According to Football Insider, Gareth Ainsworth is being considered as Stoke City’s possible replacement for Steven Schumacher.
Even after Schumacher was brought in, the Potters have underperformed this season. Schumacher was expected to have a significant impact at the bet365 Stadium after showing so much promise at Plymouth Argyle.
Filling Ryan Lowe’s shoes wouldn’t have been easy, but he made a fantastic job of it, leading the Pilgrims to the League One championship at the end of the previous season.
Schumacher also ensured that they were sitting above the relegation zone at Home Park with a decent start to the season.
However, he moved to Stoke back in December in an attempt to help the Potters climb the Championship standings after Alex Neil was fired.
The duration of Steven Schumacher’s stay with Stoke City
Sadly, Stoke was eliminated from the FA Cup after losing to Brighton and Hove Albion, which was not a humiliating result given how strong the Seagulls are.
More significantly, though, they haven’t performed particularly well in the league either.
Schumacher had five straight wins in his first five games in charge of the second division at the bet365 Stadium, indicating a positive start to his tenure.
After that, though, they dropped their next four games before winning 1-0 in South Wales against Swansea City in the middle of the week to resume their winning ways.
Schumacher and his team, regrettably, were unable to build on this and lost to Coventry City at home yesterday afternoon.
The Potters are currently three points above the drop zone and in 19th place, which is a dangerous spot for the Staffordshire team to be in at this time.
In addition to keeping Wycombe Wanderers from being relegated in the past, Ainsworth performed a fantastic job at Queens Park Rangers, barely managing to keep them in the second division at the end of the previous season.
Not only was he an excellent man manager, but he could also boost spirits at bet365 Stadium.
For this reason, one should not undervalue Ainsworth.
But for now, and for more reasons than just his lacklustre performance in the early going of this season at Loftus Road, he isn’t the player to lead Stoke ahead.
Even with his background, Ainsworth isn’t a certain improvement over Schumacher, who is a very gifted coach who was trained by the highly regarded Lowe before succeeding in the position of head coach.
Although Schumacher’s results haven’t been great thus far, Stoke has been struggling at this level for a while, and Rome wasn’t built in a day.
The former Plymouth manager should be given the chance to make a difference in Staffordshire, and ideally he should have the entire summer transfer window to bolster the Potters’ roster.
Stoke cannot afford to appoint and dismiss managers on a frequent basis, particularly at this early stage in the season when the team is still developing after the previous summer’s redevelopment.
