• yesterday
Gareth Ainsworth was appointed as the new Shrewsbury Town head coach on Wednesday.
The ex-Wycombe and QPR boss is tasked with lifting Salop off the foot of the table to safety.
He brings with him his long term assistant Richard Dobson - with the pair having achieved success at Wycombe, taking them from League Two to the Championship.
Ollie discusses Ainsworth's first interview with Shrewsbury, and why it sounds like this could be a long term appointment.
Transcript
00:00Just reading into some of the other stuff, or listening, sorry, to the stuff that he's
00:11been kind of talking about, you know, and when you think of Gareth Ainsworth, he points
00:15to the job that he's done at Wickham. He talked about how he's a builder and he likes to build
00:19things. You know, he's obviously not going to say this, but should come May, Shrewsbury,
00:25he's running League One end. It sounds like Ainsworth wants to be in this for the long
00:31haul. And it sounds like a long-term appointment, whether he keeps them up or whether he doesn't.
00:36Yeah, it does seem like that, but we don't know this at this stage. That'll be a question to ask
00:41tomorrow. There was no mention of his contract or his contractual situation for how long,
00:45you know, he's going to be staying at the club for. So we'll need to check that out
00:50with him at the press conference. It was a very similar situation with Paul Hurst. It wasn't
00:53revealed how long that he'd signed for. So we'll have to ask that question. He might not,
00:58he might not say, I mean, Paul Hurst wouldn't say, so we don't know how long Paul Hurst had his,
01:02you know, how long his contract was for. You know, I suppose it all depends on how it goes,
01:06wasn't it? You know, if he does manage to get that positive shift, that shift forwards and get them,
01:11you know, get, I mean, the chairman mentioned it himself, you know, get that feel,
01:15restore the feel good factor to the football club. That is what they're after.
01:19So fingers crossed that, you know, we can get, we can get some of that and,
01:24and then we will have to almost take stock, I suppose, depending on,
01:28you know, the outcome. I mean, you know, even if he will be accepting this job,
01:32knowing that there is a possibility that they're going to be in League Two next season. Now,
01:36don't get me wrong. There is a big chance that they could turn it around, right? Don't get me
01:39wrong. But there is a chance that they could be in League Two next season as well. They're already
01:42quite a long way, you know, adrift. So any kinds of possibility. He's just got to focus now on,
01:49like he mentions himself, you know, being that spark, being that catalyst for Shrewsbury
01:53to get themselves heading in the right direction.
01:56Yeah. And he obviously brings with himself that experience of, of kind of, you know,
02:02building and it feels like there's a bit more, I don't know, stability around this appointment.
02:08Obviously, you know, if you look at stability, probably the last time Salahp have had that
02:13stability was under Steve Cottrell, that ended, you know, the Matt Taylor appointment was very
02:16short, as was kind of the Paul Hurst one, in essence, although, you know, everyone wanted
02:20it to be a bit longer. But this is, you know, I think using that word stability comes from the
02:25fact that it's not the QPR job, but it's like his job before that was, you know, an 11 year stint.
02:31And don't get me wrong. I would not bet that he's going to be Shrewsbury time manager in 11 years.
02:35You know, he joked about that on his interview with the Shrewsbury club media, but it's just
02:40having that, you know, not changing manager as often as they have been and having someone in
02:46place who, you know, if the worst does happen and they're running league one ends, they've
02:50got someone there who's, you know, probably one of the best ones to help them bounce straight back.
02:55Yeah. Yeah. You bang on. I mean, stability is what you need at a football club. You need,
02:59you need your head coach to be there for a sustained period of time. And that's just not
03:03been the case for Town Hall. They had, what, four different managers since the turn of
03:072003, you know, Steve Cottrell, Matt Taylor, Paul Hurst and now Ainsworth. That's too much change.
03:13And then each time, you know, the manager or the head coach will have different ideas on
03:17what they think the players and, you know, they'll like one type of player and they won't like
03:21another and you just keep bouncing from one to the other. You need some kind of stability and
03:26it's stability that, you know, most of the successful sides, it's not very many clubs
03:31that make change frequently and end up being successful. So that's something that's kind of
03:35got to bear in mind and, you know, they've got to, they've got to stick with it for a little while
03:38and give it a chance.

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