Well, Joey, let’s start with squad news and injuries. How are you looking for this weekend?
Everybody has trained, even Lewis Gibson was out there on the grass, and Harry Anderson. We’re hoping to have a full complement.
We’ve just got to get through tomorrow’s (Friday's) training and it gives us a decent body of players to select from.
You still have midweek games, you have one next weeks, but it starts to slow down a little bit from what it has been. Does that give you benefits or would you rather have helter-skelter?
It is what it is. For us, to coach players and work on stuff, especially when you’ve got a young, you would prefer Saturday to Saturday. It allows you to get a lot more detail into the lads.
But in this league and if you progress in the cup competitions, the games come at you thick and fast.
The past two years and COVID have cemented the need to be adaptable and I think when I look back in February, it will be two years (since joining the club) and it’s felt like Saturday, Tuesday right out of the gate.
Last season was hectic, so it will be strange when it goes a bit more spaced out, but you also have to make headway when the games come thick and fast.
Great to have a fully fit squad and you are looking to do a bit of tweaking this month in the transfer market. Is anything moving closer, either in or out?
No. I think we will possibly lose two, three or four and we will possibly bring in two, three or four. It’s small numbers.
Historically, I’ve had 12s and 15s and lots of players in and out and that can disrupt a club a little bit, but when you are changing one culture into a new group and a new culture, you had to be a bit more root and branch.
Now it’s about fine-tuning and finding the right balance. Obviously, the market will present some things differently, but in our minds it is small tweaking of the group to make sure we continue our forward momentum.
Does the fact you are coming up to two years and you have a body of work show to agents and prospective signings and clubs, does that make it easier to bring players in or is it always as difficult as ever?
I think now over my tenure at Bristol Rovers and Fleetwood, people can see we’ve done well with young talent and given opportunities and also developing them for furthering on in their career when a lot of our boys have gone on to have careers further up the pyramid. In essence, that is the job.
Now everyone is aware of the athletic and attacking side of the game and Collins and Coburn and the goals they are scoring and the work they are doing. Off the backside of that, we had young Elliot (Anderson) last year and you certainly get access to different players than you did when there was more of a grey cloud and doom and gloom around the club.
Naturally, if you have elite-level potential in some of your players, you would want them to go to a very stable club that is competing but also you know the training level and the fitness level and behavioural levels are not going to drop.
Maybe in the past, Rovers have been guilty of getting second or third-rate youngsters because clubs are keen to get them out on loan and maybe they have missed out on some of the best youngsters.
Hopefully, the work we do with them and will continue to do with them will give us more opportunities to get our hands on more of the younger talent because it needs a pathway. If they can’t get it at their parent club, the loan market is a great way to do it.
Elliot is a prime example of that and I talk about Harry Souttar etc. We’ve done 18-month loans, 12-month loans, six-month loans in Elliot’s case, and they have gone back and instantly started to affect the first-team picture.
Hopefully, going forward we will get some opportunities because I think over the course of my managerial career now, I think I’ve proven I’ve got a good track record of developing some younger talent.
The club are in a good position to give a good shot at the play-offs and who knows what from there. You have mentioned the front side of the team is going well and you know you are conceding too many goals. It’s not just a personnel issue, is it? Is there a balance to find where you are scoring enough but tightening it up at the back?
I always think it is easier to keep goals out than it is to score. We are flowing and scoring goals and we can work as a team to get much better in those areas.
I do believe you attack as a group and you defend as a group. For us, we’ve got so much improvement (to do).
We came up and everyone was expecting us to just stay up this year and consolidate the group, bit because we’re a firm of greedy so-and-sos, we are wanting to get promoted and kick on again.
My belief is extraordinary people do extraordinary things. Last year, what we did was ordinary but in extraordinary circumstances with the finale of the season. But it was just ordinary, Bristol Rovers finishing third, if you had looked before the season you would say that is par for the course.
To go and get promoted again, it is my belief that would set this set these lads apart. If we do that, I think we go down in the annals of the club’s history. Some will because of the 7-0 and the 4-3 and the way they did it, but if we back that up with another promotion to the Championship, I think this group will be remembered forever or certainly be the benchmark for what comes afterwards. That has to be the aim.
