Wycombe manager and QPR legend Gareth Ainsworth is the guest on this week’s Podcast with host Chris Charles, regular panellists Paul Finney and Chris Mendes and guest Sandy Lerman.
It’s a typical, vintage chat with Ainsworth this one – honesty, passion and forthright opinions on everything from his current job at Wycombe to his spell as caretaker manager under Flavio Briatore and the state of the current QPR team.
He picked out the 1-0 home victory against Birmingham in the snow as a highlight of his brief spells in charge at Rangers and said of Briatore: “We all know how the Spanish and Italian teams work where there is a president picking the team and a technical coach coaching the players – it didn’t go as far as that but Flavio did always want input in who I was playing and why was that man playing and why was that man not playing and why have I spent so much money on this guy and he’s not in the team. Maybe some gentle pressure on me, but never as far as selecting the 11.
“It was pretty tough, pretty chaotic, I won’t lie, plenty of meetings and plenty of phone calls but not on matchdays and no mad team selections from Flavio as reported in the press. There was gentle pressure, he got a few Italians over that he thought were great players and some of them turned out ok, he wanted them in the team to see what they were like. It was a crazy time, it gave me a great grounding.”
On the current problems with the Rangers playing staff, whose attitude is in marked contrast to his own commitment to the club as a player, he added: “It’s a tough thing to motivate multimillionaires that’s a special talent a manager has got to have. In League Two the players are hanging on my every word just to get a new contract or get in the team, once you become one of these top players and you’re earning fortunes you have to be professional. The manager has to have a different technique, it’s not about football coaching and the ball, it’s about the brain and can you motivate these players to do it?”
To hear the full interview and the rest of the podcast click here.
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