Town boss Paul Cook has been talking about what Peter Reid, who was appointed to a consultancy role on Friday, will bring to the club and says he’s not a manager who surrounds himself with yes men.
Reid, 65, was previously employed as technical director at Wigan under Cook’s management and Cook says the former Sunderland boss will fulfil a similar role with the Blues.
"I think Peter’s just got a wealth of experience to watch a game, similar eyes to us from in the stands,” he said, Reid having attended the games at Accrington and at home to Shrewsbury prior to taking the job.
"He’s worked with me now for the previous three years at Wigan, we had a great time together, I thoroughly enjoyed working with Peter, totally respect him, totally respect his knowledge of the game.
"Like everybody, we all watch football in different ways. For managers now, every substitution gets debated, every point gets debated, it’s just the way football’s gone.
"For us, we prefer to sort of plan over a longer period of time to sustain getting better so that when you improve, you improvement sees you get where you want to be and it stops you from making knee-jerk reactions.
"Knee-jerk decisions which I’ve seen managers do a lot of the time, sometimes through pressure from outside influences.”
Someone who’ll challenge you, something which may be harder for the younger coaches, such as Gary Roberts and Franny Jeffers at the start of the coaching careers?
"To be fair to the tone of your question, I don’t really like that, to be honest. I think what you’re suggesting is that I am surrounded by yes-men,” Cook responded.
"I think that was a little bit unfair, the question. I think when your team goes through the inconsistencies that our team goes through, that will always be the case for young coaches.
"Unfortunately, sometimes the hardest part of the job is learning on the job. And sometimes when you learn on the job, it can be painful, but the most important thing is that you learn.
"On Saturday, for example, everyone will have an opinion on substitutions - should you put these players on to see the game out? At five o’clock on Saturday night there’s a million pundits and experts in the world of football, a million. An absolute million.
"For me, I like to trust the people I work with, I trust their opinions, I don’t have yes-men around me. I would never employ any single person to agree with what I say, it wouldn’t be worth me having them in room with me.
"Whether Peter comes in to agree or disagree, I’m a little bit disappointed with how that went. I think we were talking about Peter coming in and his experience and we probably ended up talking about something that I don’t agree with.”