When you do these, Joey, you’re quite relaxed at the moment and I would say the same with the players. From what you’re saying, it’s the same on the training ground. What is the key to getting that out on a Saturday at 3pm?
I wouldn’t say we’re seeing everything we want. We’ve got a lot of personnel missing in a specific part of the team, so we’re not stupid here. If you lose all your defenders, you know you’re undermanned.
I think the lads have been superb. They know we’re far from full strength and we’ve given the best account of ourselves in every game.
I think last Saturday was a little bit disappointing because I don’t think Accrington are a team that should be beating us. Certainly, I don’t think they were at full strength either.
We were in our stadium off the back of a game where we conceded six goals. We were expecting a response and a performance and we were a little bit flat, so that was disappointing because the lads had a really good training week and you hope that would go into the game.
Last Saturday, that was the disappointing thing, the lads never took on the really good week.
For us, Exeter won’t care about that. They’ve got their tail up, they just beat Forest Green, and they’ve had two good results against us at their stadium last year.
I think that was where I famously told you all what was going to happen about us getting promoted and I was proven correct on that. Maybe after the game on Saturday, I’ll be able to tell you again just what I feel.
I think we’re a really good team. Honestly, I do. I think we’ve got some really good players to come back in, all in a specific part of the team and all will make us better. The minute we get those back – and two are back on the grass today, almost joining back in with the group – the stronger our hand will be.
But I still think we’ve got more than enough to beat Exeter in their stadium on Saturday. I don’t particularly like what they’re about, I’ve not got a lot of time for them and I don’t think they’ve got a lot of time for us based on the exchanges we had last year, but we know they’re a good side and we have to respect them.
They are superb on the second balls. They don’t overcomplicate it. They start most of their attacks, as Forest Green found out on Saturday, from you trying to play in your half.
They’re a very good team when they’re in your half. They’re nowhere near as effective when they’re forced to defend their own half, as we can attest to from playing them, so it’s going to be a battle for supremacy, which team can play in the other team’s half for a majority of the game?
For us, it’s slightly different to what we’ll do in terms of we want to dominate the ball and possession, but with the components we’ve got in the team at the moment and the strength of Exeter, we feel it would be playing to our weaknesses and into their strengths.
We’ve got a game plan and we feel like we can really affect it and when the whistle goes on Saturday we’ll find out. We’ve got a big away following and we want to give them something to cheer.
Is that just a clash of personalities or was there something in the games last year that led to not liking each other?
They were beating us 4-0 after 20 minutes and then 5-0 at half time. I don’t like losing games, I didn’t like that feeling so there were words exchanged.
I think I told them I would buy Exeter and remove them from their job, which probably was not the best thing to say, but as it’s a fan-owned club and I’m a relatively wealthy individual, I think that got their goat up and they stuffed us twice.
You don’t have to like everybody in football. As I say, I absolutely don’t like these guys, but I respect them and the job they’ve done.
I felt they should’ve won the league last year and they’ll be kicking themselves they never won the league because Forest Green were gone, in my opinion. I thought they were there to be taken and Exeter had the momentum with the way they finished.
Matt and the lads are a well-organised, really well-drilled team. A seven-man squeeze coming down and leaving the three lads at home, it’s really brave what they do and it’s effective.
I personally would have loved to play against these types of teams because they’re strengths can be used against them as a weakness. We’re going to the lion’s den on Saturday and their fans will be baying for blood.
They will be wanting to try to heap more pressure on us because we personally don’t like each other and I look forward to the challenge. It’s great, I can’t wait to get in the stadium on Saturday.
One thing they’ve done very well as a club over the past 10 years is the consistent pipeline of bringing players through. Some of them have gone on like Ollie Watkins, but many of them are still in the first team. That is something you would like to have here.
It’s continuity, isn’t it. I think Steve Perryman was there. Watkins was the big marquee (player), but they’ve had the boy Randall and they’ve always produced players.
You can imagine Exeter is not the most desirable location for a young footballer because it’s the a*** end of the country. It’s miles away from everywhere, so logistically to do what they do and consistently produce their own players into the team and a revenue stream from, I think a lot of clubs should look at Exeter and see it as a well-run business model.
