"It clearly went wrong... Why didn't it work out? Results were bad and we need to stay up" - Simon Hallett

IAN Foster was the third manager/head coach to be appointed under Simon Hallett’s ownership of Plymouth Argyle when he arrived at Home Park in early January.

- Chris Errington

His two predecessors, Ryan Lowe and Steven Schumacher, had both led the Pilgrims to promotions before leaving for Preston North End and Stoke City respectively. However, Foster’s tenure lasted just 87 days and 14 Championship matches, with the team losing eight out of 11 before he was sacked after the 1-0 Easter Monday defeat by Bristol City at Home Park.

United States-based Hallett is recovering from a knee operation but was given the medical all clear to return to the UK last week and he attended the 1-0 win away to Rotherham United on Friday before returning to Plymouth with the squad.

In an interview with our Argyle reporter Chris Errington, Hallett talked openly about the decision to sack Foster, why it was taken when it was, and where the club stand when it comes to appointing a successor.

Simon, you and this club have got so many decisions right over the last few years, how did it go so wrong with the appointment of Ian Foster?

It clearly went wrong, I’m not sure it went as wrong as people generally think. We know that all processes that lead to decision making under conditions of uncertainty, it’s certain that sometimes you will get things wrong.

We used the same process we used to get Schuey and Ryan and this time it didn’t work out. Why didn’t it work out? Results were bad and we need to stay up, it’s as simple as that.

With hindsight Ian was in a very difficult position. I think the position was probably worse than we thought it was, that our first half of our season we out-resulted our performances, and the second half of the season we resulted in line with our performances.