Dispelling Some Myths About Michael Skubala and Bristol City

I’m not going to squeeze every last drop out of Michael Skubala, leaving us for Bristol City. Football is fluid, and frankly, we have to look forward with Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw.

However, the usual flurry of social media nonsense has prompted me to sit down before heading off to The Anglers for a promotion party, because there are some myths I want to dispel, not just about his move, but also about how he’s likely to set up at Bristol City.

I’m going to get straight into it.

He’s a Judas

Give over. The reports of him signing a new deal were wrong, like so much of the reporting outside of Lincoln on their issue. The great journalists, like Pete O’Rourke, have had him coming and going like days of the week. So much of the reporting has been baseless, not reflecting the situation, but reflecting a need for engagement. Michael didn’t pen a new deal and then leave. He didn’t pledge his future to us and then walk away. He wasn’t pictured in a Bristol City shirt like Paul Ince, he hasn’t skipped off to a local rival like Ben Futcher.

He has gone to work for (currently) a bigger club (I’ll deal with that shortly), and taken the next step in his career, not mid-season, not after explicitly promising to stay, but at a time where we can replace and regroup with as little impact as possible.

Yes, he said things in interviews at the end of the season which made us all think he wouldn’t go, but I was burned by Danny and Nicky leaving, and you learn, eventually, that having a microphone stuck in your face when you’ve just been celebrating in front of 3,000 fans does sometimes lead to quotes that don’t age well.

Money Talks

Of course it does. This is the most absurd statement I have ever read when it comes to management. Football is a business, and just because we all support Lincoln City, and couldn’t be bought, staff and players are employees, looking to climb. I started in the warehouse at Jackson Building Centres in 1999, and I ended my merchant career as manager of Howdens in Louth, on four times the money and driving a decent company car. I didn’t get that by staying at Jacksons, fending off offers and being ‘loyal’, did I?

Michael Skubala didn’t jump at the first opportunity. As I understand it, he had an offer during the season, but stayed put to finish the promotion job. Tom Shaw had offers, Chris Cohen had offers, and where are they? No, Michael may have gone now, but ‘jumping ship at first opportunity’ is a ridiculous comment.

Also, ‘there is no loyalty in football’ is ridiculous. There is no ‘loyalty’ anywhere, because it is a myth. You can be loyal to your friends, sure, and your club as a fan, but Michael is a coach. He has to do what is best for him, and perhaps tripling his salary is a no-brainer. If he fails and gets sacked, he’s set for life, as Danny and Nicky were. If he’s a success, he climbs. How could anyone begrudge him that?

Bristol City is a sideways step

This is amusing. Ashton Gate is twice the size of Sincil Bank. Their training facilities are immense, with a hydrotherapy pool, five pitches (one floodlit) and rooms across two levels. They’ve been in the Championship for 11 seasons now, and made the play-offs in 2024/25, putting them 270 minutes from the Premier League. The last time we were in the same division was 1985/86, and they’re currently the biggest city never to have hosted Premier League football. For four years in the seventies, they were a top-flight side.

You might not think they’re a behemoth, but they’re bigger than Lincoln City. That’s a fact.

I had someone message today and suggest I was saying we’d always be a smaller club, or at least that was my insinuation. That’s not the case. A little under ten years ago, I had a debate as to who was bigger, us or Scunthorpe United. Well, what’s the answer to that now? I had us in a cohort with Cambridge, Exeter City and Shrewsbury until recently, but now we’re considered to be in there with Portsmouth, Charlton and Oxford United. I had a conversation with a member of Portsmouth’s staff a few years ago, who said our facilities were better than theirs.

A club can climb, but you have to be honest when acknowledging that sometimes, despite being in the same league, a club is just bigger.

They’ll hate Michael’s style

What is his style? With us, it was 4-2-3-1 of sorts, low possession, high press, push for quick turnovers. Is that Michael’s style, though? I don’t think it necessarily is. I don’t think he has a style, and that is why it took us a while to become what we were under him. Michael Skubala takes time to fashion a style that suits the players and structure he has. He wouldn’t have played the same style at Cardiff, had he been manager, or even at Huddersfield. He adapts, he moulds, and he shapes. That is a slight worry, because it might take him a while to get this squad in shape, but he’s not a man to go in with a pre-conceived idea of how he is going to play.

Will 25,000 at Ashton Gate be happy if he lets Cardiff have 70% of the ball at their place? No, and he’ll know that. He’s a planner, and in my opinion, Skubala’s Robins will look little like Skubala’s Imps. My peers at Bristol Rovers will do their tactical breakdowns, their ‘what to expect’ articles, and I think ten games in, those will be out of the window.

What I do think he’ll need is time. He’s going into a club where scouting has been going on, but he hasn’t had a hand in it. There is a new sporting director, a new direction, and they have to see that through. We saw the best of Skubala’s Imps after his first transfer window, but it took a year-and-a-half for the real identity to come through. I think it started around the time we beat Peterborough 5-1 at the Bank, and it grew from there.

He’s not a Lincoln City great

Rubbish, of course he is. People say he didn’t stay long enough to be a great – he had 60 games fewer than Graham Taylor, so is the threshold another season? Colin Murphy only stayed for 107 games the second time, but he won us the GMVC. Does that make him great or not? It’s not about time at all; it’s about achievement, and anyone saying he’s not a great is either upset, angry, or completely deluded.

Here is a list of the great Lincoln City managers post-war. Bill Anderson, Graham Taylor, Colin Murphy, Keith Alexander, Danny Cowley, and Michael Skubala. Those managers won trophies, put us in the play-offs, or sustained football at a high level. Of those managers, only two won four Manager of the Month awards in a single season. Two broke points records, not Lincoln City points records, EFL points records. One broke an unbeaten run record in the division. I’d wager only one performed 17 places above his budget position. Four weeks ago, some were calling for a statue of Skubala outside the ground, and some of the same people are calling him a snake or a Judas.

Get a grip.

Conclusion

I won’t be cheering for Bristol City. I won’t go and watch them like a group did when Dan and Nick left for Huddersfield. I won’t applaud during the 90 minutes at the Bank next season when Skubala is in the opposite dugout. I will wish him all the best, and I do hope he is a success, because he was part of a team that delivered us a season so great and so unbelievable that it made headlines around the world.

He’s taken a step up, currently. Who is to say that in three years, it will be a step up still? Danny and Nicky going to Huddersfield, seven years on, isn’t a step up, but it was at the time. Graham Taylor going to Watford wasn’t a step up, until it was, and he was in the England dugout.

Michael Skubala was a big part of a team that achieved the unthinkable. Some fans are hurt, some are angry, and some try to be all hipster and balanced. We all react in different ways. When Danny left, I was told his car was vandalised, his kids were picked on in school, and why? Because he took what he thought was a better job? Michael shouldn’t have to endure any abuse, but he will. He did 18 months ago, and it’ll happen now. That’s sad, but I have learned it is football, certainly in the modern age.

I’ll always hold Michael in high regard, professionally and personally, but after this article, we move on. Chris and Tom are in the hot seat now, and Lincoln City don’t move into a brave new era as much as evolve into one. There is no overhaul, no massive upheaval, just a bump in the road. The task doesn’t change, and, in my opinion, our likelihood of completing that task doesn’t change. Staying in the Championship was always going to be like playing FIFA on legendary mode, and that is still the case.

The Shaw Must Cohen.

Up the Imps.