Joey, I must imagine you are relatively with a point. What did you make of the performance?
In thought it was a good game against the in-form team in the division and they have been free-scoring and with the evolution this group has been on, it was probably as tough a test at the junction were at.
This was the true acid test for our progress in recent weeks and I thought the lads were outstanding. I’m really proud of a lot of performances out there and barring one moment in the first half, the lads were superb.
I’m a bit disappointed we haven’t converted one of our chances and caused a bit of an upset.
It is probably one where both managers will look back and think they had really good chances and both of your best chances fell to Jarell Quansah. It feels like it is going to happen sooner or later for him.
He’s getting closer. He’s in there and making himself a nuisance and getting free. He could have had four goals in his league career in a short amount of games.
His defensive performance and all-round performance would have warranted getting the winning goal in the match because you can see the quality operator he is.
The other side of that is the player we lost in Bobby Thomas. Bob played well today and he’s going to be a good player, but I don’t think he’s in the same category as Jarell and I think history will prove me correct on that.
He played his part along with the rest of the team in another clean sheet. That is two back-to-back and three in your past four. That is good progress.
I know Belly has been involved in the past two games and been excellent. The defence switched off for just a second from that free-kick and he was quick to put that out. There were a couple of other good stops.
Ellery’s had a lot of stick, undeservedly, because I make the decisions and I brought him in, but he was excellent in the Ipswich game and he hasn’t really done anything to come out of the team.
We wanted that competition for places and that kind of unsettled the environment. It annoyed a few of the James Belshaw Fan Club, of which I am a member of, fully paid-up.
We were looking for this response. Belly looks like he’s back in form because there is a really good keeper breathing down his neck.
Three clean sheets in four, two against free-scoring teams in Ipswich and Barnsley today. Steps in the right direction.
It would have been nice to win the game, but it was a good scrap, they are a really good side and I said to the boys before the game that it will be a good test for where we are at the moment.
At the other end of the pitch, he never really got a chance himself, but up against three centre-backs, I think John Marquis gave a really good example of what you can do as a lone striker against them.
For me, until he came off he was our man of the match. He got himself unfortunately booked, he’s tried to steal the ball off the guy and the ref gives him a yellow card and then had to compete physically with Land of the Giants up there.
It was a very unselfish team performance from John and he’s been that way in the past few weeks. He got his goal in the Burton game but he’s sacrificed what he wants to do for the good of the team and I’m so pleased with his performance today.
He was a big part of us having the option to get up the pitch. Could we create more? Absolutely, but they are a good side, as Derby found out last week and from our perspective, a point is another point in the right direction.
At times, there are improvements to be made, but you got the ball down and played some nice football, whereas in some of the recent home games you’ve looked nervous. That was as free-flowing at times as I’ve seen you for a bit.
Yeah, a bit of confidence from the last win and I hate saying this at the moment because they are great lads, but our pitch is crap at the minute – it’s terrible and the cold snap coming isn’t going to help.
That pitch suits them (Barnsley) more than it suits us because they want to go direct and long. To be fair to our lads today, we had a strategy of trying to take that away from them and playing more direct than we would normally want to and that is due to the opposition and their qualities.
They start a lot of attacks off you trying to play, but also the surface we’re playing on, and I know the lads are trying really hard, but it’s crap.
Joey, for a couple of transfer windows, you’ve been looking for a Connor Taylor replacement. It looks like you have got it in Jarell. He won so many defensive headers and they have probably got the same thing in common that they should score more goals with their size and the problems they cause with their aerial ability.
You know his quality. If you’re training with Mohamed Salah and Virgil Van Dijk, you’re in that elite environment, via osmosis you are going to get better.
They think a lot of him, Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp, and they tend to be a good judge of a player and a good judge of character, so we are really thankful that they have trusted us with his development.
Since he came in, his debut was the Morecambe game and even in that game he showed really flashes of his quality and I think everybody who has watched five or six games of Jarell have realised what a good player he is.
I do think having Lewis Gibson on the inside of you and James Belshaw behind you is a nice lot of communication and experience to have around you, but regardless of who he has played with or behind, his performances have been such a high level.
He is definitely a top player in the making and we are really pleased to have him at the football club.
And Lamare Bogarde looks like a classic Dutch midfielder, effortless.
He’s quality, isn’t he? You can see his composure and he is young in terms of years on the clock, but he is very mature and he passes the ball correctly.
The one thing that is labelled at this technical, certainly foreign player is they don’t dig in and have a bite. For me, if you watch Lamare he does a bit of everything.
He is another young player, but another with enormous potential.
He played that Paul Coutts role. What is the situation with Paul?
He just jammed his knee yesterday in training and irritated the fat pad. I think he’s going to be fine, but it has swollen up is very sore and he is nowhere near capable of giving a performance of Couttsy’s quality.
He tried it this morning and he was like ‘No, I’m going to struggle here’, so hopefully we can get him fit for Forest Green next week.
I don’t envisage a problem unless there is an adverse reaction to something in the week.
A blow for Couttsy, but it was an opportunity and I thought Grant Ward came in and played a really important role in the team.
Do you think you have weathered a storm now because it was all pretty gloomy for a few weeks when you weren’t yourselves?
We were s****, you mean?
Yeah…
I knew it was coming. I knew at 6pm on deadline day that this is what we were going into and it’s not nice walking knowing you’re going to be punched multiple times in the face.
How hard that was and the frequency of it was my only concern, but I knew they were coming. You have to get your coaching hat on and get ready to improve the young lads coming in and make them better.
We’ve got a lot of games left on the board and we’ve still not reached the points target we’re looking for. We’ve got a really tough game against a team that is fighting for its existence in the division next week.
But in recent weeks I think we have shown a blueprint for what we’re going to have to do between now and the end of the season to give ourselves the best chance of success.
We want to be open and free-flowing, but we’ve had to show that ability to dig in, defend properly and be difficult to break down. The next phase for me is having that sting in the tail and being able to take the game away from teams.
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