Injuries…
Stuart (Dallas) and Adam (Forshaw), again are injured but making progress. Archie Gray will be, we think, on the pitch tomorrow, so starting getting closer to training with the full team. And then the only other update is Luis Sinisterra.
Luis has a foot injury that it turns out to be more than what we initially originally thought it was. He wasn't making the progress that we were hoping for him to make over the last 10 days. So they did another scan and then they had a specialist looked at it, and they start to worry about it being a Lisfranc injury.
It’s a rare injury that controls the movement of the metatarsals and when that is ruptured, it can be a long recovery. We don't believe it's ruptured. We believe it's partially torn, which puts him in a little bit of a grey area, but probably out until after the World Cup break.
So we'll know more about that today. And again, we're hopeful that it's a version that doesn't take long.
Read more: Luis Sinisterra ruled out for extended period as Jesse Marsch provides Leeds United injury update
What impact has Saturday’s win had on the mood around the club?
Yeah, I mean, I'm still kind of in the same place. Obviously it was a good win, but it's also kind of frustrating that, you know, perform like this in certain games and then we've had too many points and games slip away and other another against other opponents. It's a little hard for even me to understand and appreciate that moment because I'm still thinking about the fact that we should be further up the table. We should be further along in our process, but we're not.
So obviously, there's joy that we get a result like that, but also concern and frustration that we haven't done more in other moments. Now this week, I think there's been real concentration on what's necessary for this weekend and our focus entirely is to build momentum. In order to do that we have to get a result.
Can that win against Liverpool have a transformative effect on your season and just how important is it to back it up now?
That's the important thing. My mind right after the match, again, was squarely on making sure that we're prepared for this weekend. I said last week at this press conference, I was tired of losing and tired, tired of being in a situation we have to dig ourselves out of. We're not out of that yet, we're still there, but the only way now is to get the result on Saturday.
Quite often when teams have a difficult period managers and head coaches go with experienced players, but you've given some of the younger guys a chance and Summerville rewarded you last Saturday with the winning goal but is that part of your philosophy to put these players in and give them the opportunity and how hopeful are you about the future with these players coming through?
Yeah, I mean, for me, whether you're young or old, it's all about what you're establishing and exhibiting on the training pitch.
Cry, for me, was a little unfortunate that he picked up the injury last year. I think it was for the match against Palace and he was starting to look really good in training then. I was thinking that he could be a player that can help us push toward the end of the season last year, and unfortunately we didn't get him going.
I talked after the game against Liverpool that a big factor for him is discipline and professionalism and work ethic. I've been on top of him again this week to make sure that he has a very good training week and he has looked really good and we're hopeful that he can establish himself more and more. And Willy I think you know is in the same vein, except that his professionalism and work ethic and clarity for what this world is is incredibly good. He's very mature for an 18-year-old and it's interesting because Cree and Willy have sparked up a really good friendship and I think Willy's had a real positive effect on Cree.
I think that those two together can be part of the core of young players, or can be the core of the young players that can kind of push us forward and continue to have all the young talented specifically attack players we have established, more and more.
On Cree, is it sort of off-the-pitch stuff in sort of lifestyle, things that he needs to change, or is it training stuff that he needs?
It was a little bit of everything. Yeah, I think making sure that he was getting here early enough, making sure that he was putting work in the gym, that he was preparing for training the right way, that he was paying attention to video, that he was applying the lessons that we wanted to learn in training every day, even then when he was playing with the 21s, typically when he played with the 21s he was performing well, he is a gamer, he loves the match. It was more about like helping him understand what the entire process of being a top professional is and making sure that he's committed to it all the way.
He’s a bag of tricks and it’s great that he got his goal but where would you like to see him improve?
He's still from a tactical perspective, against the ball, he can get connected with the team more and more and be really making sure that he's always in the right tactical position. When he is around the ball both against the ball, with the ball, he comes alive. He's one of our best players in terms of pressing and counter-pressing, winning balls.