I spoke to the lads this morning, Paul Coutts, Scotty Sinclair, Glenn Whelan, Sam Finley, John Marquis, James Belshaw. They haven’t got forever left, this might be their last 18 months of trying to get in the Championship.
Aaron Collins, Antony Evans, Josh Coburn, Luca Hoole, obviously, have got a bit longer to get there, but I said to Azza today at 25, you’ve only got 10 years left, if you’re lucky. It comes and goes relatively quickly and I genuinely feel we are dark horses.
Look, we are the outsiders in the pack and it’s not expected that we get in there, except in this building and in our stadium. The fans are coming in their numbers, doing their bit.
We’ve got to tweak the group to get a bit more improvement because we feel there is lots of improvement we can get, and who knows what the second half of the season brings.
We are not just staving off relegation. We are going to try to push as hard as we can and see how far we can get up Everest. For some of our boys, this is Everest.
You are quite happy and open to talk about the goal-setting and what you want to achieve whereas some managers will try to play everything down. Do you have to have the right personalities in the dressing room to deal with that?
If you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you will invariably be right. Steve Black, that is what he always told us.
Why not us? Why can’t we go and win 22 games out of 22? Why not? Because every game is winnable. We have played everybody and we know we can beat anybody.
The next one is the most important and Cambridge will be a really tough game. They have lost 5-0 (to Sheffield Wednesday). They will be better than what they were because their pitch is narrower than Hillsborough and they will be a wounded animal, so they will be dangerous.
But also, we can beat them. We play Accrington after that with a cup game sandwiched between and that’s the way I see it. Every opponent is susceptible to being beaten.
The next one is the most important one and if we didn’t believe last season we could have a great second half of the season, we wouldn’t have got it done. It went to the last day and 7-0 and nobody thought we were going to get that done, except us.
Because we thought we could get it done, we got it done.
Joey, the teams have gone in very different directions since the last meeting. At that time, you were at quite a low ebb whereas they started very well, but is this a chance for you to cement that you are clear of them?
I don’t think that, the league is still tightly packed. The last game, we were six points outside the play-offs and I think we were nine points from the bottom four, so the league is compact.
The top three look like they are going to fight it out for two places. Plymouth have signed three players already and spent £500,000 on Callum Wright. Naturally, they are going, ‘This is our chance to have a go’.
I am hearing Ipswich are going to pay £3.5million for Nathan Broadhead. That’s what we’re competing with. They’re going to buy a player off Wigan for £1.5m down and then £2m.
They are the top two teams and Sheffield Wednesday are a monster in the division, so I think it is those three fighting it out for the top two, who is going to be champion and who is going to finish second.
What will happen then is someone will hit the bar and be in the play-offs. As we know, history tells us the team that just misses out sometimes doesn’t get the job done. It is not the team that finishes third because they put so much into getting second or first.
I remember when we won the league at Burnley, Brighton and Middlesbrough fought it out for second and Middlesbrough got beaten in the play-offs by Norwich. They didn’t get the job done and the three of us pulled away from the rest of the group.
After the top three – I think the top three places are cemented unless something calamitous happens – there are three places for play-offs and there are nine or 10 teams looking at it.
Charlton just put a new manager in and beat Portsmouth and beat Brighton in the cup. All of sudden, they will be thinking they can get on a run here. They are a big club.
I genuinely believe there are probably 12 teams that think they can get in the three places, so it is wide open.
If you don’t get it right, you could get sucked in to a dogfight because you need 50-52 points to be sure of playing in League One next season and that for us is the benchmark. We are 16-18 points off that.
We can go and take care of that and the quicker we’ve got those 18 points on the board, let’s see where we are and how many games we’ve got left. If we get them and it’s March then we’ve got a great chance. If we haven’t got them and it’s approaching May, then you’re looking over your shoulder a little bit.
Three points are available on Saturday at Cambridge. Let’s do everything we can to get them and see where it takes us.
What were the main observations when you went up to watch their game at Hillsborough? Was it just a day when superior quality told?
They’ve (Sheffield Wednesday) got quality. Josh Windass is a quality player at the level, (Callum) Patterson and (Michael) Smith on the frontline, they are a handful.
