Yeovil Town’s new ownership has insisted it gave Danny Webb its full backing to strengthen his squad before his shock departure of manager Danny Webb today.
Speaking to the Gloverscast just hours after the announcement, Chief Strategy Advisor Nicholas Brayne said there had “not been a single disagreement” with the now former boss who quit just ten days after taking over at Huish Park.
He described the club as “bitterly disappointed and shocked” by the former Chesterfield assistant manager’s resignation just ten days after taking the job, but insisted that personal and family reasons were the driving force behind the decision to quit.
Brayne said: “Danny was very much supported, he knew there was money to spend, we had put a recruitment strategy in place with Danny and we were working through that. Andrew (Oluwabori) joined on Friday and there were other conversations going on led by Danny with all of us supporting him, I personally had a number of conversations with agents of players we wanted to bring in to the squad and there was money there for Danny to do what he wanted to do to make us more competitive on the pitch. That is exactly the same case for Richard.
“To be clear, when you hear people say ‘has he walked away from the club because there’s been a disagreement?’ There has not been a single disagreement with Danny and he will say that the ownership group backed him every step of the way whatever he thought he needed for this club to succeed and as a human being with what he has gone through over the last 48 hours.”
The advisor, who is part of the ownership group led by Dubai-based businessman Prabhu Srinivasan which took over the club in May, insisted the decision to give Dryden the job would bring stability at Huish Park. The coach was brought to the club by former boss Mark Cooper in the summer and will lead the team when they travel to his former club Aldershot Town on Wednesday night.
Brayne said: “In the four games which Richard was in charge was a really good, stabilising factor behind the scenes, he is really good with people, really good with the board, really good with the players and that is what we need now. We need someone who is going to take time and give us time and that is why that Richard is taking the helm until the end of the season.
“This whole process of trying to identify and get the right manager, we have just run that process. From the perspective of energy, focus and making sure we are running in the right direction, to run that process again you would be talking about another four weeks (of uncertainty). I think the fans and the players would get restless, so we are saying ‘let’s calm this situation down’, Richard is in charge, in him we are going to trust. I think it give everyone a sense of direction.”
The announcement at 10am on Monday morning stunned the club’s supporters and has sent shockwaves through Huish Park. It comes just over 24 hours after a 1-0 defeat at Tamworth in Webb’s first game in charge which he followed with a post-match interview where he spoke about understanding “the magnitude of the job.”
Brayne said that he had spoken with Webb on a number of occasions during Sunday, adding: “Everyone has been bitterly disappointed and shocked. Danny was selected after a process which took several weeks and I think everyone got an idea of why he was selected, the way he came across, the way he interacted with the media, fans and the people here. He’s a very personable character and he has got a good track record in football, so it is easy to see why we felt he was a really good fit for Yeovil. He hit the ground running last week and then he has now decided to step away from the dug out for personal reasons.
“I had a number of calls with Danny on Sunday to make sure he was okay to understand the process of how he had come to that decision. We talked about his welfare, his mental health, what he was thinking, so a lot of that was about making sure he was okay on a human level which I am pleased to say he is. Then we were trying to understand the rationale of how we got to this point which is a really difficult process.”
Just seems a bit odd that DW knew the area, the club and only took one game to realise that for family/personal reasons he had made a mistake, Thought his post match interview on Saturday echoed what a lot have thought although a difficult task to overhaul the playing staff with the season 10 games in. Also nice not to blame everyone from the Ref to the ball boys for losing, unlike his predecessor. Oh well, it’s only football.