Dale Vince: Forest Green will trial running without a Manager

Vince, who has been Forest Green owner and Chairman for 16 years, told BBC Radio Gloucestershire: “Without Robbie, I think we’re fine without a Manager. The thing I see in football is teams are led by big-ego Managers and I’m not sure that they always make the best decisions.

“We’re going to try something different to see if we can get a more balanced outcome, decision-making-wise. We’re going to run without the big-ego Manager for a little while and see what happens.

“We’ve got a team of coaches that, between them, have an awful lot of experience – Premier League, Championship. We think between them they’ve probably got it. But also they know the players and the club inside out.

“I think we won’t miss the Manager, but let’s see. We’re just focused on being the best we can be. With this change imposed upon us, we’re trying to see if we can make something quite good out of it.”

Bowen, the son of former Reading Director of Football Mark, was brought to Forest Green by Savage in June. He was previously Head of Performance at Reading for six years and was also a Sport Scientist at Crystal Palace and Stoke City.

Klukowski was promoted from Head of Academy to first-team duties under Savage at the same time. Gould, the son of former Wales Manager Bobby, has coached at Celtic, West Brom and Stoke City among others and also joined Forest Green in the summer.

Forest Green lost 4-2 at home to Hartlepool on Saturday and are without a win in five matches, two of which have been since Savage stepped away.

Vince added: “We haven’t spoken to anybody about the role. We like where we are, we’re going to see how it goes – maybe for a few games, maybe for a month. We’re in a situation where we’re not in a hurry.

“We’re not actually having any conversations. The coaching team have been doing the heavy lifting anyway; they know the team inside out. I think the three of them make very balanced, rational decisions.

“We aren’t talking to anybody. I promise you we haven’t had a single conversation. All of the speculation within the media is just speculation. Nobody is in the frame, nobody is connected to the job. At the moment, there is no vacancy.

“I don’t feel an urgency. If you look at how we played last Tuesday (the 1-1 draw with Wealdstone), we played really well, we could have nicked it. There’s no drama.”

Forest Green dropped out of the Football League two years ago after successive relegations in 2022/23 and 2023/24. They lost in the National League play-offs the following season and finished seventh last term, Savage’s only season in charge.

Savage was our guest on Episode #65 of the TGG Podcast.