Cambridge went with a gameplan and it didn’t quite work. They got overloaded quite a bit. I think Sheff Wed changed tactically slightly to play with a back three. It caused Cambridge countless problems.
If they tried to press, it went over the top and the defence looked very porous, but George Williams who was here will come back in at right-back (after illness).
They conceded early from a straight ball through the middle of the pitch. Windass shoves the lad off and scores, so they are on the back foot. They then try to come out and make a game of it and they get picked off with a long, straight ball.
Then it was about keeping the score down. They were lucky it wasn’t eight, nine or ten-nil because it could have been of it wasn’t for some good goalkeeping and good defending.
Timing is everything and you play them after they get a hiding. Are you expecting a completely different team?
I don’t care. We’ve got to play them twice over the course of the season and that is for them to sort out. We’ve got to focus on us.
Clearly, they will want to respond and they are a wounded animal, but also when you’ve been put on you’re backside five times and they’ve had a bit of a spanking, the last thing you want to do is play against a team that is as free-scoring as us because if we put it on them early doors and we get ourselves in the ascendency, you’re then at a point.
I think they have been a really good team. They have had promotion from League Two and Mark has done incredibly well last year solidifying them. They have got a bit of a scrap on their hands this year and they will be trying to get 50-52 points as quickly as they can.
They will see us at their place as an opportunity to kickstart their season.
You said Lewis Gibson needed a scan. What were the takeaways from that? Is he in the clear?
He just felt his thigh. We played three games in a week and he hasn’t played three games in 15 years. It’s been a while since he’s done that.
It was a slog with fast games coming out you and the short turnaround. It was three games in eight days and like six games in a short space of time.
It was condensed into that period, plus the leg-sapper of our pitch. Our pitch was like a quagmire for the two games and it was very heavy on the legs. You’re not getting the energy back out of the pitch that you would normally get and that starts to take its toll.
I think he was just fatigued, he felt it and did exactly the right thing in terms of the last thing we want is him getting an injury. He has come off before he has made it worse, because he’s felt it, and luckily it’s low grade or just a bit of fatigue.
So your prayers are answered because he is such an important player for us. Let’s see how he responds to training, he has had a couple of days of treatment and off his feet as the rest of the lads have to fill their energy tanks.
The lads have all trained and we will see how they are in the morning, but we expect a clean bill of health for the game, bar Jordan Rossiter.
How is Jordan getting on?
He’s two or three weeks. He’s progressing well and he’s back with the physios and strengthening up.
He’s not quite back out on the grass with us but people forget how important a player he is for us. He’s huge, he’s become a massive part of why we are successful and to lose him and lose Couttsy, we haven’t had that nucleus together for a while.
We are short of bodies in the middle and the lads are scrapping away, but the sooner we get Jordy back in the team, the better because he is a phenomenal player.
Is Scott still under contract for this game and is he any closer to putting pen to paper?
Yeah, we are moving it on. I’ve spoken to Scotty and it’s moving.
It doesn’t expire until January 23. It’s progressing nicely and I don’t think we are a million miles away, but you are until it’s signed.
He’s had a few sniffs from people but from speaking to his agent and speaking to him directly, I think he’s really settled and he understands what we’re trying to do here.
I think he knows he can be a really big player for us and I think he is enjoying his football.
Obviously, there was an error that sparked a difficult second-half on Sunday, but the bigger thing for you, I guess, was the reaction and the lack of ball retention that followed. You went very direct and I don’t think that is how you guys want to do things.
Little bit of nerves, little bit of anxiety based on - we had a poor result at Wycombe, we had a poor result against Exeter after being in a commanding position, we were cruising and thinking, 'can we keep a clean sheet?' because we're desperate for them. Can we get a third or fourth to up our goal difference? Because Cheltenham were a passive opponent in the first period. It had a bit of a sting in the tail but we were in control.
Then we give them a leg up with an individual error and then I thought the lads response to it was good in a different way. Yeah, it wasn't great in terms of we didn't get the ball back down and start playing but you have to give Cheltenham some credit; they responded and they've been on a decent run of late. But we showed a different side, we showed we can bite down on our gumshield, we can get the job done.
