Having just finished the crazy schedule of Saturday, Tuesdays and the Derby result wasn’t what you wanted, but how happy were you with the last month or so? From the sidelines, it looks like the team has taken a decent step forwards.
The injuries, Ryan Loft and Lewis Gibson being out on Saturday, were a huge factor. We were already slightly at a disadvantage because they played on Tuesday night and were at home and we played away Wednesday night and had to play away again on the Saturday. And then we gave them a leg up by giving them a goal early.
We felt if we kept that game a little bit tighter, then the Derby fans may have had a different level of energy, certainly after drawing with Exeter. We just never got the opportunity to get that into play. It’s part of our learning. We’re disappointed we didn’t give a better account of ourselves.
The 10-game block we’re in, there are three games to go. Fleetwood and Peterborough are at home and then Friday night against Bolton. In the midst of that, we’ve got a cup tie on Saturday and we’ll have another cup tie when the draw is made for the Papa John’s, and hopefully we have another cup tie because that will mean we have progressed on Saturday.
At that point, that will be the secondary block of 10 games. The first block, we were two draws, two wins and six defeats. In the seven games so far, we’re three wins, three draws and one defeat, so we’re already better than we were in the first 10 games and we’ve still got three games to see how much better.
At that point, we’ll settle down and we’ll try to improve again over the next 10 games. What the last few games have shown me is if we have got everybody fit and we’ve got our strongest team out there, then we are more than a match for anybody in the division and I think we should take great confidence from that.
We’ve been to some tough places and given a good account of ourselves.
It’s important for you but particularly for the players. You’ve got some experienced players who probably don’t need to worry about that, but a lot of youngsters who are probably still feeling their way in the game and figuring out where they sit in the pecking order and that has got to help them.
Yeah, and nothing beats the experience of going to big stadiums. We’re saying to our lads about using their voices as part of their toolkit more because when we’re shouting from the sideline, if there is 28,000 in, you can’t hear the coach.
That is where your communication and patterns of play and the work you do in the training ground kicks in and the bigger the stakes get, the better we have to be at that.
On Saturday against Derby, we don’t feel like we’ve done ourselves justice and that is disappointing because we had a fantastic away following and there was a great crowd there. As good as we were in the Plymouth and Sheffield Wednesday games, we were disappointed by our level of performance.
But this Saturday we get a chance in our stadium with three games coming now, one in the cup and two in the league, to get that feel-good factor and winning feeling back again and finish off these cup competitions and the secondary 10-game block with, hopefully, more points.
If we can win three, it would be fantastic, but if we can remain unbeaten in the next three, then that is a good block of work for us and allows us to build into the second half of the season, into the January and February period which are always crucial for teams jockeying for position.
We know the league is always going to be the priority for you, but where does the FA Cup sit for you? Last season, you used it as a kickstart to the campaign.
I spoke to the lads this morning. The early part of the Papa John's, you can experiment. You want to progress but you're managing the load of the players, and fitness and that is the remit.
Now we're into the knockout stages, we don't want to lose another game from here, whether that's Papa John's FA Cup or league.
The reality of it is now, we want to win every game and we'll be putting our strongest team out to progress in the cup.
From here on in, it's knockout football in the FA Cup and the Papa John’s. If you're four or five games from Wembley, we might as well attack it with the belief we can take the Gasheads to the arch and take them on another journey and add to the great memories we’ve got at the club.
The Papa John's we'll be attacking and the FA Cup is a magical competition. For the lads, it's almost a free one for them. The priority has to be the league but go and give our fanbase a bit of excitement, get to the third round and who knows who you'll pull out.
I remember Chesterfield, a League One team, getting into the semi-final, where Dychey (Sean Dyche) scored - so how can I not be reminded about it. There are loads of stories out there and for clubs and fanbases like ours, it'd be great to take them on a day out to Anfield or Old Trafford. I think it's long overdue.
Last year, the FA Cup was good for us. It gave us confidence and we grew out of the competition and hopefully, on Saturday, we can start on the right foot by progressing at home.
James Connolly is the latest of the players to come back and make a big impact and all of a sudden the selection decisions when you sit down on a Saturday must be getting tougher and tougher?
They were until last week where we copped another few with Ryan Loft, Lewis Gibson and Harry Anderson. It was looking like I'd have some real dilemmas in terms of getting a team together and to pick a bench. Then we get a couple of injuries and that settles that down a bit.
It's what you want as a manager, you want those difficult decisions. We've got a good squad here. January is just around the corner and we may have to tweak it a little bit. I had a teamsheet, I found at home from 13 months ago - it had a 3-4-3 on it with two players in each position and you wouldn't believe how far we've come in that short space of time.
The two strikers in it were Brett Pitman and Harvey Saunders, Zain Walker, Cammy Hargreaves, Niall Lovelock, Cian Harries, Ryan Jones, and you've got to be mindful of how fast the group has moved.
We've gone from, could we get relegated? To now, we're not far away from mixing it with the big boys. We're just got to keep trying to improve, drive the standards and winning in the FA Cup helps that.
We've not won in the three games so we need to get back to winning ways or that pressure.The most disappointing thing is we had a really tough block in October, we made great progress into it but couldn't quite finish it off by beating one of the top sides.
We're keen to get back in our stadium now, and it's a lighter schedule but we want to make November better than what October was and progress in that regard is the name of the game.
Just finally from me, you mentioned the players who missed out last week. Are any of those in contention this time around?
I don’t think so, and we’ve got Josh Coburn cup-tied. Bobby and Lewis Gibson can play from their parent clubs, but Middlesbrough have decided to hold on to Josh, which is fair enough. It’s not an injury, but we’ll be one option lighter, but he should be even fitter for the league game the following Saturday.
