Joey, can we start with team news. How is the squad looking ahead of Saturday’s game?
Everyone’s fine. The lads have come through the game on Tuesday night really well. There were a couple of knocks and niggles that we’ll assess in the morning.
The lads are in good fettle. We’ll assess a few in the morning and we’ve got to wrap a couple in cotton wool today because of the amount of games and a few bumps and bruises, but hopefully, we’ll have a big squad to choose from for Saturday’s game.
Elliot Anderson OK? Is he one of those knocks and niggles for Saturday?
Yeah, he’s a little sore. I think he coughed one in and around the calf and ankle area, so a nice welcome to the men’s game for him. He’ll put that down to experience and learn the lessons.
I’m saying ‘Don’t let them get close enough to kick you’. The skill in this game is to hit and not get hit, so that’s what he’s here to learn.
He was a bit sore yesterday and this morning, but he’s in good form and good fettle.
And Nick Anderton, was it illness on Tuesday? I assume he’s going to be alright for the weekend?
Yeah, he’s back amongst the group today. He just had 24-48 hours of a bit of illness, so he missed the game, but he’s back training with the group this morning, albeit he still looks slightly different in terms of his skin tone because of just what he’s been through.
But he’s fine. He ran about OK today and we’ve just got to get fluids and food in and regenerate that feel good he’s had before that bout of illness.
And while we’re on team news, how close are Alfie Kilgour and Jon Nolan to a first-team return?
Alf trained with the sports science and physios today on his own, so he’s making good progress. Saturday’s game is possibly a little bit too soon for him.
Jon joined in fully with the group and, all being well, he’ll start to move towards matchday squads now and come back into availability.
Really good signs, happy for him. He’s worked hard in the past couple of weeks and he’s chomping at the bit.
A lot of Gasheads are looking forward to Saturday’s game. Areas of the ground are starting to sell out so you’ll have a big crowd. What sort of challenge do you face in Exeter on their good recent run and your good recent run? What kind of game will it be on Saturday?
A really tough game. Again, it’s one of the form sides in the division and we’ve had a few of them in recent weeks, but also we’ve become one of those form sides as well.
We had a tricky game down there in the early part of the season where they were 4-0 up after 20 or 30 minutes and it wasn’t a great afternoon for us. We showed some fighting qualities in the second period to kind of give ourselves something to take out of the game, albeit we got no points.
We went there in the cup with a really young group and we were 5-0 down at half time. We managed to make a bit of a contest of the second half, but again the damage was done.
We know just what a good side Exeter are. Matt’s got the lads organised there.
There was a bit of needle in the previous games, so I’m expecting that to continue in a healthy and positive way.
They’re a good side on a good run and we’ve got ground to make up and our scalp to get back off them from the earlier part of the season.
Really looking forward to Saturday’s game. I think they’ve had a bit of a break coming in, they had no game last week and they’ve had no midweek game, so they’ll have had the benefit of a few days off, but when you’re winning games and you’re winning in the manner we are by keeping clean sheets and a level of performances across the board that we are, you can’t wait for your next opportunity.
The fact we’re playing a form side, the fact we’re playing a side we’ve got previous with, the fact we’re playing a side in the local proximity to us, they’re all factors and they all add a little spice to the game.
But also, it’s just another team in our way and I can’t wait to get in the stadium on Saturday, I can’t wait for our fans, I can’t wait to see how many come out, what numbers they are, what kind of noise they make.
This group of players are unveiling levels of performance and quality moments at every junction, so long may that continue.
You’re always a very positive person. Are you able to get strength even from the low moments? You referenced that game at Exeter where you were four down after 25 minutes, can you turn negatives into positives?
Yeah, I’ve spent my life doing that. It’s what you’ve got to do. There’s two ways of approaching anything: as positively as you can or as negatively as you can.
We all know which one of those works for us more often than not, but we also always lose sight of that.
At Exeter, there were tough moments. Maybe Exeter is one of those places where that mad meme starts of me saying we’re going to get promoted.
As I say, I’ve believed it with the core of my being since the start of the season, once we had an opportunity to work with the guys, and even in the midst of it not going to plan and it wasn’t going in the way everyone wanted it, I never lost belief.
