Joey, congratulations I think that was your most complete performance of the season so far...
I thought we were really good Tuesday night, if I’m honest with you. Against a good side near the top of the divisions and it was always going to be tricky with Storm Eunice here.
But credit to them, I thought the pitch, for this time of the year, was a decent park. It allowed us to get the ball down and play.
The lads were superb today. I’m a little bit gutted we haven’t put eight or nine on them because that was an opportunity to do that. We’ve carved out some fantastic opportunities, but again three points and we move on to a tough fixture on Tuesday night against Leyton Orient.
In the first half in particular, your midfield three, they just couldn’t get close to them…
I think that was the same with the Sutton boys the other day. I thought Sutton were struggling to get in the ascendency due to the quality of the lads in the middle of the park for us, so I was really pleased with that.
I’m delighted for young Billy (Elliot Anderson), he’s got his first goal and you can see what a talent he is. People forget the strength off the bench that we’ve got and arguably our talisman Antony Evans not even here today. He’s pushing close to being in the squad on Tuesday.
So, really good signs. Lofty back on the park today, so really, really pleased with the performance. The clean sheet was vital as well and as I say Jon Nolan, Antony Evans to come back and be part of the squad.
We’ve worked hard to get to this point. We have to stay hungry and humble and keep turning up and performing like we did today.
Was there an aspect of that performance that pleased you most, because there was a lot to be pleased about. What was it that you were happiest with?
Just the control. Obviously it’s nice to get into the positive goal difference because I’ve felt in recent weeks if we had one criticism of the guys it would be that we weren’t being clinical enough. But they took that on today, they showed a different side, a different gear.
We’ve been hitting threes and fours out of ten. Sutton was a five or six because we were lacking that last little bit. I still think that’s a seven or eight out of 10. You have to take into account quality of opposition.
But for me, really good signs. As I’ve said if you’re in a horse race and you see there is 16 games left to go, you want to be making real progress when the finish line is in sight. This is a group that has worked tirelessly in pre-season, you don’t get quite the rewards of that in football. People always thing you get instant rewards in this game, you don’t. You get paid back for the hard work that you do and it takes five, six, seven months sometimes, for that to bed in.
You can see how strong the group is now. Physically, mentally and technically strong, but again we have to turn up on Tuesday night against a Leyton Orient side on a tricky run of their own, trying to steal our momentum.
So, really pleased but again 16 more to go.
It was a whole team effort as well, it’s difficult to pick out individuals, but you mentioned Elliot already and I thought Luca Hoole as well; two very young players just growing and you can see the quality they’re starting to show, that composure that I’m sure you’ve been after…
They’re the youngest players in our group but you wouldn’t know that with their quality of performance. My belief has always been that if you’re good enough, age is just a number.
I think sometimes playing with young minds that are more malleable that you can put ideas into and coach. For me, that’s the beauty of it. Seeing young people flourish and seeing them really start to emerge as senior players.
Hooley has been in from Mansfield on the first day of the season. He’s dipped in and out but certainly since January onwards he’s taken the position and made it his own. His performance today, even in the midst of the moments when they were testing us, his defending at the back post was very crucial to make sure Belly kept a clean sheet.
But as I say, we knew the quality we were getting with Elliot. Billy is what they’re calling him, for Billy Elliot, Geordie boy, bit of a ballerina. It’s starting to stick now as a nickname. That’s a sign of where the group is at with him.
He’s been a real bonus. We were trying to get a player that we thought would improve the quality of the squad but that didn’t materialise.
We ended up taking Elliot quite late in the window, and if I’m honest he’s much better than the player we would have taken.
Sometimes, as I say, the sun shines on the righteous and today I thought our lads came of age in the blustery conditions. I saw the sun and the Gasheads behind the goal at 4-0.
But again this league is unrelenting and we’re back to it with another challenge against Leyton Orient Tuesday night.
Joey, you’ve spoken a lot about giving the fans a team that they can follow wherever they go. There have been some good moments away from home, but that’s the first party away day I can think of in a long time. It will be one they remember.
Yeah, and there are going to be many moments for the Gasheads in my tenure. My intention was to give them a team to be proud of and I think we’re approaching that.
We’re nowhere near the finished article, I think there are loads of gears left to come.
