Stockport County’s biggest gamble has paid off

An exhaustive list of English league clubs to finish in the top four of a division in each of their last four seasons: Arsenal, Manchester City, Stockport County. County were clearly doing something right. Over the last eight years they have won three league titles and played in two play-off finals. A club on its knees in the sixth tier has been completely rebuilt. So it was to some surprise amongst supporters and the wider football world that, this summer, Stockport effectively ripped everything up and started again. Long-term manager Dave Challinor left. The sporting director left. The model shifted to player development. The club aimed to overhaul the style of play. Let’s be clear: it was a significant risk because it felt like a climbdown. Stockport were good at what they did. They had finished third twice in League One behind Wrexham, Birmingham, Cardiff and Lincoln – no real shame there. The obvious step would have been to search for tweaks to give the club the extra edge. This was closer to wheel reinvention. “We had to do a lot of public-facing sharing this summer,” Jimmy McNulty tells The i Paper, sitting in an office at County’s Carrington training ground after training. McNulty did not create this project, but he is its public face because football clubs become defined by their head coaches. I’m here because this project and this coach are both compelling. “The owner wanted to go down a different route in two ways: he definitely wanted a stylistic change and financially he wanted to not commit so much. He wanted more efficiency for the money that he was spending. We don’t believe that that means we’re any less aggressive. We can achieve what we were trying to achieve before, but in a different way.”McNulty had never coached in the EFL before (Photo: Getty) McNulty was a fascinating appointment because he had never managed in league football before and because he was so obviously different to Challinor. McNulty had spent 11 years at Rochdale as a player, caretaker and manager, eventually earning promotion to the Football League in May. But he was clearly a gamble on potential. Challinor was successful – that was a complication. Change can be scary even when it is the only option. But when you are being sold as the change candidate after a manager who did things a certain way that worked brilliantly for most of his tenure, it would be weirder not to be daunted. “I had imposter syndrome when I arrived here, most definitely,” he says. “When I first walked around, it felt to me like a Sky call centre: there were 1000 people doing all sorts of different jobs. And they were all peering at me because I’m supposed to obviously lead all of this. “But privately, I took a lot of warmth and confidence from those conversations. Because people that I was so impressed with, in positions of responsibility and who I knew had other options than me, thought that I was the guy.” McNulty is clearly being humble. At Rochdale, then a non-league club in a financial crisis, he was thrust into the role of manager but in an emergency situation that forced him to wear – or at least share – a number of hats: sporting director, head of recruitment, coach, mentor. Here he has lots of help. He can focus on coaching. “We have a head of everything, honestly,” McNulty says. “Organisationally, this place is amazing. The level of competency in all the departments is so high, which allows me just to focus on my greatest interest: infatuation with football ideas, how players feel and what we’re trying to be. “The rest of the stuff is exhausting. Being honest, dealing with agents and all that, I hated it. Now, I sleep a little bit more, I eat a little bit more, and I focus on what I love far more, which has to be better for everybody.” The start to the season, given the overhaul and given the decision to cut costs, has been mighty impressive: Stockport are second in League One. Early teething problems have given way to greater consistency. Nobody here is pretending that Stockport have cracked it, but there was some definite curbed enthusiasm amongst supporters in preseason. Everybody I speak to now is hugely impressed by the ease of transition. Because it’s the seismic shift in style that really catches your eye watching this team. Possession is up by seven per cent from last season. Off the ball, they ranked second, eighth and sixth respectively for tackles, clearances and interceptions in 2025-26. So far, by those same measures: 21st, 24th, 21st. This is possession football and it is working because it rarely gets stagnant. County rank first for touches in the opposition box (by a distance), first for expected goals and second for big chances created. It’s little wonder that McNulty is already admired within clubs above League One level. Challinor is now in charge of Sheffield Wednesday (Photo: Getty) “I’m in my infancy as a manager,” he says. “I don’t want to give any impression that I’ve done all this before or that I know exactly how it will go. I’ve just got a deep belief in practising in a certain way constantly that effectively makes games like training sessions. Because why wouldn’t they be if we’ve tested these theories so often? We know the possibilities that the opponents have available to them and we practise against each of those choices. “The elites make games look the same all of the time to the point that your own fans can get bored of it. Because what you start to do can look easy and almost taken for granted. I’ve seen that at top clubs around the world because they’re the ones that fascinate me most. But I have total belief in it working and my job is to transmit that to the players. “Did I truly know how early we would get adoption and it would become the norm? No. But within the first few days of training I knew all of these guys’ attributes align with anything we want to do. As long as we commit to what we want to do, and go for that constantly, why wouldn’t we be able to perform and make things look the way we want them to? It all sounds simple but clearly isn’t. McNulty arrived into an established winning culture – if without the final step towards promotion to the Championship – as a comparative novice. There were senior professionals who, to an outsider, may have suited the previous manager’s style more. McNulty was also forced to deal with the outside perception that Stockport County were scaling back and he could have been cast as the poster child of that suspicion. When you’re dealing with 25-30 senior professionals who are hardly immune to the wider mood, it presents a huge challenge for man management. His explanation is an emphatic shift towards a positive environment. Obviously the results help to convince everybody – it is human nature to buy into something that seems to be working and be doubtful if it doesn’t. It becomes cyclical in the right hands: outcomes reinforce the process, the process achieves the outcomes. Because McNulty thinks that the culture is the king and those above him believe in the same mission. He references All Black leadership culture repeatedly and listens to the audiobook of James Kerr’s book Legacy in snippets on repeat throughout his day. The supporters I speak to mention the familial feel to the squad even before the league position. “These players are not going to be attacked by me externally in any way, shape or form, ever,” McNulty says. “We have to try and live and die for something on the football pitch. If we don’t have belief in the same thing, which starts from a relationship and trust, I don’t know how you’re going to do it, because we are under so much external pressure. Read more The Journeyman: How Burnley reached the road to ruin Daniel Storey: The youngest team in England are a sign of a broken club “It probably reflects my insecurities and anxieties as a player, and my inability to go online and read anything about myself because it was too critically damaging to my psyche. If anyone’s moral compass isn’t in the right place and it’s potentially harming the group, I have an issue with that. But I am never there to increase scrutiny or pressure on them.” I really like brave football clubs. I like them trying new things and aiming for greater financial sustainability. I like them trusting younger, more inexperienced managers. I really like them believing that the best way to take the next step up might be doing something completely different and committing fully to it. Uncertainty can be exhilarating. It makes Stockport County one of the more fascinating clubs in England this season. They are stepping into the unknown again with a manager who looks eminently capable of making the step up and overseeing a change in style and culture. They have started brilliantly. It’s hardly going to be easy with six former Premier League clubs in League One’s current top 10. But initial evidence shows that there’s good reason to believe in better.