Picture this – it’s the 6th of November, 2025. The mood at Wycombe is at an all time high.

Club Legend Matt Bloomfield, not content with having won promotion as a captain under Gareth Ainsworth, spurned an approach from Championship club Luton Town to remain manager of the Chairboys. Fired on by the prodigy Richard Kone, Bloomfield steered Wycombe to second place in League One.

Automatic Promotion. Chairboys fans were delighted, for the second time in the club’s history, Wycombe would be in the Championship, but this time fans would actually get to attend games, unlike during the lockdown.

The summer was full of exciting moves, but no more importantly than the contract extension given to Richard Kone, albiet with the gentlemens agreement not to stand in his way after a season in the Championship if the right offer materialised.

Joe Low, too, penned a new deal, hopeful Championship gametime could help force his way into the Welsh senior team setup ahead of the upcoming World Cup.

Wycombe are 20th in the Championship, but are level on points with the team ahead of them in safety. It’s a long season, and many are faithful they can win enough points to survive in the Championship and build from there. Chairboys dreams have finally been answered.

Except, you close your eyes. And when you re-open them, its a strange, different world.

Wycombe are in 20th, yes, but in League One. Since Bloomfield left in that ill-fated move, Mike Dodds failed to bring the team forward and was rewarded with an early holiday, and while its early doors for replacement Michael Duff, the team look unlikely to mount a promotion charge at current pace.

As for Bloomfield, he joined a Luton Town team with much greater issues at its core than perhaps anyone realised. A team decimated by a relegation from the Premier League, Bloomfield was unable to stop its slide into a double relegation, languishing back in League One alongside Wycombe. With Luton sat in 11th, Bloomfield was given his marching orders on Monday.

Of course, this path of “history” is nothing more than the writer’s thoughts on what could have possibly happened had Bloomfield stayed, but it’s difficult to the argue the team would be in a worse spot with him still at the reins.

Much has been made of possible tensions between Bloomfield and the hierarchy at Wycombe, with rumoured tension or falling outs with Dan Rice, yet blaming one or the other exclusively is unlikely to approach the truth.

Perhaps the board should have backed Bloomfield further, yet you can’t argue that multiple ambitious windows full of transfers showed an unwillingness to strengthen his options on the field.

Even as Bloomfield negotiated with Luton, record signing Magnus Westergaard’s deal was being concluded. Should the board have tried to keep him with a newer contract with better terms? Could these terms even match Luton’s?

While in a promotion race to the Championship, surely everything and anything should have been done to keep the manager at his station.

Perhaps Bloomfield should have learnt from his predecessors fate, with Gareth Ainsworth’s move to Queens Park Rangers ultimately ending with a sacking.

Yet, he made comments to Luton Town that made passive aggressive remarks about not being fully supported at Wycombe, stating “That made me feel very comfortable and very wanted, which is huge for me. I want to work with people who care and fans who also care – and they certainly do here. I want to work with people who want the best for their football club, and that’s more than evident with Gary, the chairman and the board of directors”. And few can argue that more money, at a job closer to home in a higher division (at the time) wouldn’t tempt them.

Perhaps it’s a lesson for all parties then. After all, both board and manager are relatively new in their jobs and roles, As for Wycombe fans, it could remain one of the clubs greatest “what ifs” for decades to come.