It maybe gets missed sometimes. Not only are we winning and moving in the right direction, I think it’s the way we play. There are not many teams in League Two that play the way we want to play.
Really pleasing. This is due to the fact of people supporting the lads and getting behind them. I go back to the 12th man and the Gasheads at home being with the lads.
Travelling in the numbers they travel with gives us the opportunity to create those type of teams, so long may that continue.
The lads are feeding off it and there is real unity and belief everywhere we go now. There’s a belief everywhere we go and we’ve got to keep turning up and working hard for each other and paying our rent.
Sam Finley, it was like Roy of the Rovers in the first half that lung-busting run and then to come back from that disappointment of it just going wide to a sensational goal to open the scoring…
Yeah, he’s been a quality operator Sam, right throughout the season. Even in the early part of the season, when we were looking for a bit of confidence and were trying to find our way as a group, Sam was a real standout performer in there.
Clarkey today, I didn’t really want to risk him, just because of the cold nature of it with him coming back from a hamstring injury. Loft came back today. Harvey Saunders and Sion Spence. Sion didn’t make the bench today, yet he’s probably scored the two most important goals of the season for me.
The goal against Walsall was massive because it definitely helped us turn a corner. Then at Oxford in the home game. I think he gave the Mem that feel-good factor that we’ve managed to maintain from that Oxford cup tie onwards.
Harvey Saunders, along with Sam Finley, in the early part of the season was such an important player for us. I remember his performance against Oldham, playing at wing-back and giving everything for the team.
Also, in recent weeks when he came on in the game against Walsall. He put his body on the line and got us a winner that allowed us to keep that momentum.
Before we spoke about it being a team effort, and the lads are a brotherhood. They’re a really tight knit group. So for me, they’re a pleasure and a privilege to coach at the minute. As I say, we’ve just got to keep doing what we were doing, keep sticking to this process and there is great times ahead for this football club.
You had a really good run around Christmas and January. It did feel a bit workmanlike at times; you were grinding the results out. This feels different. That style you showed today must be encouraging because that’s more sustainable than scrapping for last minute winners all the time…
It is and we want to play like that all the time, I’ll make no bones about it. But sometimes the opposition, the conditions or the pitch don’t allow that. So you have to find many different ways of winning.
It’s great when we play like that, but in a 46-game season in England it’s not always going to be like that. There are loads of games where you have to find a different way, you might have to batten down the hatches and get points and results when you’re not at your best.
In the Hartlepool game we were nowhere near our best, but we managed to win the game 2-0. There’s been times where we’ve been down to ten and have managed to win.
Wins against Northampton and Walsall spring to mind. I think back to Brett Pitman and the header he scored against Bradford and his at Colchester. Everybody has played a key role in moments throughout the season.
They have not been forgotten by me but also we’re not going to play at that level every single week. It’s nice when we do it. Sutton was a nice, comfortable and controlled performance and that’s the beauty of this group.
They’re fit and are able to score late in games if teams want to run. The clean sheets are coming as well which is a huge tip of the cap to the whole team because we defend as a whole team.
It’s nice to see that positive goal difference as well. We spoke to the lads at half time and said it’s only 1-0. I think that put us back to level par for the goal difference. We’ve got to learn from the Salford and Scunthorpe game and put them to the sword.
We’ve got to go and get that second, third and fourth goal and to be fair to the lads they’ve done that this afternoon, they were superb.
You must have been delighted by Ryan Loft’s cameo, he came on and was bruising. He was too hot to handle really for that defence. A brilliant effort to almost open his account that hit the crossbar…
Yeah, I think Azza got the rebound in, sniffing around in the box which we’ve been asking him to do. He’s a scorer of great goals but he needs to be a great goalscorer by getting those tap-ins.
I’m buzzing for Azza, he’s got that goalscoring feeling. Especially with the lads coming in, Leon coming back, he’s a big presence for us and Lofty getting back on the park today. They both give us something different, but again competition for places running right through the squad.
I thought Harry Anderson was superb today. Sam Nicholson, again, really good, just wants that goal. That ruthless edge. But good signs and good camaraderie growing in the team, but we’ve got to keep turning up for 16 more games.
Results have kind of dropped in for us today. We’re now the table in a different light and we’ve still got everyone to play. But, really good signs for the football club, but a long way to go.
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