And, for me, that's a massive sign and a tick in the column towards the resilience we're going to need to show because you're not going to have the ball all the time, you're not going to have it all your own way.
And, as the level goes, you get better and better, the opponent gets better and better and there are going to be times where... we watched Spurs vs Crystal Palace and Harry Kane, Son, for the first half they couldn't get out of the low block, the were camped in, Palace were better the side. But, as I said to my lads this morning, when you've got Harry Kane and Son, you've got a chance of scoring a goal. And if you can keep your defence together and compact, it only takes one chance for them boys and Spurs won the game in the end.
If you'd have watched the game in the first half and said, 'this team will go on and win 4-0', they'd have carted you off to the lunatics asylum. They had two shots, none on target and very rarely ventured in Palace's half. But as Antonio Conte and those boys have worked out, the Premier League is, in effect, a counter-attacking league and unless you've got Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City's budget, you're better off sitting on the counter because teams will over-commit.
Especially now, where defenders have to pass, what the full-backs do - oh, they've got to get forward and put crosses in - not when I was a kid, full-backs, centre-halfs and keepers had to defend. Now, they go - can you play? Can you break lines? You see full-backs like wingers; the game has turned itself around, but the core principles remain the same. For us, it's getting back to basics and if we can do that I think we can have a really exciting second half of the season.
Some Gasheads will see that Elliot Anderson has been linked with leaving Newcastle on loan this month and will wonder whether it is possible he returns. Is it possible?
We’re in constant dialogue with a lot of people in the North East. For us, he’s on the bench for Newcastle at the moment and he looks like he’s very close to their first team. He looks like he’s one injury away from getting a little run.
They are in a couple of cup competitions and you would expect him to get some minutes. I want to see El in the black and white stripes and showing what he did at the Mem last year at St James’ Park and in the Premier League because you want to see the lads do as well as they can.
In the midst of that, if we could get him back on loan, then we would be silly not to do that but I imagine there would be people further up the food chain who are aware of him.
The beauty of it for us might be the patience that could be in there because I imagine Championship clubs going for a loan will want to do it relatively handily in the window.
Who knows? It would be a miracle, it would be unbelievable, but it isn’t impossible.
I think we could make a great case to say ‘Look what player we gave you back after the loan’. The Gasheads love him and it’s the next step up for him.
I think there are lots of ticks that we could maybe make a case for, but ultimately that will come down to Elliot, Eddie Howe and the powers that be at Newcastle to see us as the right place to put him as opposed to maybe somebody fighting for their lives in the Championship.
Trevor Clarke is heading back to Ireland. Can you tell us about that?
He’s grafted away and it never worked out for him. He never got a run and, if I’m honest, he never got any luck with his injuries.
There is definitely something in there. He had something, Trev. His straight-line speed is as good as anyone’s and he’s aggressive.
I just think he needs a regular rhythm of games. He needs to go and play 40-45 games and just get that feel of playing week in, week out.
He’s a top lad, Trev, and he is well thought of in the group, but I think it is the right time for him to go and try his luck somewhere else.
The situation with him in the summer was quite high profile, but it did seem like he buckled down and played some important games for the team...
I’m quite rare in this space that I will only ever tell you the truth. I have got no interest in lying to you as it’s only football, it isn’t life or death. People think it is more important, but just tell them the truth and put the cards on the table.
Can we get better? Trev needed to get better and there were a few of them in the summer. If we’re being honest, if they had gone when I said they should go then they would be playing now and they would be on with their careers.
As it is, they have wasted a bit of time. Alright, some of them have had minutes and moments, but on the whole they are faced with the same predicament now the window is open in January.
Sometimes, you’ve got to cut your little finger off to stop losing an arm or a hand. It hurts you in the short term, but long term you’ll be better off for it.
You have got to play football as a footballer. I shouldn’t need to tell anyone that but that is the only way you improve. Yeah, training is great if you’re a young player dipping in and out of it while your body catches up, but if you’re 24, 25 or 26, you have to be playing.
I can’t understand it. I’ve never been a substitute anywhere I’ve been at. I’ve pretty much started ever since I got in the first team. I couldn’t imagine being sub, but if I was playing for Man City it would be alright because of the rotation or the load of games. I get it.