I always believed in our group and what we’re doing. I’ve always believed in the work were doing on the training ground from the moment the lads turned up at Bisham Abbey for the first day of pre-season.
Nobody’s cut a corner or taken a shortcut, everybody’s turned up and done everything right.
We’ve been defeated a few times and we’ve had some tough moments, but we’ve also reviewed, reflected and upgraded our toolkits to get us in the position we’re in now.
As I say, Exeter are a really good side on a good run and they’ll be wanting to show everybody in our stadium what a good side they are. They’ve already got our scalp in the opening league fixture, they beat our youth team and reserve lads in the cup fixture, and we don’t like getting beat by anybody.
We’ve been beaten by them twice and, hopefully for us, in front of our fans in our stadium, that’s the last time we lose a game to Exeter City.
Still 15 games to go and you’re only three points off the play-offs and you’re only nine points off the automatics. What are your ambitions between now and the end of the season?
To win every game.
And if you win every game… We always thought the play-offs would be good given the start you made, but even if you could challenge for top three that would be staggering progress, wouldn’t it?
That’s for other people – what we would do, how we’re going to do it, our points and our expected points – they are external factors and we’ve been aware of them. We haven’t had our heads in the sand and we are fully aware of them, but also we knew we had to take care of business and taking care of business is winning the next game. That is all we’ve focused on in the recent period when we’ve been successful.
It’s the same as what we focused on in the period when weren’t being as successful. We haven’t lost track and nothing’s changed for us.
We’ve had a process, and I’ve told you, eventually the score takes care of itself. You do everything at the right standard, strangely the effectiveness and efficiency – doing the right things and doing them well – you improve and you start to win more games of football and certainly lose fewer games of football and everything starts to feel completely different.
For us, we’ve had to work hard and we continue to have to work hard as an organisation, as a team and as a club.
We have to recruit new people on a daily basis, new fans. The amount of messages I’m getting on a daily basis now from people conceding some different opinions that maybe they had at different points is refreshing, but I don’t need it. I’m just focused about the future and pushing on, I don’t need people so say ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that’ or ‘I didn’t believe’. That’s not for me.
All I want is people to turn up and believe. Just to say ‘I’m not bothered about what happened yesterday, what happened two weeks ago’. We can be here all day wasting time and energy on that.
All we want is everybody at it today, everybody on the front foot, everybody giving their best. I want our fans to turn up and give their best in the game on Saturday and hopefully, our players do the same and we’ll do the same.
If we keep doing that and keep turning up for each other, keep backing each other up and inevitably we’re going to be successful.
We’ve seen some really good green shoots of recovery for the football club, but we’ve not got started on what I want to achieve here and what this group of players want to achieve here. We’re only just getting going.
Fifteen to go and Exeter in front of us on Saturday, the best is yet to come from this group.
Very much so. You’ve got Ryan and Leon starting to make comebacks off the bench as an attacking force, and defensively it’s four clean sheets in a row. Rochdale are the last team to score at the Mem. Where has the defensive stability come from in recent weeks?
You defend as a team. You attack as a team and you defend as a team. It’s not just defenders and goalkeepers, that isn’t the case.
I think the clean sheets have been a huge shot in the arm. For any good side, you want to be getting shutouts and making it difficult for the opposition to score, and they have been a real bonus.
They have been a real team effort with Aaron Collins, Sammy Nicholson, Harry Anderson, Luke Thomas and Lofty up the front. Whoever has been tasked with that responsibility – Antony Evans at times as well – they’ve really defended from the front and if you look at the run of games and the fixtures, at every junction we’ve had a different match-winner and a different man of the match or we’ve had someone at the other end of the pitch who has had a big moment defensively, whether it’s winning a tackle or making a big save.
I spoke to the players this morning. Everybody has played their part in us being successful to this point, but we’re sitting ninth in the League Two table. Yeah, there are games in hand etcetera, etcetera, but we haven’t done anything.
We’ve got ourselves back going, we’ve got ourselves back on the success profile, and we’ve found that winning formula. We’ve got to keep turning up, keep backing each other up and giving everything for each other in every moment, becoming ever tighter, ever more connected and we’ve got to keep doing that forever. That’s a lifelong journey, it doesn’t stop just because you’ve found it. You’ve got to keep pushing on and you’ve got to keep paying your rent every single day in this profession.
