Rowett

“Within three games it all turned” – Gary Rowett speaks out about Stoke City sacking

Gary Rowett’s appointment as Stoke City manager before the start of the season got a lot of Potters fans excited about the season ahead of them.

However, the appointment of the former Derby County manager did not go as planned and he was relieved of his services as Stoke City manager with the club sat in 14th place and eight points away from the Championship play-off places in early January.

Stoke were far off their pre-season expectations, but Rowett believes that his sacking was harsh and thinks he could’ve been given more time to turn it around.

“The reality is we spent the money in the summer and the expectation, whether that was right or wrong, was to bounce straight back up very easily,” Rowett said to talkSPORT. 

“And the problem with the Championship, as we know, I think teams relegated are average ninth position,” he said on Friday morning.

“So it’s a well-known fact that teams that get relegated, get relegated for reasons! And the reasons they get relegated for are not easy to change quickly.

“It wasn’t an easy club to then turn around but of course, as a manager, you have to stand there if you haven’t won enough games.”

Rowett went on to add that given the club’s situation, he doesn’t think that they were in a particularly bad position prior to his sacking.

“We were four points off seventh I think, so again, we had been on a good run. We were nine-game unbeaten away from home, we were 12 games unbeaten in all competitions before Boxing Day at Birmingham.

“Then within three games it all turned. If you lose quite a number of that dressing room, then there’s less resilience perhaps around now to see it through themselves.

“That’s a big thing I always say; sometimes as players on the pitch, you have to sort it out yourselves. You can give them a structure and you can give them a way of trying to win the game.

“But ultimately, they have to take responsibility for that and I think that that responsibility was probably more intrinsic 10-15 years ago than perhaps it is now.”

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