I don’t know the ins and outs of what went on behind the scenes prior to his departure but I don’t think Pep was the only reason.
When Payne came in we had quite a bit of promise and some decent examples from the previous season of developing quality players.
I’m not surprised his parent club got to January and thought there must be a better team for him to train and play with. For a number of games anyone from his club watching us would have seen that he was surrounded by has beens and crocks. Unlike the season before where we had a youthful and skilled crop of players managed under Appleton.