Where Ian Foster went wrong: The 'wedge' departs

Unpicking a week of less-than-coded messages

I sat down to write this piece exactly a week ago. It was 9 pm on Easter Monday after we’d been beaten by Bristol City. Ian Foster hadn’t been sacked yet, but as is commonplace in my job as a journalist, I started writing ahead of time and would fill in the details later. You could argue that I should have done that two weeks before, but you’re not the boss of me.

Anyway, I was happily writing, and at around 10:49 pm two things happened simultaneously: Ian Foster was relieved of his duties, and my son vomited over his bed. It was a fitting tribute to the state of the football club.

It took a week for my household to purge the subsequent bug, which took all in its wake, and for Argyle to exorcise the malaise left by the former head coach.

In a way, I’m glad of the breathing room that week allowed for this post. So much information has washed out, that only now do I feel we have a full picture of what went wrong.

A cursed appointment

I have to acknowledge that I was a fan of the Foster appointment. It made sense to me – and until the last few days, I was perplexed about why it went so wrong.

I was a fan of Argyle moving to a more high-pressing style of football after the defensive passiveness of the Schumacher era. I liked Foster’s credentials, and while not everyone’s cup of tea, I liked his thoughtful, exacting style. I’m not going to revise the things I said previously in light of new information.

What’s transpired, and where it seems to have gone truly wrong, is Foster’s approach, manner, and operating style. I’m going to try and stay out of questions over how this was allowed to happen because that’s for a follow-up newsletter.

There had been plenty of hearsay about fallings out with Foster through his tenure. It was clear that Foster was, to be polite, bullish, and tone-deaf – that was evident in his manner during press conferences.

I was slightly dismissive of these accounts on social media because the missives were usually peppered with obvious lies designed to make the stories seem more believable. But there was no smoke without fire.

And that was made abundantly clear by the club in the days that followed.

And smiles and the ‘wedge’

The day after Foster’s departure, the club started its long-awaited PR offensive, which it had withheld from helping the head coach. “All smiles in training” was the message – with pictures of the squad beaming with happiness.

Next came the press conferences. The board had put Nance and Dewsnip up for duty, because the board wanted to reunify the squad.

“Taking the handbrake off” was the message of the day, and Michael Cooper was allowed to tell the fanbase that the team had become focused on stopping the opposition, more than expressing themselves.

Cooper said: "It's about us now. I think previously it has been a lot about opposition but for me I want to go back to our identity of games being about us, free-flowing attacking football, scoring more goals than the opposition and getting three points, and that's going to hopefully keep us up.

The out-of-possession specialist hired by Argyle as head coach really wasn’t focused on using the ball at all.

Dan Scarr and Callum Wright – the subject of rumours about fallouts – were added straight back into the starting XI for Rotherham – which wasn’t quite a full “handbrake-off” performance, and was still quite stilted and rusty – but got the party started with a win.

The hugs for Callum Wright by Nance, and Scarr being pushed forward for the applause of the Green Army, was telling in itself.

And then came the final nails for Foster. In the pre-QPR press conferences, Joe Edwards asserted that Foster wasn’t a good fit for Argyle’s culture – and Dan Scarr said that a wedge had been driven between the players and staff.

“It’s not just the lads, it’s the staff. We have such a good relationship with the staff at this club, that’s why we’ve done so well all the time. And to have that taken away from us, and have a wedge drove between us, was probably where we were struggling.”

It’s an incendiary quote that underpinned the week of media breadcrumbs and nuggets and spelled out exactly what’s been going on behind the scenes.

It’s clearer now what went wrong

In the aftermath of Foster, I had so many contradictory feelings about what went wrong.

He endured a ferocious run of fixtures – tough ones at that – and massive squad upheaval. He didn’t come with a backroom staff and was allowed to defer getting support. And his signings – mysteriously they were his targets in a diversion from normal data-driven strategy – did not adequately replace what we needed. All of those were huge factors in Argyle’s stuttering performance – and they remain true.

But it seems that what truly went wrong, was that everyone from the playing staff to the media team seemed to dislike him.

You cannot lead if you cannot bring people with you. Foster was a sergeant, but the leader of a football club needs to be a general. Hearts and minds come along side tactics.

Argyle is an outpost. Most of the players and many staff live a long way from home. The previous regime cultivated that into a family atmosphere based on togetherness. And that was incompatible with Foster and his methods.

In the end, discontent spread through the club like a sickness in a household.

I still feel sorry for Ian Foster. He’d moved his family and his son to the area to make a home. He seemed driven to succeed – and there’s no question he was working incredibly hard.

I hope he steps back and recognises the areas in which his actions and approach to the people of Plymouth Argyle – staff, fans and players – contributed to its downfall.

But now the sickness has passed – we need to pray that Argyle’s appetite for big performances returns.