Obviously on the ball right now he's very confident, he's very hard to take ball off of. He's very dynamic in those moments, and then I think he can be, as much as he scored two goals in the last two games, I think he can be more dynamic in transition and create even more chances for himself and others. So his potential is very high. I've talked to him about that from the very beginning and we just need to keep pushing him every day in terms of his mentality of being a pro and then the technical and tactical aspects of what we're trying to achieve.
Last week you said you tried a myriad of different things and you were undecided on what to keep and what not to. What have you kept this week that you think might work?
Well, it's been a little bit of a different week because we sent a lot of guys to play in the 21s in the Papa John's tournament, so those guys had the day off today. They'll come back in tomorrow. We've kind of, I think, tried to find ways to look at video and look at the opponent and to assess what was good and what was needed to be better against Liverpool, and then how it applies to what we want to achieve on Saturday.
So it hasn't been the same kind of week, but I'm always trying to, whether it's set-piece preparation or training methods or video presentations, come up with new ways of doing things because players get tired of routines. So do I, frankly.
So yeah, I think that part has been important, just not being so committed to the routine.
What about Bournemouth, they haven’t won in four, what value do you put in climbing above a side that’s just come up?
Bournemouth in general, I know that they haven't gotten a lot of results lately, but again, if you look at their metrics, they're actually improving as a team and I think they're more and more in matches. We believe that they are very lethal in the counter attacking situations and so they defend very hard, they defend sometimes a little bit deeper.
They sometimes like to press a little bit higher, but then get into a deeper block and they're very intensive in some of those defensive moments and they're very quick to get into the counter and it showed in the Tottenham match and a lot of their matches lately.
I think the manager has done a great job of taking them out of a moment early in the season where they looked like they were in trouble, to making them stronger and making them clear on exactly what their playing model is. Who they play and exactly how they play, they have some variability, they’ve played five in the back and defended five in the back, sometimes they build with five but defend more with four. So we've had to prepare for a few different things.
We know that in the end, we have to know them but we have to be ready to perform at our best, that's our big focus this week, knowing the opponent but then making sure that we're ready to be at our best.
Do you think Crysencio could become a regular goal scorer? How important is it that you find another player to score regularly for you?
Yeah, I think he's, he's a dangerous player. Is he going to score every game like he has the last two? No. But I think he can be a big part of unbalancing the opponent, by scoring goals by setting plays up by being good in transition and certainly being good in pressing. It's too bad that we can get him , Luis, Jack, Brendan, Rodri, Patrick, Willy, Joffy, we can then start to have a core of attacking players that can be really fun, if we can get all those guys in top form. That's what we’re trying to achieve.
Did Crysencio have a good birthday?
Yeah, he wanted to go home and I said no. We had we actually had a Halloween party as well. So we had families and all the players and first team staff after our training session.
Who had the best fancy dress?
All the guys were pretty amazing but probably Pascal Struijk. He was like a hippie.
We probably need to see a picture of that, I think. I know that obviously the focus is on Crysencio because he scored the winning goal at Anfield but Illan Meslier, his form in that game was incredible. Just how good is he at just 22?
Yeah, I mean, I think this has been a little bit of a crescendo for him, putting really strong performances together and now on a night it comes together in a big way for him and for us. Certainly he needs to use that to gain confidence and belief and know how good he can be.
And I think we all know his talent is high and we're just trying to help him mature and push himself daily to be the goalkeeper that we need and so it fits well with us because he's a good shot stopper and he's good in one v one situations and transition phases. I thought that he stood up big in those moments and obviously was a big key to escape.
Is he expecting to be in France’s World Cup squad?
I spoke to him about that about a month ago, and he seemed to think it was unrealistic. So I would just go off. But I think as a young goalkeeper he fits the criteria for that third goalkeeper position in a World Cup squad.