Afternoon, Joey. In the past week, it feels like you’ve been on a bit of a revenge tour. You’ve turned over a couple of sides that exploited some of the poorer performances you had when you were a completely different side at the start of the season. How much of a motivating factor has it been to show your true selves and you are more than what you were at the start of the season, and do you feel the same with Exeter that you owe them one?
Yeah, when someone has beaten you, you do feel a bit like that. I certainly do. I’m only speaking for myself, but if someone beat me at anything, tiddlywinks, Connect Four, I’d feel the exact same.
Winning is a nice feeling and being a winning team. It’s a lot better feeling than the alternatives and for a long period of time we hadn’t done enough work to give ourselves alternates on the machday. Now, through hard work and collective endeavour, we’ve got ourselves in a position where we expect to win games of football now and we expect to play well and we expect to be a really good outfit. We expect to win games away from home after a year of not winning games away from home. There are lots of things that are changing.
Revenge? Yeah, maybe, but we’re at the point where we’re not really focusing on the opposition. We’re paying them the absolute professional courtesy we have to and making sure we’re preparing for them, but I also know if we execute and get it right – and I say that with the greatest respect to every single team – we know that we’ve got enough quality and enough collective fitness and team structures to be a real problem for most teams.
We’ve got a really tough fixture on Saturday. They’re on a good run themselves, they will be full of confidence and they will be looking forward to the trip to our place and we’ve got to make sure from the first bell, they get it right on the nose. From the opening bell, as soon as the two of us meet in the middle of the ring, they get it right on the nose and we win that first round.
That includes everybody in our stadium, our fans. We must win the first round and then we’ll win the second round, third round, fourth round until the referee stops the contest. That’s the demand.
In two very different circumstances, you were stung by a fast start from Exeter. How big a part will dealing with that be in your messaging to the players before the weekend?
We know what we’ve got to take care of. They are different games with a different group. We had one game in the cup which is a load of kids and lads who were desperate for games at the time. We kept the full first team away from that.
And in the opening gambit of the season, there’s a lot of different people there and a lot of difference to peoples’ confidence levels at that point, our fans included, us as a staff included.
If Exeter think that’s us, hopefully they’ve prepared for that team, but I know Matt and the Exeter players aren’t stupid. They know what they’re facing on Saturday, they know how tough of a task it is for them.
We’re intent on reclaiming our scalp from the league fixture, we’re intent on being in front of our fans and giving the best account of ourselves and it should make for a fantastic game because we feel they are a really good team, they’re a good side on a good run, but also we’re a really good team as well.
I think Sam Finley’s on nine yellow cards, so if he gets another between now and the 37th game it’s a two-match ban. Do you talk to him about that and try to manage that situation, or do you feel that if you try to coax something different out of him you lose some of his best qualities as a player, snapping into tackles and being a front foot player?
Maybe this is just your mindset because a lot of negative connotations get added, but maybe that’s just where you’re at. I don’t think like that.
I know Sam knows he’s on nine bookings, and you talk about Sam’s qualities as aggressive and front foot. I see Sam’s qualities completely differently. I think he’s an incredible player, a really good footballer, probably the best footballing midfielder in the division. If you were to have a chat about that, you’d have to put Sam Finley in that conversation.
I see all the good things he does on the ball and his tackling is a real bonus because usually players with his technical quality and his skill levels tend not to do that.
We’re lucky to have Sam because not only has he got all the technical qualities but he’s got the tenacious qualities that you need if you’re going to be a top player. You need to have a little bit of devilment about you if you’re going to be a top boy because you usually have a big target on your back and people will come and test you in many regards.
I think Sam has shown a level of maturity at the club that has grown and grown and grown. The fact he got through the Leyton Orient encounter the other day without picking up an extra yellow and being suspended for this game shows the progress he has made, and that will continue.
I think he’s got to get to 36 or 37 games before it flips over. If he does, fantastic, and if he doesn’t, so be it.
He’s a combative player in a combative league and if we’re going to be successful, the people in the engine room for us are going to have to put their bodies on the line.
