United's shaky start to the season is reaching very wobbly proportions as I write these notes. Roddy Collins's revolution has seen TEN players signed and NINE players told they can leave. The net result at the moment is a squad of some 31 players, with three out on loan.

£100,000 signing Richie Foran has made an impact but the rest of the new arrivals have been decidedly patchy. What is rather surprising is that players who have made minimal impact like Alex Haddow and Scott Willis remain on the books whilst three who looked reasonable in the shape of Austin Berkley, Mo Harkin and Stuart Elliott have been released. In addition, Lee Maddison, Ian Stevens and Paul Antony have been told they are no longer wanted. The dumping of Antony, along with other first-year pros in Kyle May and Craig Lewis seems a bit hard to fathom when Collins only recently brought in an 18-year-old from Bohemians in Willie McDonagh who by his own admission will not be ready for first-team football until Christmas.

The defensive performaces at Darlington, Southend and Hartlepool were very damaging as we took the lead in all three of those games but ended up with just a solitary point to show for it. Something has to change, and the sooner the better. Collins inherited a squad that seemed to know how to defend. In the space of a few weeks, they now seem to have less idea than an average schoolboy team. In Roddy's own defence, he was shorn of last year's goalkeeping hero Matty Glennon, due to short-sighted policies on behalf of the board (Only £50,000 to buy him and they found that much to sign Foran a few weeks later). However he has been rather too keen to chop and change the team and we have seen Stuart Whitehead playing out of position in the middle of the park, Mark Winstanley at left-back and Lee Andrews playing in the middle when to me, he is still better suited to playing on the right side of defence, at either full-back or wing-back. Dave Morley was a bit more of a success in midfield but I'm not totally convinced that he's a potential Premiership player in that role, as Roddy seems to think.

Of course, the position of Collins is all rather tied up in the continuing and now highly farcical takeover speculation. Rumours of an unholy alliance between Irish businessmen including Roddy's brother Steve Collins and Mark Knighton have been growing over the past few weeks, apparently fuelled from within the halls of Brunton Park. Forgive me if I come over a bit sceptical. It is hard to imagine such a consortium gaining any real support from the fans. Much as I would love to see a GENUINE change of ownership, any deal that leaves the Knighton family with their considerable fingers in the pie would surely not be acceptable to the majority of supporters. The CCUIST ballot in July proved this. You also have to ask if having the manager's brother in the boardroom is in the best interests of the football club. I can only hope that such a scenario never comes about.

There is a man out there who has pursued Mr Knighton for over two years, against all the advice of friends, family and advisors. He is local, has money to invest in the club and seems to have realistic expectations of what can be achieved. He knows it will take 2-3 years before he can expect to make a profit and gain anything financially from the deal for himself. He has ideas for the future and is willing to involve other local investors as well as the fans in the running of the club. His name is Brooks Mileson. Despite rumours that he could not guarantee the cash to complete a sale with Mr Knighton, there is no doubt they are completely false and he could takeover tomorrow if an agreement could be reached. What's more, broad agreement has been reached already and everything looked to be on course for a takeover until a month or so ago when our wonderful owner suddenly had difficulty locating key documents that would enable Mr Mileson to work out the exact scale of the financial undertaking facing him. I also understand other buyers have met with similar difficulty.

It all comes down to this - does Michael Knighton really want to sell the club, or is he just looking for a convenient method of disposing of some of his shares while retaining a substantial minority holding and allowing his son to keep a job at Brunton Park into the bargain? The overwhelming call from fans is for a proper change, with no more Michael Knighton involvement, not even as a lurker within the shadows. Until that happens, there will remain a substantial number of disgruntled people in Carlisle.