But if you’re playing for Bristol Rovers or sides down here, you should be capable of cracking on and getting after it.
Those lads need to kickstart their own careers, mainly for their own sanity. For me, I’ve got bodies to look at around here and it’s great, I’ve got insulation if people get injured, but that is killing the lads’ career.
It is selfish of me as a coach to do that and if you have to be quite blunt and brutal with them, so be it. In the long-term when they are 35 or 45, they will thank you for it.
It’s like when you don’t want to leave your mum and dad’s house because you get your dinner cooked and all the bills are paid for you. Sometimes, you need to be booted out of the nest.
It’s comfortable and it’s great and people don’t want to leave comfort. This is a good training ground, we get great food, we travel well, there’s a great spirit, we train properly and we get good information. You can go into Bristol and have a lovely city there and the Gasheads love you when you play.
Why would you want to go to Yeovil or Scunthorpe? I wouldn’t, I’d stay in Bristol.
So you can get the lads saying ‘No, I’ll wait’. It’s Yo Sushi and you are waiting for a better plate to come around. Eventually, all the plates are gone, so at some point you’ve got to take a plate off the thing. Whether you want it or not, you’ve got to eat, and you have got to play as a player.
Have you had bids for any other players?
No bids. Are you thinking Collins is going to go? He doesn’t want to go.
I suppose it would be a Financial Fair Play nightmare for Championship clubs in January.
For what they would have to pay for him, it would probably not balance the books for them.
There are a lot of teams watching him, as you can imagine, as you’ve got to be. If you are a scout, how are you not watching him?
He’s got top goals and top assists and it’s quite rare for that. Usually you would have somebody on top of the goals charts and somebody top of the assists charts. It’s very rare in any league if you get a player who is doing it in both.
Straight away, you know this person is doing something different, but on the flipside I am onto him all the time saying ‘How many could that be?’ Those numbers, hypothetically could be doubled. Maybe not the assists because he’s been good at that, but at least doubling the goals scored.
I’m saying to him ‘All that is in the summer is zeroes on the contract you’re go8ing to get because you want five or six teams after you because that drives up your wages.
The transfer fee, the benchmark for us will be a negotiation for the CEO and the owner. I don’t get that, it goes back in the club and pays for whatever we do in the future and whatever the bosses put in.
I am more concerned about the contract he is going to get because if you’ve only got one team in for you, trust me, that will not secure your future for the rest of your life. If there are four or five in, I’ve been in that situation and trust me, it’s a phenomenal position to be in when you’re negotiating. If you’ve got 10 in, it’s an even better position to be in.
He’s going to have a lot of suitors because I believe he is about to become in my opinion a full international in the next few years. He’s smashed it in League One and he will continue to do so between now and the end of the season.
He will do exactly the same in the Championship, trust me, with his athleticism, and who knows beyond that. He might get a chance to miss the Champ out because a team that goes up or a Brentford go ‘We’ll take a chance on him, his numbers fit for our model’. Who knows?
I’ve seen lots of people make that jump and it wouldn’t surprise me with Aaron’s attributes to see him do it.
The good thing is the club will get a nice transfer fee, certainly more than what we paid for him, which was absolutely fudge all.
With Trevor Clarke leaving, you’ve got Lewis Gordon at left-back. Is that now a priority for you in January?
Yeah, we’ve got a few bits to do. I think we need four players. Where we have identified them, you can see some of those things. I’m not going to tell you because it’s your job to work it out and not my job to tell you.
There mightn’t be quality additions there, we might have to make a contingency plan, but at this moment in time we are looking to strengthen our group in terms of the depth of the group to 18-20 players that can compete and then we’ll see where it takes us.
Harry Anderson and Josh Grant are the notable players whose deals expire at the end of the season. Is there any plan for them to sign on?
We’re speaking to both of them. Josh, obviously, is coming back from a long-term injury and I think it is certainly something we will try to do to get him back in our team because you know how highly regarded he is by me.
Harry, we are back and forth. We have already begun conversations with him and his agent and Scotty is the same.
The lads who are on loan, we’ve just got to make sure we solidify them in the January window and we don’t lose any of them because they have been key players for us and we’ve got to get the jigsaw pieces added correctly.
We only want quality at this moment, not quantity.
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