This article is part of Football League World’s ‘The Verdict’ series, which provides personal opinions from the FLW writers regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Markus Schopp was relieved of his duties as manager of Barnsley this morning with the club without a win since the second league game of the season.

Gerhard Struber, Valerien Ismael and Schopp all moved to Barnsley with their last job in the Austrian Bundesliga. Sadly, the third time they used this style of recruitment it did not pay dividends and if it was not for Derby County, the Tykes would be rock bottom of the Championship after 15 games.

The quality in the squad can not be doubted given the performances they produced particularly in the second half of last season. Barnsley have operated for the longer term in terms of their recruitment in recent years and like to employ a manager who plays an exciting brand of football, however the situation may see a shorter term appointment occur.

We gathered the thoughts of a selection of FLW writers to see who they believe should replace Markus Schopp in the Oakwell hotseat...

Mitrovic? Samba? Max Lowe? Vote for your Championship POTM here

Alfie Burns

Alex Neil.

You can understand why Barnsley went for Schopp after Ismael departed, it has been the club’s strategy for a long time to look for these left-field appointments, and it has worked.

However, now feels like the right time to knock that on the head and get a proven Championship manager in.

Neil’s reputation isn’t quite what it once was after he left Preston, leaving him a very realistic option for Barnsley to be looking at.

The likes of Chris Wilder and Eddie Howe aren’t going to fancy the project, but you’d imagine Neil would.

It’s not a million miles from Preston and offers him an opportunity to build something; it’s not a case of the job at Oakwell simply being about survival this season.

Both the club and Neil himself would probably benefit from each other.

Ben Wignall

I think a lot of people will be expecting Barnsley's board to go down the same route as their last few head coaches in the form of someone from overseas, and their new CEO Khaled El-Ahmad may have his own ideas - he could look towards his native Sweden for example.

However the Tykes could probably do with swinging away from that methodology this time and there's a perfect candidate out there in the form of Alex Neil.

A former midfielder for the Yorkshire side back in the day, Neil has promotion to the Premier League with Norwich City on his CV and for the most part he had Preston North End punching above their weight around the play-off places against teams with much bigger budgets.

Things did go sour towards the end of Neil's time at the Lilywhites but at their best he had them pressing high up the pitch and they were exciting to watch, and Barnsley definitely have a squad that he could do something with.

I think someone like Chris Wilder, despite being a local man, is an unrealistic shout as he will be able to get something with a team with bigger resources when he's ready, but out of British managers that are out of work right now Neil has to be top of the list.