Pros And Cons Of Leaping Into Molineux Fire
Rob Edwards earlier this year.
It started on a hill in Gloucestershire with Forest Green and continued apace with his first jumping of ship, followed with indecent haste by his first sacking. Now Rob Edwards is raising eyebrows again by turning his back on a possible promotion challenge at Middlesbrough to join Wolves for the third time.
The international window has led to a period of radio silence and given the different parties time to catch their breath while also preparing for an official unveiling over the next few days.
But Wolves’ fifth new manager/head coach in four and a half years looks happy enough on that club video to be back at Compton, so it’s time for some observations…..
Rob Edwards played 111 League and cup games while at Molineux from 2004 to 2008, then returned to coach for them at different levels for another four years from 2013.
Despite the many other stopping-off points in his career – Villa, Blackpool, Barnsley, Telford, England, Forest Green, Watford, Luton and Middlesbrough among them – a call back to these parts will have been very special.
It’s hard to dress up the task of lifting Wolves from a winless position at the foot of the table as a dream job but this will feel like HIS club; the one with whom he has spent more time than any other, where he has more friends and where he will most quickly feel at home.
Oh, yes, and he’s from Madeley in Telford. Let’s not forget that behind many players, coaches and managers are a family, often a young one, and it just so happens that the main base for Rob and his loved ones these last few years has been in what we might term ‘claret and blue country’ the other side of Birmingham.
Despite the insistence that geographical factors have not played a major part in his thinking, who wouldn’t favour sleeping back in the family home most nights rather than being hours away off the A1?
For decades, I have lamented football’s contract-breaking, club-hopping tendencies but what’s the point these days in a game that gives Europa League winner Ange Postecogleu 39 days to sort out Nottingham Forest?
Loyalty – or lack of it – cuts both ways. Edwards, having led Forest Green to promotion from the basement division, was then sacked in the following autumn after a mere 11 games at Watford. Luton called time on him after he had unexpectedly taken them up to the Premier League and then, much more predictably, straight out of it again.
He has seen how the tide can quickly turn. He has been buffeted by impatient owners, as well as infuriating others with his ambition and willingness to move on. And still we call it the beautiful game!
Just as Jorgen Strand Larsen will now fret that his chance of a move to a Champions League club may not come round again, so Edwards probably had it in mind that Wolves wouldn’t again offer him the top job if he turned it down this time.
They are also in the Premier League, albeit with a huge task ahead of them as they aim to secure a ninth successive season of competing in the top flight, so we can safely assume there was a financial attraction in coming back, too. He won’t have earned fortunes from the game so far.
As for the soundness of this appointment from Wolves’ standpoint, they have engaged a man well versed in the ways of the Championship and someone who has developed young players at club and international level. If a reset is called for at Molineux and Compton, a safe pair of hands is in place to oversee the process.
As ever, we extend our very best wishes to this thoroughly likeable guy and close our piece with a few reminders….
In action before his playing service to Wolves led to a lengthy stint in their dug-out.
*Wolves debut day for Rob was as a 63rd minute substitute in a 2-1 defeat at Stoke in August, 2004 under the man who signed him, Dave Jones.
*His 100th appearance for the club was on the opening day of 2007-08 in a 2-1 home loss against Watford, in which he went on for Gary Breen.
*And he signed off by going off very early in a 3-3 home draw for Mick McCarthy’s men against QPR in March, 2008.
*He turns 43 on Christmas Day.