John Marquis is back on the grass, albeit it is going to come way too soon for him. Couttsy’s going to be a few weeks, he’s back in Aberdeen seeing his family.
Josh Grant is back in the building and you’ll see him hobbling around.
Lewis Gibson and Lofty are going to be touch and go for the Fleetwood game. The Peterborough game will probably be right for them, but if they progress quicker they might have a sniff of the Fleetwood game.
Harry Anderson I think is going to miss that Fleetwood game and at least be another couple of weeks, but we’ve got enough bodies in there and we’re going to have a strong team out on Saturday, a team that should be capable of progressing.
Joey, Trevor Clarke was another one on that list. Is he OK after coming off at Derby?
He’s alright, he jarred his back. David McGoldrick not only got a hat-trick but absolutely flattened Trev in the corner. I could see he it caused a bit of discomfort and he was struggling to catch his breath, Trev, so it winded him and he had a bit of a back spasm off the back of it.
He’s seen the doc and he’s alright now thankfully. He’ll be fit and ready to go, he’s trained well this week.
What is the situation with Paul Coutts’ ankle? What is the scale of the damage?
It’s a tendon on the outside and he’s really irritated that with the way he landed. He’s in a protective boot and we’re waiting for it to heal.
It was four weeks, we thought, but it’s turned out to be six to eight.
It could be the new year before we see him in a league game, then?
Possibly, so he’s going to be a bit longer. Anderson is weeks, Gibson is hopefully the next league game, fingers crossed, and Loft will be weeks.
The only long-termers are Josh Grant and Paul Coutts.
So John Marquis is fine now?
He’s back running, but he hasn’t joined back in with the group. He’s out on the grass, so he’s 10 days to two weeks away from featuring, so he might have a sniff of the bench for Fleetwood or Peterborough.
The Coburn decision from Middlesbrough, or has that come in this week?
No, no. We were the same when I was at Fleetwood. If we loaned players out, we wouldn’t let them play in FA Cup just in case we need them.
Some lads, you know you’re not going to use, but Michael Carrick has gone in as manager and there is no benefit for them (in Coburn playing for Rovers in the FA Cup).
Everton and Burnley for Lewis Gibson and Bobby Thomas have said the lads could do with the experience of playing and Middlesbrough don’t want Josh cup-tied because if they recall him in January and Middlesbrough are in the third or fourth round, they could obviously utilise him.
Disappointing as Josh wants to play football and he’s been really good this week, but I also totally understand it.
Is this a chance for us to see the first start for Scott Sinclair? Is he at that level now in his fitness? It seems like a natural game for him to come in.
We’ve had to manage him in because he came in behind the eight-ball in terms of he was training with Chelsea’s under-23s. In the earlier part of the season, you could use the cup competition to get him those minutes, but his little cameos have tuned him up.
His cameo on Saturday showed, whether we had a league game this Saturday or a cup game, he is ready to play from the off. On Saturday, he’s definitely in consideration to start the game.
James Connolly must be in the same situation. At Derby, he was a real steadying presence when he came on. It looked like he hadn’t been away and after such a significant injury, that must be really encouraging.
Yeah, and just getting them minutes in the clock. He's been back training with the group for about 10 days but he was so far behind, just taking that bit of extra time with him – and I think not starting last Saturday צ will give us a lot more benefit moving forward.
Saturday's game, Beefy is in need of minutes and that's a perfect game.
We were speaking to Lewis Gordon before this and I remember at Derby you said ‘We have to learn lessons from this’. I asked him what lessons you had been giving and it was ‘We can’t be naïve’. What does that mean in the context of playing out from the back? Does it mean sometimes you have got to put it in the stands?
We want to play, we want to pass the ball, we don't want to be kicking the ball away but also we didn't get out of our half before Derby scored. You go to a difficult place and you can't exit your half, that means bad things are going to happen.
As I said, we're all for playing but the early part of a game is a bit of an arm wrestle to see where a game is going to take place. I felt our naivity was not recognising that Derby paid us the ultimate compliment by sitting off us and coming to press us. We were guilty too many times of overplaying in the bottom part of our team.
That's where we're missing Lofty because he gives you that physical presence to get you up the pitch. Josh and Azza are really good players but without the foil of a John Marquis or a Ryan Loft, they're not as effective as they can be. They'll have a go but their strengths don't lie in being that targetman.
We lacked that. We lacked Lewis Gibson's composure - he finds that nice balance between turning and playing and the lads on the backline didn't have Loft to hit. And early on in the game we needed to be playing in their half. And we didn't, bad stuff happened and we found ourselves giving early goals away.
From last season, you know a team that is 21st or 22nd in League Two early in the season can turn out to be quite a good team. You won’t will be underestimating Rochdale and the threat they will pose, and those two games last season were like a pair of cup ties.
Yeah, we know how tricky League Two can be. We were really in a similar position to them this time last year.
We will pay them the absolute respect that the cup is due. We want to progress and we’re going to have to be at our best.
Rochdale have had a tricky start but sometimes the distraction of playing in the cup can liberate people a bit. They’ve got nothing to lose, they can come to the Mem, it’s a distraction from the league campaign and they have still got some very competent players.
Our lads will be well aware of that due to the penultimate game of last season and also some of the stuff they were doing, trying to derail our promotion, so we are desperate to beat them and dump them out of the cup.
We don’t think we’re in the hat already just because we’re playing a team below us in the pyramid. We know it will be a tough fixture and we want to get back to winning ways and progress in the cup.
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