Barnsley chief executive Gauthier Ganaye says that, if he could go back to February and choose a new head coach after Paul Heckingbottom's departure, he would still appoint Jose Morais.
The Portuguese won three of his 15 matches in charge of Barnsley, who he was unable to prevent dropping from the Championship into League One last month.Ganaye told the Chronicle this week: "If we were all again in the same position, we would once again do the same appointment. At that precise time, with the timescale we had, he was the best of the people we interviewed."
Morais – a former assistant to Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Chelsea – had never managed in the UK before while he did not have a transfer window to make changes to a struggling squad and had to lead his side into seven games in his first month in the role Ganaye said: "We probably should have done lots of things differently to help him settle in.
"Every time you appoint someone, it is a bit of a gamble because you know part of the person but you don't know how he will settle and how he will be received in the environment. Then Jose started badly with goal in the first minute against Burton (a 2-1 home loss) and everything was rushed."
Having brought in German Daniel Stendel last week, Barnsley have now appointed two consecutive non-British coaches since hometown man Paul Heckingbottom left in February for Leeds United, a job from which he was sacked earlier this month.
Gauthier said he had no concerns over Stendel's lack of experience in English football. He said: "People sometimes want to just talk about the nationality of the guy or his experience in the league. The most important thing is who he is and how you can help him to settle in and make the best of the team.
"It is a totally different situation but Pep Guardiola didn't have experience of the Premier League, and his team (Manchester City) won it. For us, the fact that he is a German and has not coached in England, is not very important. It is not a problem."
