Rovers’ new man can succeed - but club must show patience
PAUL Tisdale is a manager renowned for playing attractive passing football and turning raw youngsters into players worth a lot of money.
I count myself among his admirers and I don’t think Bristol Rovers could have made a better choice to take over from Ben Garner.
Paul is a student of the game, who worked wonders at Exeter City over many years and also won promotion from League Two with his last club MK Dons.
It doesn’t worry me a bit that he has yet to succeed in League One. The likelihood is that the players he had simply weren’t up to performing at the higher level when it was required of them.
Having said that, Ben’s sacking came as a shock to me. As I wrote in a recent column, I thought there were genuine signs that the squad he was building were making progress.
Last month Rovers won away at high-flying Lincoln City and at Shrewsbury Town, while also gaining a point on the road at Rochdale.
Although home results have not been as good, there was no disgrace in losing to Hull City, fresh out of the Championship, and Peterborough United, rightly regarded among the promotion favourites. Ben’s team won a tricky FA Cup first round tie at Walsall and this week, in the first game following his dismissal, they also made progress in the EFL Trophy.
To me, his sacking was a reminder of how shallow and hollow football has become. I know from personal experience at Grimsby Town that the Covid-19 pandemic has made it harder than ever for managers to build a new team.
Ben could hardly have picked a more difficult period to cut his teeth in charge of a League club for the first time. He should have been given longer to prove himself, not least because he is a top coach and a very nice person.
The signings he made were mainly young players and I have found to my cost at Grimsby that, while they can look a million dollars at times, they will also let you down on occasions through inexperience. Rovers were never going to turn down a big offer for Jonson Clarke-Harris as history shows. I was sacked as Pirates boss a matter of months after being ordered by the board to sell Jason Roberts, Bobby Zamora and Jamie Cureton in the summer of 2000.
I still remember my frustration over Cureton’s move in particular. Even though Roberts had gone for big money, the directors refused to sanction a wage rise I felt Jamie had earned and that led to him joining Reading on a bigger salary for a fee similar to the £200,000 I had paid to sign him from Norwich City.
Goalscorers are so difficult to replace and after losing three in a short period, I had Rovers fans chanting “You don’t what you’re doing” at me. I knew what I was doing alright, but had no say in the departures of Roberts, Zamora and Cureton because the club had no money.
I am sure Ben didn’t want to lose Clarke-Harris, but sometimes as a manager your hands are tied. It seems to me that, in Brandon Hanlan, Ben unearthed a replacement of huge potential.
Critics will point to the fact that Rovers were fourth in League One when Graham Coughlan left. But I am not alone in thinking the team were over-performing at that point and would have struggled to maintain that position whoever had taken over. Ben was fortunate to have started his management career in League One and will be desperate to have another crack at the job. He will have learned a massive amount and I wish him well.
Now Paul takes on the initial task of leading the club to mid-table safety, but also has to opportunity to progress in two cup competitions.
He inherits a relatively inexperienced squad, so his talent for developing young players, demonstrated in spades during his years with Exeter, makes him a good fit for the job.
Unlike Ben, whose previous experience was in coaching, Paul has seen it all when it comes to managing a club in the lower divisions. I hope he is given time to get his ideas across and fashion his own team, which I can assure everyone is a bigger task than ever with the Covid-19 restrictions.
Grimsby’s training ground is so small that I am only allowed to have a maximum ten players together in a room at the same time.
How do you talk tactics for an 11-a-side game or build a team spirit when that is the case? Last week two of my coaches had to selfisolate and I have never faced a tougher period in my entire career. That said, I am totally committed to my job there. I have sold my house near Bath and agreed to buy one up North, so there was never any question of being interested in returning to Rovers.
Paul will face problems that are just signs of the time. But he is a meticulous planner with a real football brain. I was interested in signing him as a player during my time as Rovers boss. He had joined Bristol City from Southampton in the summer of 1997, but couldn’t hold down a first team place and was loaned to Exeter. I rated him as a midfielder who kept things ticking and ensured a good tempo to the play. But he ended up getting a good offer to go and play abroad, so nothing came of my interest.
It was his football intelligence that most attracted me. Since then, I have seen him develop as a manager, first at Team Bath and then Exeter, always attempting to play decent football.
Rovers fans should welcome Paul with open arms. Let’s hope he brings some stability to our club because there have been too many changes on and off the pitch in recent seasons.