As I say, I have absolute respect for them. The reality is, if I was a Gashead I’d be going ‘How are Exeter doing what they’re doing and how are Bristol Rovers doing what they’re doing?’
It just comes down to a good strategic plan from a football club that has to be self-sustainable because of the limitations on it in terms of the population close to it and also the logistical problems there can be.
But places like Accrington, Fleetwood and Exeter, when you end up there as a player, you realise you’re at skid row. Nobody really wants to be there and everybody wants to get out and get to a big city club. Bristol Rovers are a big city club, but we haven’t had a big city footprint, certainly in the blue half.
You get to these players as a player and you go ‘Oh god, I don’t want to be here. I need to knuckle down and get myself going in the right direction’ and get to these more desirable locations where you’re not living in the sticks, pretty much.
Exeter historically have been a well-run club, a well-managed club, but their only hope is that other bigger clubs with bigger fanbases and bigger city reach don’t have their act together. We’re one of their clubs and I think finally – since I’ve been here – the club is getting its act together.
The club I found was one of the reasons why teams like Exeter and Forest Green can be successful, when in reality they shouldn’t be able to lay a glove on a big city club like Rovers.
This season attacking-wise, you’ve created a lot of chances and not always taken them, but you’ve always been in good areas going forward. Last weekend, is that an aberration, are you confident you go back to normal, or is that a concern for you?
I think for us, we’re disappointed to lose a game. Whether you’ve created loads of chances or not, it’s about winning games of football. I’d happily create absolutely nothing and win a game 1-0.
It’s about winning and getting results and on Saturday we need to get back onto looking positively at the fixture list. When you’re getting beat, there’s nothing worse.
I think the players wear it as well as the staff here. We’re quite closely knit with our playing group and we’re all disappointed. None of us likes losing and we want to get back to winning ways as soon as possible.
It’s seven in the league without a win and we’re all aware of that and we all want to put that right.
Luca Hoole is back. Is he fully fit after international duty and available for selection?
Yeah, I think he only played 45 minutes against Austria. He came on in the second half, I think.
We were disappointed to lose him last weekend because we’re already short in that area. Him coming back weirdly gives us a boost because it adds probably 50 per cent of the defensive resources. Hooley coming back in gives us a 50 per cent boost in that area.
Josh Grant is out at the minute, James Connolly, Lewis Gibson, James Gibbons, and they’re all in one area so it’s really frustrating at the minute because you know what this group is capable of, but on the upside of that nobody cares. Everybody just sees the results and at the end of the day, we’ve got to go down to Exeter and get a performance and a result.
I think we’ve got more than enough in the building to do that.
Joey, are there some fine margins in play with what is going wrong for your team at the moment? I don’t think a team in the EFL has hit the woodwork more than Rovers this season and it feels like there are big moments that are going against you. Is that keeping your confidence high that things will turn?
If we get a recognised defence in… James Connolly is only 20 but he played 30 games on the spin last year and he became a real lynchpin of the backline, obviously with Connor Taylor. You’re looking for continuity, certainly in the midfield and defensive parts. The front side of the team, if it gets a bit random you can kind of get away with that.
I look at it and go ‘OK, we think we’ve got a really good young emerging side here. It’s going to take a little bit of time to get that out on the pitch and stabilised, but this year we’re a lot lower in loans. We’ve managed to convert a couple of lads into permanents.
Even taking Lewis Gibson, it’s with one eye on the future. He’s somebody we’ve taken on loan that we think if we can do a good job with him and he doesn’t manage to make the grade at Everton that, having worked with him at Fleetwood, he would enjoy it again and want to commit to a longer-term position with us.
I think he’s a really good player. The problem with that is we’re trying him out a bit because of his injury record and he’s new to Bristol and trying us out.
For us, I think it’s having that patience of building a new team and putting a new group together. Short-term pain for medium and long-term gain is my take.
Has Josh Coburn joined up with you yet?
