‘I don’t get the industry’ - Doncaster Rovers boss Grant McCann reacts after League One manager is sacked

Doncaster Rovers boss Grant McCann says he doesn’t get the industry at times after seeing one of his close friends Michael Duff become the first managerial casualty of the new League One season.

Duff, 48, had been in charge almost a year after replacing Michael Dodds in September and was credited with leading Wycombe Wanderers to a commendable top-half finish in his first season, but was sacked earlier this week after failing to win any of his opening five league games this term.

McCann played alongside Duff at Cheltenham and for Northern Ireland and expressed his disappointment after the 48-year-old was sacked from his role.

The Rovers boss said: “My good friend lost his job last week, Michael Duff at Wycombe. I think it's easy to criticise football managers, football players, whatever. I think it's just an easy to go ‘they're rubbish, they've lost a game. He's rubbish, the players are rubbish, the manager's rubbish.’

“I think it's just easy for anyone to do that, isn't it?”

"The transfer window has just finished and he's just signed one of the best strikers in League One in Jayden Wareham and he gets the chance to work with him for two days and then loses his job. I just don't get the industry sometimes."

McCann's comments were made amid his own side’s challenging start to the season. Currently, Rovers sit in 22nd, a place above Wycombe but level with The Chairboys in terms of points after drawing three of their opening five games.

He added: "Fortunately here we're at a really good football club who understand that we're trying to improve all the time.

"The owners see they have a staff and a bunch of players who will give everything for Doncaster Rovers and that is what we're doing."

McCann takes the team to the capital with the hope of securing that all important first win and climbing the table.

He’s weathered a few storms in his time as Rovers boss in the past and managed to turn the team’s fortunes around. When asked how he approaches these kind of challenges, he explains that it’s about trying to stick to a process and not getting too high or too low.

McCann added: “The players, the staff, the fans, we're hurting. But we know that we have to continue to believe in what we are and what we certainly have done at this football club since we've been here.

“ We've been through spells like this many, many times and I've been through spells like this many, many times in management.

“The easiest thing to do is throw your toys at the pram and scrap everything and do something completely different. But the best thing to do is to stay calm and believe in what we are and be truly ourselves. That's what we'll do.

“I think the most important thing is to stay calm. We've got to keep reiterating to the players the positives, the good bits, because it's just easy.to just try and point at every little mistake and go, that's your fault, that's your fault.It's not.

“We win, lose and draw together in this football club and we'll be no different in every game that we sort of approach from now to the end of the season.”