Darragh MacAnthony has admitted he may have been too patient with Luke Williams prior to the call to sack the Peterborough United coach last week.
The Posh chairman pulled the plug on the former Notts County boss’ tenure midway through September after a poor start to the season, with a loss against a then-winless Doncaster Rovers proving to be the final straw.
Williams lasted 11 months at London Road, with a replacement already announced in the form of Forest Green Rovers’ Robbie Savage, who has already got off to a promising start with a 4-1 win over the Ipswich Town academy side in the EFL Trophy.
DMAC Lifts Lid On Decision
Now, with the dust finally settled on the 45-year-old’s ousting in Cambridgeshire, MacAnthony has finally discussed why he opted to part ways with Williams through his Hard Truth Podcast. (Quotes via Peterborough Telegraph):
“I’ve actually been pretty patient with managers recently. If anything I’ve been too patient. I let Darren (Ferguson) carry on too long in his last spell and Luke got a lot more time with me than he would have received at other clubs.
“I wanted to give him a fair shake though, but I said in the summer it was really important we started this season well and we needed to be strong at home. I started thinking about changing the manager before the Barnsley game as I felt if we didn’t beat either MK Dons or Doncaster I might have to change things.
“By the 85th minute of the Doncaster match I’d made my mind up and I sent my partners a message about needing a change. It was as dull as dishwater and I couldn’t watch any more of it.
“I didn’t talk all that much with Luke. He kept himself to himself and didn’t want a massive relationship with his owner. He just wanted to get on with his coaching. That was fine as he was a brilliant coach and he’s a good man, a good human being, but sometimes things just don’t work out.
“We were sterile and stale. We were too docile. We never took risks to get back into games, and then his interviews started ringing alarm bells. Pre-match it felt like we were playing Real Madrid every Saturday and Tuesday whereas I loved the days when teams were more worried about us. God knows what the players thought.”
Patience May Cost Posh Dearly
As self-admitted by Darragh MacAnthony, the patience afforded to Luke Williams in the early stages of the season has left Peterborough United in a tough spot over the early weeks of the new tenure of Robbie Savage.
In a similar situation to what Wycombe Wanderers also encountered with Michael Duff, there was a belief that fortunes could be reversed in a gamble which failed for both.
The Chairboys have already rewarded their quick decision-making with a brilliant interim tenure for Tom Hounsell, who has launched the club back up to 12th in the table, earning him a Manager of the Month nomination.
While there is still plenty of the season to go, Savage is now having to work quickly to implement his ideas with the squad at Peterborough, but the disadvantage they find themselves in, especially in a campaign where some have tipped them to struggle immensely, could be a hard one to overcome.
