By Jacob Greenwood

They say a week is a long time in football, and the rapid fall of the ‘Defoe Dynasty’ at Kingfield shows just how quickly things can spiral.

Woking have gone from preparing to build on last season’s 10th-placed finish to trying to salvage the new campaign before it has even kicked off.

There has been a lot of noise, not helped by Jermain Defoe’s high profile and national news outlets looking to cash-in on the drama. For anyone not following the blow-by-blow updates, here is the TL;DR as of Saturday morning:

A statement from Defoe claimed ‘circumstances have ultimately made it impossible for me to continue in the position’.

Woking’s Director of Football, Jody Brown, later claimed in an official club statement that ‘in recent weeks there had been feedback from across the club, including players, staff and other departments, regarding growing concerns.’

Brown followed this up by alleging Defoe and Assistant Manager Paul Bracewell failed to submit a requested ‘report outlining the squad’s current depth, recruitment targets and any operational challenges’ and that neither attended a subsequent meeting on the matter or turned up to training.

So there we have it: a complete breakdown between the two parties, and down came the curtain.

For Woking, and most notably Brown, the hardest work lies ahead.

The managerial market is at its tightest during pre-season. You aren’t going to lure an employed manager away from another club, so the best hope is tempting someone currently out of work. Even then, they inherit a squad they didn’t build and lose out on a proper pre-season.

On top of that, players who signed specifically for the chance to play under Defoe will be frustrated, making a ‘squad repair job’ a priority.

That has to be the sole focus now. What’s done is done, both sides have aired their view, and all that matters is what comes next.

The Defoe experiment failed. Now Brown has to fix it. Given that Brown took ‘full responsibility’ for appointing Defoe, we can be fairly confident the next manager through the door won’t be another big name looking to call the shots.

All images used belong to wokingfc.co.uk. Head to the club’s website for a full set of images.