Wycombe Manager Matt Bloomfield Credits Players for Club’s Ascent to League One Top Spot

Wycombe Wanderers manager Matt Bloomfield attributed the success to his team following their 5-0 victory over Stockport, which propelled them to the top of League One. Bloomfield took over from Gareth Ainsworth as the club’s boss in February 2023. The Chairboys have secured victories in their last six matches across all competitions, with their sole loss in the previous 15 fixtures occurring against Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup. This decisive win against Stockport propelled them past Birmingham City based on goal difference, while Wrexham remained four points behind in third place. Speaking to BBC Three Counties Radio, Bloomfield stated, “I’m just the manager who has ideas and has words – but the boys are the ones who have to go and carry it out.” He added, “I’m full of pride. They take on information, they respect tough decisions we have to make and it’s not the result, it’s the way they go about their work. They’re a great group of young men who are desperate to do their best for each other and our supporters.” Bloomfield, a 40-year-old former midfielder, led Wycombe to a 10th-place finish during his inaugural full season at the helm in 2023-24, which also included an appearance in the EFL Trophy final. Following the club’s acquisition by Kazakhstan billionaire Mikheil Lomtadze, they have recovered from initial 3-2 defeats against Wrexham and Birmingham in their first two league matches of the current season, proceeding to win nine of the subsequent 11 games. Bloomfield described their current standing as an amazing position, “even if it’s just for one night.” Against Stockport, Richard Kone scored two goals and Fred Onyedinma contributed one, establishing their dominance within the first 18 minutes. Onyedinma subsequently netted his second, and Aaron Morley concluded a remarkable evening by scoring his inaugural goal for the team. Bloomfield further commented, “I’ve repeated often enough how we want to entertain, how we want to press from the front, these things are only words if the players don’t go and implement them.” He continued, “We could maybe have had one or two more, looking back at it. There’s pride in the performance, but nothing’s happened yet, we’re 13 games into a long season and we’ve got an extremely tough game at Wigan at the weekend.” Wycombe previously spent a single season in the Championship during 2020-21, with their closest attempt at returning being a play-off appearance the subsequent season, where they were defeated by Sunderland at Wembley. Bloomfield noted, “We’ve picked up a few injuries recently which is going to test the squad.” He elaborated on their recruitment strategy, stating, “The reason we recruited the way we did in the summer was because if you look back to this time last year, we lost Luke Leahy, Brandon Hanlan, Freddie Potts and had a tough time for the next couple of months before we were able to rejig it in January. We wanted a group that was able to go through the tough winter months and this was a signal that hopefully we have enough strength in depth but we’ve got a lot more tests to come.”