Q: WHAT DO PEP GUARDIOLA AND GARETH AINSWORTH HAVE IN COMMON? A: Both managers have had problems filling their subs benches this season!
Pictures: Stan Kujawa to make your boys believe in you – you have to energise them.
“It took me 18 months to really start settling down with a squad that was mine – I had given everyone their contract and to be here you have to be a certain character, a certain type.”
Hard work is a given but there’s no shortage of talent in a side that, before this weekend, had scored 73 goals – a tally bettered only by table-topping Luton.
Regardless of whether they achieve promotion this season, Ainsworth concedes that Wycombe still occupy a very different world to those in the top two divisions. “I think the Championship and the Premier League are pulling away from League One and Two at a rate of knots,” said Ainsworth, who spent five injury-plagued years at Wimbledon from 1998, when they were still in the Premier League. “It’s almost like a different sport in League One and League Two. “Unfortunately, money is playing a huge part in who’s winning things but the Leicester fairytale just puts that little spark into everyone. Everyneed one thinks, maybe one day that could be us, maybe one day we could do that.
“On the whole, though, you could probably pick four out of six teams to finish in that top six in the Premier League. And you’re not far off doing that in the Championship. Football at the top is becoming very predictable.
“I used to worry about European Super Leagues. I still do, to be honest.
“I still worry about your Barcelonas, your Real Madrids, and your Man Citys coming together and the Champions League becoming a weekly thing. For now, though, I can only focus on us.”
Away from the riches, it’s a strategy that continues to serve him and Wycombe well.