Quote: Trojan Horse "I never said hold his hand. You just said that. What I said was a support pillar/sounding board etc. let’s not pretend coaches won’t communicate and take advice from within their own set ups. Currently that set up is none existent for us.
My preference would likely be to not look for an assistant but to look for a new coach and move Apelgarth back down to assistant. I mentioned this weeks ago. But if the board wish to stick with Apelgarth he needs a strong coaching set up around him that he can garner support from, this for me should include an experienced coach. Whether that be an assistant or two assistants or a DOR I dont know but it can’t stay as it is and whatever change or appointment it needs to be looking at the next 2-5 years at least.'"
Any coach worth his salt won’t want Applegarth as an assistant because he’s got a reputation for undermining those in front of him to advance himself.
Applegarth needs to go and go completely from the club, he’s moved on from being a Youth Coach and if he still has ambition to be a Head Coach he needs to drop into the Championship and build his experience.
It’s not hindsight from me to say it because I said even before he was given the job, he wasn’t ready, he was a ‘coach by numbers’ kind of Coach, he would make players play to a strict job description thus eliminating ingenuity & flair, his playing format would be get to a point (40s & 60s) and play wedge/double wedge as nausium & his man management wasn’t the best. I said there was a decent Coach in him and maybe one day he’d be SL level but he needed to gain far more experience and wasn’t yet ready.
I said all this the day Willie was sacked and MAs name was rumoured and I got roundly criticised by many on here saying they knew better, they didn’t!