Chairman Andy Pilley sat down with the local media on Friday morning and spoek about the appointment of Scott Brown as Head Coach.
The news was announced on Thursday that Brown would take charge of the squad ahead of the 2022/23 Sky Bet League One season, with a further announcement of Whittaker as his assistant coming the next morning, and Town’s Chairman has nothing but praise for the pair of them – as indicated in the following interview.
Here’s what Andy said on Friday morning:
On naming Scott Brown as Head Coach…
“I’m delighted to be announcing Scott Brown, he’s got the attributes we were looking for from the selected candidate. I think it’s important to have someone with a track record of success and Scott has managed to win 23 trophies which is a massive achievement and he’s also a natural leader of men – that is a skill set needed to be a football manager.
“Scott was on our shortlist and he’s very different to what my perception was of him as a player, we all saw this aggressive player with his eyes bulging out of his head, kicking anything that moved, and won a lot of games with Celtic. He came across as someone very different and I’m sure everyone will agree.
“He’s articulate, intelligent, but also has that edge and I think you need all these qualities to succeed as a footballing manager. I feel like the chemistry is good and that is important at any club, you have to have that relationship between the owner and the manager as you’ve got a problem as soon as you start pulling in opposite directions.”
On the references given by other managers…
“He’s a high-profile individual and I make no apologies for appointing him for that. If we can get more supporters through the turnstiles here, that would be naturally advantageous for the club. I went to two different Premier League managers about Scott, who he played under, and they gave glowing references for him.
“They said he’s the best captain they’ve ever had and we should appoint him in a heartbeat as we can see him as a top manager. It helps enormously if we can get some favours from the Premier League, whether that be them sending their future stars to Fleetwood Town, that would help enormously.”
On the application process…
“We made the announcement that we were looking for a new manager and the application started to flood in. I’ve got to say the quality of applicants this time was exceptional; it was probably the best I’ve ever seen at the club.
“It’s more attractive if it’s a vacancy at the end of a season so they’ve got all of pre-season to stamp their own identity and culture onto the football club. No doubt, it’s difficult to take over a football club if they’ve decided to change manager as you are inheriting someone else’s team so perhaps that was a reason why the standard and quality was so high.
“The process after this is we have to sift through the applicants, and we have to see who would be a good fit for who we are as a football club and there are so many different considerations you have to make.
“In the modern world, it’s hard to meet all the candidates, but there was about nine or ten that we interviewed. We then whittled it down to two or three outstanding candidates and we then saw that Scott was the man for us.”
On his ability to stamp his own style on the squad…
“He’s got all summer and I’m sure he will want to take stock on the playing squad. Initially, you can watch a lot of game in this modern world we live in, he can watch all last season’s games, but he’s got the benefit to speak to a lot of good people around the club.
“They will be able to give them indications of what the players are like, not just on the pitch but off it as well. They will be able to tell them what it would take to get the best out of them and I’m sure that the outstanding success and the standard of managers he’s played under will help him on his course at Fleetwood Town.”