I trust Sam implicitly. His discipline since Port Vale has been exemplary and he hasn’t put a foot out of place and you’ve got to trust players with that.
As I say, I only see the positive. I only see Sam being excellent in the game, dominating the game, scoring a goal in the game, creating a goal in the game because that is what Sam Finley has done ever since he has come to this football club.
There’s no more avid member of the Sam Finley fan club than me, Joey, trust me, so I wasn’t disparaging his football ability. You’ve gone near enough with the same team for the past four games. What of the role your staff are playing at the moment to enable you to have continuity in selection in terms of fatigue because in the summer you made a big play to clear the decks of that part of your structure? What role are they playing in the run you have gone on?
Massive, but again, everything has to be right. Every single thing has to be right for you to be right on a matchday and getting it right on the pitch, controlling the controllable.
I’ve got copious amounts of notes to keep on track because when you work with Steve Black at the level I have… He’s here now more, believe it or not, than when he was alive. I’ve seen him more and listened to him more and watched more videos and read more notes and thought of him more than when he was alive, which is insane, but great people do. You never ever lose them because they have such a big impact on you.
It was impossible for us not to be successful at Bristol Rovers, impossible, when I think about it. There were some really tough moments, professionally and personally. Really, really tough, but then on the other side of it you know you’ve always had this angel sitting on your shoulder, this guiding light of all the good people you’ve met across your journey who have given you the toolkit to navigate through the tough times and the tough moments.
As a group, we’ve been tested as a football club, our fanbase, everyone has been tested over this COVID period, getting relegated, and everything that you can is being questioned and tested, and we’ve had that introspection, but what we’ve managed to do is come through it.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger when you get through it the other side and you’ve shared that adversity and you’ve been there in different moments like we have as a group, it’s powerful.
I’m delighted we’ve made it through to this point, but again we’ve got to keep working and turning up, and if we do that, we’ve seen how far this football club has come in a short period of time and we’ve got to keep turning up and recruiting each other on a daily basis, that’s the fans, players, anybody who has an affiliation for this football club.
We’ve got to turn up for each other all the time. Not just Saturday and then Tuesday while the going is good. No, that’s not how it works, that’s all the time.
Finally, on a few players with injuries. Josh Grant is a player you value highly, how close is he to being back in the squad? Alex Rodman came back briefly into the squad but he’s missed the last couple, and then Trevor Clarke and Junior Brown are the more long term ones. How are they getting on?
Trev’s back with the group, he’s been back for the past couple of days training OK and looking good.
Rodders got back on the bench but had a little minor setback and sometimes it’s the minor things that can affect you after a layoff, but he’s in good fettle. He’s back in the gym and will hopefully be back on the grass ASAP.
Josh is something that’s just rumbling on. They had to give him an injection and it’s settling down. He’s not fully training back with the group at the minute, but he’s moving around but still not quite 100 per cent and it takes him out of the game on Saturday. He’s making progress but we’re taking it day by day with him.
Junior is back on the grass working, but he’s still a couple of weeks away from coming back into the group.
On League Two as a whole, the big news today is Mark Hughes going in at Bradford City and Kenny Jackett lost his job at Leyton Orient earlier in the week. What do you make of Kenny losing his job and what does it mean for League Two with Mark Hughes, someone you played under, has gone there?
I was gutted for Kenny. You’re going into the fixture and looking at their results and none of us in these hot seats are silly. You know it’s a results industry and you’ve got to get them to stay alive.
Kenny unfortunately has lost his job. We’ve competed against him and Joe Gallen for a long period since I’ve been coaching. Always good teams, always competitive, always difficult.
I was really surprised they chose to get rid of Kenny because I felt that was a tough game for us on Tuesday night and with a bit of good fortune and finishing from them it could have been a slightly different game.
I felt his players were really fighting for him and I didn’t feel like they were a team in big trouble. I felt they were going to pick up some good results off the back of the performance against us.
You need that bit of patience, and I think if he might’ve got it, I think they would have turned a corner for sure based on their performance against us.
I’m gutted for him and Joe because they’re really good football people and they’re good at what they do.
And Mark Hughes is back in the game. Yeah, great.
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