When Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United, the impossible job fell to David Moyes. They may not operate in quite the same stratosphere but for whoever filled Paul Tisdale’s brogues at fan-owned Exeter, it had threatened to be a thankless task. It is not the first time Matt Taylor has heard the comparison but at this rate – unbeaten in nine matches and second in League Two – it may be one of the last.

“It gets mentioned,” Taylor says, smiling. “When you take over from someone who had been in the job for 12 years, the start is so, so important. We really targeted the first five or six league games, because a good start settles everyone down, stops any questions and takes a bit of pressure off the whole club in general. But, we are three games away from a poor run of form, and then all of sudden people are going to be talking about the Moyes-Ferguson thing, or, ‘Who could ever replace Arsène Wenger?’ If the lads work as hard as they have in my first months here, then we might have a bit of success.”

A fresh voice but Taylor is no stranger to Devon. He captained the club to successive promotions out of the then Conference under Tisdale, who had signed him from Team Bath two years earlier, and had worked as Exeter’s Under-23s coach for the 18 months before his appointment.

Also in the team that day when Exeter were promoted into League One was the defender Dean Moxey, one of five faces including the current No 1, Christy Pym, plus Ollie Watkins and Ethan Ampadu, graffitied on to the walls of the academy offices, given a fresh lick of paint at the training ground this summer.

The other, Jordan Moore-Taylor, became Tisdale’s first signing at MK Dons, while Ryan Harley and Robbie Simpson soon followed. “Paul took some staff and a few players with him, so all of a sudden I was up against it in terms of getting my backroom staff in place and then sorting out my playing squad. I could probably write a book about those first three weeks of management; I ended up selling two players, releasing 12 and bringing in five or six.”

Things turned a little sour towards the end of Tisdale’s reign between the then longest-serving manager in the country and the Exeter City Supporters Trust (ECST), which ordered the club to serve notice on his two-year rolling contract in 2016. In the end there was a belief in some quarters the relationship had run its course. Tisdale was always synonymous with Exeter and vice-versa but an inevitable divorce beckoned.

Taylor, though, was unconvinced. “I’ll be honest; I didn’t think he was going to go. There was all the talk in the buildup to the play-off final but I just couldn’t imagine Exeter City without him. When it did come to light he was leaving, it all happened so quickly.”

Matt Taylor, the manager of Exeter City, is undefeated in nine matches and takes his players to lowly Grimsby on Saturday. Photograph: Alex Davidson/Frozen in Motion/Rex/Shutterstock

The first few weeks of the job proved an eye-opener but Jayden Stockley staying put made life easier. The former Bournemouth striker scored 25 goals last season and has nine in 15 matches this campaign; he has scored 22 league goals this calendar year. Across Europe, only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have more.

“My pal sent that to me the other day and I said to him: ‘I think Harry Kane would be on about 250 goals if he played in League Two,’” Stockley says. “It’s nice to be on it but I want to just add into that stat, ‘And he doesn’t take penalties’.”

Tisdale previously alluded to a financial ceiling, describing managing Exeter as akin to having to create “a work of art” every season. Run on fumes, the ECST that has owned the club since completing a takeover in 2003 invests around £90,000 each season, so there is naturally an emphasis on bringing through homegrown players.

The 3G pitches at the top of the training ground were funded by the £1.75m sale of academy graduate Matt Grimes to Swansea. The 1931 Fund also helps, an initiative set up in 2009 where around 60 members contribute £20 per month to help pay the wages of a youngster’s first contract. This season that £15,000 will help pay the 18-year-old Jack Sparkes. “We have not got a money man to fall back on,” Taylor says.

Ampadu, who made his Exeter debut at 15, is a great source of a pride around the club, though the £1.3m fee, plus add-ons, they received from Chelsea for the Wales international at a tribunal was a kick in the teeth. Of Ampadu – whose father, Kwame, the Exeter Under-18s manager until 2012, has recently joined Thierry Henry’s staff at Monaco – everybody says the same thing: he plays like a 35-year-old with 600 games to his name.

“Ethan was here in my first year back at the club,” Taylor says. “He was still at school, so his training time was limited but he was an absolute joy to work with, a great character with a great attitude. He will go on to play international football for God knows how many years and play Premier League football for a long, long time and probably go on to captain the club. He is that good.”

The summer overhaul was not exclusive to personnel changes, with St James Park undergoing the final stage of a £3.5m facelift. The creaking grandstand was demolished last year and will reopen this month, named after Adam Stansfield, the Grecians striker who died aged 31 in 2010. A new Exeter era is under way. “People say: ‘You must be pleased being second in the division’, but you’re never pleased until you’re league champions,” Taylor says. “It’s pretty clear where I want this group of players to go. It might not happen this season, it might be next season, but I have got to be ambitious.”

Talking points

• This year just keeps getting better for Lloyd Kelly. The Bristol City defender, who made his full Championship debut in March, twice-captained England Under‑20s over the recent international break and also trained with Gareth Southgate’s senior squad, which also included Derby’s Mason Mount. Kelly has been ever present, primarily at left-back, for his club.

Lloyd Kelly in action for England U-20s. Photograph: Paul Greenwood/BPI/Rex/Shutterstock

• Accrington Stanley were supposed to be in for a season of struggle. Offrande Zanzala scored on Saturday against Bradford, his third goal in four matches, to lift John Coleman’s side to sixth in League One, but the striker almost did not make it after breaking down on the M6. “He had three other lads in the car as well but we managed to get them here about 20 past two,” Coleman said.

• It will be intriguing what happens with James Chester’s captaincy at Aston Villa. In John Terry, Dean Smith will be working alongside one of the most decorated captains in history. But at Brentford, Smith scrapped having a captain altogether. “Sometimes when you have a captain you end up with more followers than leaders, and we want to create leaders,” he said.