Another welcome development in Carlisle United statement

It is that it comes directly from the top, not simply the manager’s office.

Now, this is not to dilute in the slightest Paul Simpson’s quality as United’s front person and spokesman as well as one of their greatest football managers.

It remains the case that there are few people you would rather have not just to field questions on any Blues subject but to embrace them, to answer them not with bland deflection but something meaningful and well put.

Yet commenting on takeovers should not just be the manager’s bag, as it mostly has been these past few weeks.

At Brunton Park during the Piataks’ courting of the club since the spring, there have been two different United faces. There has been the club’s instinctive and business-led leaning towards confidentiality.

Then, in the face of ever-mounting evidence about what’s actually going on, there has been Simpson’s inclination towards sharing, towards letting people in on the situation.

This is how Simpson wants to lead, how he’s always wanted to be, right back to his first spell in charge when being attentive to the value of public comment was right up there in his fledgling managerial repertoire.

Paul Simpson has been open and transparent with fans on the takeover situation - and those above him at the club have now joined in (Image: Barbara Abbott)

As such, the 57-year-old leading United in terms of talking about the takeover situation has, broadly speaking, benefited the club. It has put their most eloquent and trusted talker on the front line. The primary message has been reasoned and positive. It has fed our thirst for updates in the media whilst remaining on the right side of discretion, and allowed those higher up to get on with the actual jaw-jaw.

Yet such a scenario still has its limits and not even Simpson should be the regular source on matters like this. The responsibility for transparency ought to be mutual and Carlisle now feel in a position – provoked, it must be said, by low-detail reports of Turkish interest in the club – to say what we largely know, albeit with at least one new and major fact thrown in.

Advanced talks with the Piataks: that much was already apparent and reported as much by the News & Star for a while. An exclusivity agreement? Less so. This, then, is the confirmed and clear state of play, up to the minute, in black and white, from the horse’s mouth and other such clichés.

And that, by this point, is what we really needed. No use trying to deny what’s been sitting there in plain sight, whether that be in the directors’ seats at Wembley, in the Andrew Jenkins Stand or the Warwick Road End, or on family social media.

Nothing about this potential deal ought to be compromised by United’s official disclosure on September 8, nor would it have been by earlier revelation. Confidentiality, in terms of the Piataks’ identity as bidders, was sacrificed the moment they appeared where they did, in photographers’ fields of vision and with Instagram and Facebook activity they were relaxed about making.

It is on the Jacksonville business people to make good on that sort of public behaviour when they meet supporters at a CUOSC meeting this month; to display the substance behind the show.

United's directors finally named the Piataks as potential investors last night (Image: Barbara Abbott)

United and their fans' trust must already be reassured by said substance for things to have got this far. Now it’s time for the Piataks to take off the replica shirts and show us all what the collar-and-tie qualities of this investment approach truly stand for.

Let us hope it convinces on all fronts, that the biggest question – why? – is assertively answered, along with all the big smaller questions, concerning scale, plans, commitment and their own transparency, which we should ask of any club suitor.

And let us also, to a reasonable but clear extent, allow Simpson to operate within fair limits of what it’s right to expect a manager to speak about.

Those with the controls on this bid – those entertaining it, steering it, hoping to sign it off – this is their remit and responsibility, in the end. Nigel Clibbens, the chief executive, has been a torch-carrier for transparency at United and in the wider game, and on this he has no doubt been walking the line more carefully than anyone between saying nothing and saying everything.

He will also know that this is now an inescapably public matter, and there is nothing to gain by the hierarchy, predominantly the club's veteran owners, pretending otherwise. If the Turkish interest has little prospect – and that’s how things look, unless something dramatic is said and/or done now – at least it can be said to have focused minds on this particular public-facing aspect of United’s latest takeover saga.

“There are lots of other things that go into managing Carlisle United – maybe not [things] a head coach of Manchester City might have to do, but here I do, so I’ll continue to do it and it’s not a problem,” Simpson said last week.

And continue to do it all very well he will. But hopefully, after this, accompanied by those with the ultimate power also giving the club's line, setting its real and concrete tone on the biggest situation in its recent history.