Andy Pilley: Fleetwood results will improve but club strategy won't change

Town's record of never having been relegated during Pilley's two decades at the helm has never come under greater threat than during this past campaign, when they survived in League One on goal difference with a meagre 40 points.

Pilley is confident a more successful 2022/23 lies ahead with a new head coach and some new recruitment, though the chairman will not rethink the club's approach.

Interviewed for the club website, he said: “We were in the play-offs in two of the previous four seasons, so we have a track record of being there or thereabouts and I think the right manager will have the ingredients available to him to succeed.

"We are committed to this football club being successful. We are going to be working hard to get back to sporting success, something which Fleetwood Town has done for a very long time.

“I can’t wait to get back to winning ways. I’m confident we will as we’ve got the nucleus of a good team and, if we shuffle that pack, we will be able to be competitive and win many games next season.”

But Pilley is committed to doing so by keeping the door open from the club's academy to the first team, and Stephen Crainey's successor as head coach will be expected to buy into that “objective of the football club”.

The chairman added: “We want sporting success, but we also want to have a club where there are opportunities for younger players to get game time and cement themselves within the first-team set-up.

IWe want to win football games but we also want to give young players opportunities and then - who knows? - maybe see them move on to bigger and better things.

“I can’t speak highly enough of the young players who have come in this season. They’ve done us proud, themselves proud and have got great futures ahead of them.

“The minutes that they’ve accumulated this season will prove to be valuable for them moving forwards. I think they all have great careers ahead of them.”