Boro Player spoke to Chairman Phil Wallace today, after the club announced the appointment of Graham Westley as new Stevenage manager.
Speaking at Bragbury End, the club’s brand new 42-acre training ground, the Chairman explained why he felt that Westley was the best man to take the reigns from former boss Gary Smith, saying: “I think he is the best man for the job because he ahs talents that suit this club.
“We need certain skillsets to benefit this club and to do well and in my opinion Graham has all of those skillsets. We’ve had a great time in the past, the success has been fantastic, and we’d like to rekindle those days.”
Graham returns after 14 months with Preston North End, a spell that didn’t go as successfully as he would have liked but one that he has admitted taught him a lot about being a manager.
When asked if he felt that Graham would have returned a wiser manager, Wallace responded: “I’m sure he has [learned a lot] but he has a difficult job up at Preston, it can’t be easy to get rid of 30 odd players. Those 30 odd players would all have friends and family and people they know within the game so I can’t imagine that that’s a very easy thing for him to do. It was always going to be traumatic wasn’t it so if he wasn’t going to be given 2 or 3 years it was always going to be very difficult, so I would think he has learned from that.
“I would also think that he has learned that in order to go to the highest level of the game that he has to adapt the way he works to the benefit of the players.”
Wallace admitted that “there are no targets” between now and the end of the season, but that the club would probably need another 3 points to ensure safety whilst he described Friday’s draw with Crawley Town as “fantastic” and the side as “really unlucky not to win the game”.
To see the full interview, including Phil’s and the club’s ambitions going forward, login to your Boro Player account now.