You’ve beaten Chelsea then Liverpool and you deserved something from Arsenal. Is there a way, apart from scoring the first goal, to nullify teams who are more inclined to set up in more of a deep block or to frustrate teams who might be more expected to beat on paper?
Yeah, I mean, you know there's a lot of little things in there. I think there's with the ball tactics and movements and ideas. We still are a team that if we gain an advantage in possession, we think we almost always have to go direct and that's not the idea. The idea is to now understand how to unbalance teams through a lot of tactical positioning and ball movement and then what are the last third kind of movements and connections we want to have.
Too often we have like a concept that we call: Option A, Option B, Option C. Option A being the most threatening most vertical action of the time or possibility and then Option C being sort of a third most vertical. Too often we are always in their mind is Option A and then it means that we're giving the ball away too often, we're losing too many advantages by thinking we can always make the most important play at that moment. It sometimes means that we're not able to set up our counter pressing and rest defence tactics in moments, which then means if we lose bad balls that the opponent has more space to get out on the counter.
For this game that will be that balance and understanding will be really important.
You're talking about how Willy and Cry have struck up a friendship. How important has the leadership council been in terms of this season?
It's a good question and those guys are incredibly vital to what we do here. But the issue has been that too many of them have been injured. So with Stuart and Adam out a long time, Luke was out in the beginning of the year, Patrick wasn't healthy. I mean, there were some games where we made Robin captain because none of the six leadership council players were healthy.
And so obviously getting Luke back has been really important, getting Coops healthy and going. It's been really important.
Rodri I think has been a pretty consistent guy with the team and so at one point we sat in this room and I said ‘listen, right now you guys have got to be strong and I need you. I need you to help me in this moment. And I need you to be clear that we need to push the group and make sure that there's no little things going on behind the scenes, that we stay on top of being positive and maintain the belief’. So those guys have been vital for that.
The number 10 shirt is an iconic shirt, in football. It means a lot to some players and the team's best player wore it last season. Can you talk us through the summer story of how somebody as inexperienced as Crysencio got it and what that means to him and the team status?
I'm not really sure how he got the number 10 to be honest. I just got a text from Victor. It wasn't even the start of the season, he said Cry will be number 10. I've had a lot of teams where there has been no number 10, I think it's an overplayed number and moniker in our sport.
I was 15 I always thought 15 was like the new 10.
How has it been this week? Have you felt a releasing of the pressure?
Yes and no. I mean, I think the urgency has been the same, the desire to find a way. I don't feel in any way that we're out of the phase where things weren't going our way and where we weren't getting results. The only way to ensure that we can really start to push the process and, even though we only have like two weeks left in this moment of the season, I think it's vital for us to get as many points out of the next two matches as possible so that we can go into the break feeling like we're coming back and we're going to be strong.
Are you saying to Summerville, ‘the shirt is yours now but you need to keep it’, or is he not at that point yet?
No, I think it's an opportunity for him to use the moment to strengthen his position within the group. That's what I've said to him.
I said in front of the group, I said, I'm watching him. I told him in front of the group that I'm watching him now and I'm going to stay on top of him even more. We have to make sure that there's no slipping back and that we're only going forward from here. He’s had a really good training
Saturday was probably Rasmus Kristensen’s best game, although he's had a couple recently. It was quite tough stuff for him here or a slow start. What do you think is made the difference?
Yeah, I think adapting to the league. I wouldn't say he had a slow start. I think up against Wolves he was pretty solid. In pre-season he was very good. Obviously the level of the league and then the fact that the full backs in this league sometimes have the hardest task, because the winger position in almost every team is usually equipped with the best players from teams within opponents.
But I think the key for him has been that he's been more aggressive against the ball and with that he's shown more competence and more self-belief and he's gone after it in a bigger way, physically, mentally, everything.
So with the way I like to coach and manage aggressiveness it's key, and we can't have passive players on the pitch. So I think he's gone through that with me already in Salzburg, and I think he just had to readapt to another level of what the quality is and then start to exhibit more and more. What I know he has.
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