“The rebuilding has to start with the coach and the fans. The club needs to invite the fans back in and require the players to be part of the community. Charlesworth didn’t want to sell, which is fair enough, but what has he done since?

“He forced out Okon just when he looked to be building something solid by refusing to spend money and then Mulvey with the same constraints.”

Charlesworth, who lives in England, has been widely criticised for his rare communication with the club’s fan base. While the Mariners aren’t last in A-league spending (that honour goes to the club that beat them 8-2 before Mulvey’s sacking), they have also consistently spent close to the bare minimum throughout Charlesworth’s tenure.

Whether that stands to change under an independent A-League model remains to be seen, however much of the damage has already been done. In addition to losing Walmsley, forcing out Okon and telling club icon John Hutchinson that he wasn’t wanted in an assistant coaching role, the club’s transfer strategy has seen a further desertion of the Mariners’ roots.

The Mariners’ academy - The Centre of Excellence - was purpose-built to ensure the club’s long-term success. Now four-years-old, the Mariners haven’t regularly featured a single player from the academy this season. Their latest signings, British youngsters Stephen Mallon and Sam Graham, were loaned from Championship side Sheffield United. While Mallon’s managed a single strike and generally adequate performances, Graham’s been widely criticised for not being up to the league’s quality.

Meanwhile, over the past two seasons, Millar, Jonathan Aspropotamitis, Trent Buhagiar, Lachlan Wales, Scott Galloway and Jake McGing have all departed for other A-League clubs or European opportunities.

It’s one of a series of Charlesworth decision that seems to distance the club from Australian football. The Mariners first appointed Harry Redknapp as a ‘football consultant’, only for the English gaffer to infamously call the club the ‘South Coast Mariners’ and admit he never had plans to travel Down Under.

The most recent is technical director Mike Phelan, who also lives in England and admitted that his other role as assistant coach of Manchester United takes up “all his time”.

Yet Mielekamp insists that the club are making the right appointments. It’s doubtful the CEO can exert any influence over Charlesworth’s decisions from the other side of the world. If he could, it’s unknown what he’d say.

Mielekamp’s expertise instead lies in the commercial realm. He knows how to sell ideas and the idea he’s selling is that the Mariners’ foundation remains strong.

“We’re making sure that the right people and personalities are coming to the club, every post is a winner and every inch is gained,” he says.

“We need to make sure we’re ensuring the financial sustainability of the club – that’s always first and foremost. A reckless decision could do us more harm than good.

“We do everything that we can, if we can do it, we will. If it’s simply having a player go and make a young kid smile, or raising awareness of critical campaigns, we’ll be there, every time.

“It really is, for us, about making sure everybody’s on the same path – focused on gaining every inch and the more inches we get, the further we go. It’s a tribute to our philosophy to focus on personality first and foremost. There is always more work to be done. Never not more work to be done.

“There’s plenty to do but it feels alright at the moment, like we’re making the right steps. But only time will tell.”

The club’s latest appointment, Alen Stajcic, is set to absorb scrutiny for the time being. He began to address on-field issues after the club’s 5-0 loss to Melbourne City, claiming the Mariners required “a better foundation, more stability and more depth”.

Whether he’ll address what appears to be a cultural shift at the club remains to be seen. This is the same coach that, albeit under much secrecy and controversy, was sacked from his last post for presiding over a “toxic culture”.

It’s enough to lead Deans to question whether the Mariners have a strategy at all.

“What exactly is the Mariners’ plan?” Deans asks.

“Sydney FC have a trademark. Victory and Perth play in a very predictable (but effective way). Melbourne City have the money and Mark Rudan has turned Wellington into an excellent team who are fun to watch. 

“Something rotten has seeped into the Mariners since Arnie left and it will take a long time to fix, the way player contracts work.

“The famous spirit is gone and there’s no money for the sort of quality we need to rebuild both spirit and discipline. The right sort of manager needs time to sweep out the old and bring in the new to suit a new template.

“At the moment the Mariners are a dysfunctional football team and desperately need rebooting. Something really big needs to change.

“It’s hard to change the players; easy to change the coach; and really, really hard to change the owner.”