Coffee Talk: Bill Edwards Gave Campbell, Players a Vote of Confidence Before Saturday’s Win

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Coffee Talk: Bill Edwards Gave Campbell, Players a Vote of Confidence Before Saturday’s Win

August 28, 2016 Jake Nutting

Heading into Saturday’s encounter with Rayo OKC, the Tampa Bay Rowdies had dropped five of their previous six matches. The poor string of results came at an interesting time, as last weekend was the one-year anniversary of Thomas Rongen and Farrukh Quraishi being dismissed.

So whether or not Rowdies owner Bill Edwards was or wasn’t aware of the coincidence, he sure picked an intriguing moment to show a vote of confidence in this year’s team and head coach Stuart Campbell.

Fresh off his two-goal shift in the win over Rayo OKC, veteran Joe Cole mentioned a meeting Edwards had with the team to express his confidence in the squad despite of the recent skid.

“I felt we played well again tonight,” said Cole. “All credit to the staff, the players, and also Bill the owner. He had a good chat with us during the week. He’s right behind us and the manager and everything we’re doing here. You can see the performances. It was pleasing to get the result to match the performance.”

Adding another bit of intrigue to Saturday’s match was the fact the manager Edwards lost confidence in last year was in the broadcast for beIN Sports (Try to imagine this kind of thing happening in a league more people cared about. The Twitter snark would never end). Understandably, Rongen said he feels the team was in a better position at the same point last year when he was let go, but he also offered praise for many of the moves made by Campbell.

Rongen’s broadcast partner suggested Campbell’s job could be on the line given the recent results. That’s not an absurd notion, although it does ignore the quality performances of the team in those losing efforts. The team has rarely looked lost, and has in fact created plenty of scoring chances in recent weeks only to be let down by their finishing.

“I’m not stupid. I know it’s a results based business, but every man and his dog can see that our performance levels have been very good,” said Campbell on Saturday night. “The effort, the application, the attitude of every single player has never been in question so it’s nice to finally get the result the performance deserved.”

On top of the promise the team continues to show, Campbell’s working relationship with Edwards is rumored to be markedly better than the one Rongen had with the owner last year. Coupled together, these two indicators suggest that Campbell’s job might be safe for the time being.

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Jonathan Arnholz @JArnholz

When you don't convert a PK so you get pissed and bounce back with two goals anyway #JoeCole #COYR