Gareth Ainsworth: Wycombe Wanderers boss on longevity and his Christmas single

Wycombe captain Matt Bloomfield has been at the club for 16 years and knew something was up this summer when there were just nine players on the first day of pre-season.

Asked if he was concerned Ainsworth may leave as a result, the midfielder said: “I was more than slightly concerned, I was extremely worried.

“I was thinking ‘Christ what’s going on’ – at that point the gaffer was perfectly in his rights to say he’d taken club as far as he could.”

But he did not, and he had not. Couhig invested £2.2m to settle Wanderers’ existing debts and made an additional £1m available.

That enabled Ainsworth to keep his squad together and strengthen, though he says he was never looking to leave.

“Looking around at what you’ve got is important, rather than at what you might have, because there’s always that uncertainty of moving on, it not going well and you being out of the game,” he added.

“What I’ve got is pretty special here.”

While Couhig spends most of his time across the Atlantic, nephew Pete has moved to England to oversee the running of Wycombe as chief financial officer.

A consortium led by former Arsenal and Netherlands forward Dennis Bergkamp had looked favourite to take over at Adams Park before the Couhigs took control.

“We thought we had lost out to the Bergkamp group but when the time came for them to put up or shut up – apparently they didn’t, so we kind of got a second opportunity,” Pete Couhig said.

“One of the things Rob has said quite a few times is on the football side we’re operating on a League One level and on the business side it’s more like League Two, maybe even a little bit lower.”