Sunderland fans may be missing Mike Dodds, but Wycombe Wanderers are head over heels for their new manager, and he’s been making all the right moves down there.
After Matt Bloomfield jumped ship to join Championship strugglers Luton Town, Mike Dodds was poached from his coaching role at Sunderland to take the top job at Wycombe Wanderers.
He joined a club fighting for promotion in League One, and to be fair to him, he’s kept them right on course with a number of important wins already.
Dodds bagged his first win at Wycombe a couple of weeks ago, and after defeating Burton Albion on Tuesday night, his club are still in control of the automatic promotion race despite the best efforts of Wrexham behind them.
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Mike Dodds has the respect of the Wycombe players already
Wycombe fans were impressed by Dodds even after his first interview as their new manager, and results and performances will have done nothing to change that.
And, after the latest victory, former Wycombe man Joe Jacobson discussed the success of Dodds’ start at the club with the Sky Sports team, revealing how a meeting with the players helped cement the relationship early doors for the new manager.
Jacobson said: “People are waiting, with the managerial change that happened when Matt Bloomfield went to Luton, they were waiting for Wycombe to fall off a little bit… but Dodds has come in and steadied the ship again after the interim spell of Sam Grace, and you can tell the players really like him.
“From speaking to the players like I do, one thing he did when he first came in is gather the experienced players in the dressing room and tell them, ‘I’m on your side, we can achieve something special here.’ And they’ll now be very confident they can do that with the squad they’ve got.”
With confidence high throughout the team, results going their way, and Dodds at the steering wheel, we may well be seeing the former Sunderland coach back in the second tier very soon.
Whether Sunderland will be there to face him or not, however, remains to be seen.
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It’s not surprising Mike Dodds has started well at Wycombe
The fact that Dodds is doing well at Wycombe, and that he has won over the players there, will not be at all surprising to anyone who followed his work as part of the Sunderland coaching staff.
The Sunderland players were gutted to see Dodds go, sending heartfelt messages to their former coach upon hearing the news that he had landed a new job, which speaks volumes about the respect he had there.
In many ways, Sunderland still haven’t recovered from losing Dodds, and Regis Le Bris will need to fill that void sooner rather than later.
Le Bris mentioned experienced players as the ones he is looking to, who can step up and lead the team on and off the pitch, but the truth is, the role of a coach is very different to that of a player, and we expect some shuffling of the deck come the end of the season.