
Next Port Vale Manager Odds: Why The Vale should go all out for Gareth Ainsworth

Port Vale dismissed Andy Crosby as manager on Monday, so the Burslem outfit need a new head honcho.
EFL pundit Gab Sutton discusses why he thinks Gareth Ainsworth is the one for the job.
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Port Vale’s progress over the last three years, from bottom half mediocrity in League Two, to a largely competitive League One outfit, has been through a culture-led strategy.
Darrell Clarke is considered the chief inspiration for the club’s rise, although Andy Crosby certainly played a significant role along the way, and he wasn’t a stickler for style, or a devotee to development.
Clarke tended to favour squads on the more experienced side of the spectrum, with a strong leadership group at the core, and was a stylistic chameleon who knew how to skin different cats in different ways – he’s versatile, so no need to even restrict it to cats.
Similarly to how he’s remembered at Bristol Rovers, Clarke remains the most loved Vale boss since John Rudge – he struck a chord with the people of Burslem for his brisk honesty, unfiltered public demeanour, and instinctive management.
Valiants still miss him, nearly a year on, and that shows what a difficult job Crosby inherited, stepping in as almost a step-father figure and while he wasn’t without fault in his time as a number one, it shows the challenge can’t be underestimated.
As such, appointing a manager who fans will respond well to is a significant component of the search criteria – not the only component, but certainly one of them.
Gareth Ainsworth isn’t the same personality type as Clarke: his appeal is found, not in self-parodic impatience, dryly mischievous wit and laddish vulgarity, rather, in his ability to start a tricky interview and leave everyone feeling far more optimistic five minutes later.
Carrying himself with buckets of belief, and a sprinkling of class and charm for good measure, Ainsworth is a beaming force of positivity, up there with Jimmy Murphy and Jurgen Klopp in the greatest motivators in the history of English football, if we were to put the level to one side and just look at the people.
Tactically, ‘Wild Thing’ has fallen short at the higher level, and his ideas may be found wanting for a certain standard of player who want a greater depth of detail.
Ainsworth’s ill-fated stint at QPR, 19 points from 27 games, suggests as much, and while he could justifiably point to deep-rooted systemic, cultural and financial issues, their subsequent midtable form under Martí Cifuentes wouldn’t help any cause of his to strike a line through that tenure completely.
What Ainsworth needs more than anything, though, is buy-in.
When he was Rs boss, he very early on hired a half-naked Kiwi to teach the players the Haka, as an example of his work to try to change the culture.
A large minority of footballers at that level would see getting involved with that sort of thing to be a cringeworthy embarrassment, and a hit to their ego, so they’ll do it if everyone else is, but to the bare minimum in the tamest way possible.
The majority would feel slightly embarrassed, but they’ll go with it for the sake of their careers.
Then, there’s a tiny minority who will commit wholeheartedly to whatever the manager asks, before they’ve even read the room: they don’t mind risking themselves looking a bit silly for a moment if it serves a greater purpose which is the benefit of the tribe.
What Ainsworth had at Wycombe was a majority of the third category: we actually wrote a list of all the big characters who became mainstays under him at Adams Park, yet by the end it got to about 30 and was far too long for us to share!
Joe Jacobson and Matt Bloomfield led with dedication and professionalism, Anthony Stewart, Aaron Pierre and Darius Charles through their defensive bravery, Marcus Bean and Garath McCleary through how well they looked after themselves, David Wheeler, Jack Grimmer, Michael Harriman and Luke O’Nien through their versatility, Curtis Thompson and Josh Scowen through tenacity in midfield.
On the other hand, Adebayo Akinfenwa is a huge character who goes into the building every day with an incredible energy and a smile on his face.
And, when it’s a majority in that aforementioned third category, nobody looks silly and the whole process strengthens everyone’s resolve.
With that strength, Wycombe became the most successful underdogs in the EFL over the course of just under a decade.
Rather than recruiting skilful players and motivating them, they recruited motivated players and inspired them – and that model, while not in vogue at a time where so many clubs clamour for high-potential assets, has been extraordinarily successful.
What it shows is that when Ainsworth has buy-in, when the first domino falls and everyone invests in following his lead, he can build teams that achieve far, far more than what they should do on paper.
So, why couldn’t Ainsworth do that again at Port Vale?
He’ll already have the buy-in he wants from supporters due to his popular status from his playing days, having been Player of the Year in 1997-98.
When his Wycombe side won 3-0 at Vale Park in February last season, his penultimate game in charge, he went down the night before for the dinner in honour of John Rudge.
And, post-match, when asked about his affection for Vale, he hinted that, in the future… who knows.
Seeing as Ainsworth’s approach to management is so culture-led, and that the club have already applied that model for the last three years and had success with it, the fit would make sense from that angle.
The 50-year-old would see in Connor Ripley, Nathan Smith, Alex Iacovitti, Mitch Clark, Funso Ojo, Jason Lowe, Ben Garrity, and Uche Ikpeazu, with whom he worked at Adams Park, as a strong core to build a team around.
In a football climate that sees lots of clubs fetishize the aesthetics and developing technical footballers that appeal to clubs higher up, there’s leverage to be gained by going against the grain.
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