So many questions I'm asking myself as a fairly new PNE fan (3 seasons - I know it's not much but I think I've seen enough football both at Deepdale and elsewhere to be able to voice an opinion on my impressions of the club and what I feel about promotion prospects).
I think the key question for me is "ambition" - does the club, and I mean by that the playing squad, ownership and fanbase, genuinely want promotion up into the Premiership?
I get Ryan Lowe's frustration - he has a genuine ambition to get PNE up into the top flight of competition and I think he senses that there's a body of opinion within the club which is not necessarily buying into the vision he has.
Maybe there's some deep-seated belief in some quarters that after years and years away from the top level it's an impossibility for PNE to ever get back there - we are just not big enough as a club to do it; we don't have the financial wherewithal to go out and buy the players we would need to give us a realistic chance of getting promotion. (I've heard some long-time PNE fans talk about the club as "little Preston" which, to me, seems to confirm this view).
I think Ryan Lowe makes a valid point when he says that you don't necessarily need shedloads of money to achieve success - you just need a good eye for up and coming talent and nifty footwork to get in there ahead of the competition to secure it and he quotes examples of other Championship clubs who've managed to do just that.
So I don't think a lack of financial resources is necessarily the obstacle which some appear to think it is - although it would be really nice if some multi-billionaire south-east Asian business tycoon who's made his pile from consumer electronics is looking for a (slightly) unfashionable English football club which he can pick up at a bargain basement price and is then willing to pump as much capital into it as it takes to turn it into a top Premiership contender. (Of such things dreams are made!!)
But back to reality. I know there's much debate at the moment about whether Ryan Lowe is the manager who's capable of taking PNE into the Premiership. And I know that, for a lot of fans he's a bit "marmite".
But, for me, I can't fault the guy's ambition for the club and I'm fully behind him on that score. There's nothing I would like more than to see PNE up in the top flight of English football and competing alongside the Arsenals, the Man Citys and Liverpools of this world.
Whether Ryan Lowe will stick around long enough to achieve that goal, whether he'll receive enough backing from the club's ownership, the fanbase, and the guys who go out onto that pitch every Saturday, remains to be seen.
I think that what happens over the next 2 to 3 months will be crucial - it will decide whether he's prepared to give it another go next season or whether he decides he's had enough we end up having to look for someone else to replace him.
Personally I hope he decides to stay. I know there's a debate about his choice of tactics and strategy and about his style of man-management. But for me he's the sort of manager the club needs if it's going to have any hopes of getting out of the Championship. For me he's got the necessary fire and ambition and temperament and the will to achieve and it would be a great pity if he decides to walk away.
I could be wrong, but if we do lose him I feel we might as well forget any ambitions some of us may have about seeing PNE in the Premiership and resign ourselves to accepting that we are never going to be anything other than an average Championship side who, as others here have said, are content with mediocre performances which, in a good season, may put us within touching distance of play-off places which we somehow never quite manage to achieve and instead finish the season in our usual mid-table position somewhere.
Personally I think that would be a great pity.
