasons for that as well. Bristol City are a big club, but they’re at a crossroads after a tough season. They have expectant fans, and perhaps being linked with the hottest managers outside the Championship appeases their supporters a little, which could explain two leaked names. After all, the first leak came through Pete O’Rourke, a journalist who relies on information coming his way from agents and, perhaps, clubs.
There is no doubt the Robins are a bigger club than us in pure scale and infrastructure terms, nobody sensible would argue otherwise, but are they automatically the obvious next step for Skubala right now? That is a different conversation entirely.
The Championship is littered with examples of League One managers who stepped up too quickly and disappeared just as fast. Steven Schumacher left Plymouth Argyle with a glowing reputation and was gone from Stoke City within months. Michael Duff earned rave reviews in League One but struggled to establish himself higher up the pyramid. Matt Taylor had a similar trajectory. Even our own experience with Danny Cowley and Nicky Cowley proves how quickly momentum can disappear once you leave the environment where success was built.
Skubala is in an unusually strong position because he has already crossed the divide into the Championship. There is a significant difference between being viewed as “a good League One manager” and being viewed as “a Championship manager”. By taking City up, he has changed the entire perception of his profile within the game. In my opinion, he has now reached a save point in his career, if this were a video game. He’s not about to drop a level; he is now not a League One manager stepping up, in the strictest sense.
That is why Bristol City perhaps no longer looks quite as tempting as it might have done six months ago. Had they come calling in December, with the Imps still fighting for promotion and Skubala not certain of a chance to prove himself at Championship level, it would have been an enormously difficult offer to turn down. Now, however, the equation changes. Lincoln are no longer the ambitious outsiders dreaming of getting there. We are there, we are Championship, and while Bristol City are established, they are now our peers, not a side from a division above.
More importantly, Skubala’s stock arguably cannot fall dramatically over the opening months of next season. If we struggle initially, most people will simply shrug and point towards budget realities. Assuming Bolton Wanderers or Stockport County join City in the division, we will almost certainly start the season among the favourites for relegation. That is unavoidable. The resources at Sincil Bank simply will not match the majority of the Championship.
Therefore, if we are battling in the bottom three after ten or fifteen games, nobody will suddenly conclude Skubala is a poor manager; we’ll just be where we should be. Hell, if we’re 22nd, we’ll likely be outperforming our budget by two places. The second City outperform expectations, even slightly, Skubala’s reputation grows again. Find ourselves a couple of places above the relegation zone, and he is outperforming the budget massively. Somehow, flirt with mid-table and his reputation explodes.
That makes patience a very powerful asset for our head coach in terms of his career progression.
There is also a personal side to all of this, which supporters and media alike often overlook. Managers are not simply career ladders in tracksuits. They are people with families, routines and lives away from football. Skubala is Midlands-based, settled relatively locally and working within an environment that clearly suits him. Moving hundreds of miles away for a club which may not necessarily represent a huge leap in stability or ambition is not always as straightforward as supporters assume.
And while football fans understandably obsess over club size, many managers often think differently. Stability matters. Structure matters. Alignment matters.
That is an interesting aspect of Bristol City, specifically. They have only recently reshaped parts of their football structure, bringing in new leadership figures and attempting to establish a longer-term identity. There are links there, of course. James Ellis, incoming Bristol City Sporting Director, has connections to Skubala dating back to their time around the Loughborough setup, which naturally fuels speculation, but that alone does not suddenly make Bristol City the perfect fit.
If anything, the stronger long-term opportunities for Skubala probably sit elsewhere. He’s a coach who could, feasibly, be lower midtable with Lincoln and raise his profile. If he’s upper mid-table with Bristol City, his profile perhaps takes a hit.
A club like Middlesbrough would make far more sense if they eventually came calling, in terms of their expectations. Yes, upper mid-table wouldn’t be success, as it wouldn’t be at Ashton Gate, but the resources are there at the Riverside. The structure is in place, the continuity which has served Michael and the staff well is in place. The same applies to sides with recent Premier League pedigree, established infrastructure and the financial capability to genuinely build around a head coach. Those are the jobs which become difficult to resist because they represent not merely a sideways Championship move, but a genuine step towards the top flight.
That is why the bigger question is probably “Will Skubala leave for Bristol City?” but rather “At what point does Skubala eventually leave Lincoln City?”
Because the uncomfortable truth is that successful managers rarely stay forever. Supporters know this, even if emotionally they do not always want to admit it. The Cowleys eventually moved on. Eddie Howe moved on from Bournemouth (he came back). Graham Taylor moved on. Success creates attention. Attention creates opportunities. That is football.
The important thing for supporters to remember is that the club itself is now far stronger than it once was. Ten years ago, City were a drifting National League side appointing two PE teachers from Braintree and hoping for the best. Today, we are a Championship club with established infrastructure, improved recruitment processes, strong leadership and a growing reputation within the game.
That does not mean losing Skubala would not hurt. It absolutely would. In truth, he has been the single biggest factor behind promotion this season. The squad contained talented players, certainly, but the management team brought everything together perfectly. The tactical identity, the mentality, the consistency and the togetherness all stemmed from the head coach.
But the Imps are no longer reliant on one man in the same way they once might have been. The foundations beneath the club are stronger now. Recruitment is stronger. Data usage is stronger. Financial planning is stronger. The environment itself has evolved enormously over the past decade. That does not eliminate the risk of eventually losing Skubala, but it does mean the club would survive it, as we survived losing Danny and Nicky.
For now, this particular story feels more like media momentum than genuine managerial upheaval. Unless something changes dramatically behind the scenes, it still feels far more likely that Michael Skubala will be leading the Imps into the Championship next season than walking into Ashton Gate.
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