No. We spoke to him this week and he could have joined us this week, but he would have been short of game practice. Middlesbrough are playing tomorrow night against Newcastle under-23s.
We’ve had a chat with them and we thought it would be a good opportunity to get him some minutes. They hand him over to us then knowing he’s done a full rehabilitation phase and he’s got some minutes.
Fingers crossed, he gets through that with flying colours and joins up with the group next week. We’ll then assess him when he gets here and if he’s got 45 or 60 minutes in the tank, then it gives him the opportunity to come and impact our first team as soon as possible.
So from what they’re telling you, if that goes well he could play for you in a week or 10 days’ time?
We could have taken him, but we were thinking where were we going to get the minutes for him? We’d probably have to play him on Tuesday night. That is a senior game, albeit it’s against Crystal Palace’s under-21s, but is that a little too big a spike?
If he gets 45-60 minutes for their 23s, I think Josh will have confidence in his body and their medical staff will be confident to hand him over. Hopefully, he can come in and hit the ground running.
What people are missing is he will be a real player for us. He is a proper player, so he’ll come in and it will be like getting a new signing a month after the window has closed.
You look at him as a player and it seems like he offers you a really well-rounded package in that he is a really big lad at 6ft 3in, but he’s also a refined finisher for a young player and he brings a lot of energy as well.
Yeah, and you look at Lofty, John Marquis, Aaron Collins – Harvey Saunders has kind of fallen down the pecking order – we’ll probably flip the front side of the team in terms of if Josh comes in and John Marquis gets away, we’re wanting to play front twos.
The difficulty at this moment in time is we’re trying to find a shape and a formula that works for the whole team. We went back to a different structure on Saturday, 3-5-2, and didn’t really have anywhere near the purchase.
For us, we want to service the front side of our team. That might mean – it’s horrible because we want to play – we have to sacrifice some of the more adventurous passing in the bottom side of the team in the short term to get the front side of the team firing.
It does seem like you are searching in that area of the pitch for the right formula. It’s probably a good problem to have in terms of having lots of options, but it’s finding the right blend because you’ve got to fit in Paul Coutts, Sam Finley, Luke McCormick, Antony Evans, Glenn Whelan and Jordan Rossiter. You’ve got to fit in all these pieces and it doesn’t seem you have quite found the right way of using them.
Yeah, and we want to be moving away from Whelo, with the greatest respect to Whelo. He’s come in to coach and that’s how undermanned we’ve been, that we’ve used him a lot this season and we’ve been using him at centre-half. It shows you where the band-aid’s had to go on in the group.
We’re getting lads back. When you see them coming, they’re right at the end, the two Gibbos are right at the end of their rehabilitation phase and they are chomping to get with the group. We’re holding them back at this moment because firstly they won’t be fit enough to play on Saturday and we want to make sure that when they come back in, they stay in.
James Connolly is a little bit behind them in terms of the injury and Josh Grant sits in between Beefy and the lads who are coming back. The good thing is when the lads look over from one pitch, they can see the light at the end of the tunnel and the lads know reinforcements are coming.
You already know what good players they are. We think when those boys are back and consistently available and that team beds down, we think we will have a very competent team for League One with the front side of the team still to drop in.
I think in the near future, you will see what the ideology was. At this moment in time, I haven’t been able to get it on the pitch and fingers crossed we can get it because it’s a different way than we played last year, but for League One I think it will be really effective.
Gibbons and Gibson are the closest to returning. Is it a case of giving them half an hour on Tuesday and then they can play the Saturday after?
We’ll see. They’ve obviously got bits of work to do. They’ve got the top end of the high-speed running to do on Saturday into Monday. If they come through that, they’ll be pushing to get some moments in that game.
We’ll have a call to make. If that game was the next week, it would be perfect for them, so whether we get a full week of training into them with the group – and then we’ve got Swindon in a couple of weeks – and then it brings them into matchday contention.
The beauty of that is they are coming back. For me, getting them back on the pitch and when I knit them together, I know we’re going to be a really good unit.
Josh Grant, is it the knee injury from last season that is keeping him out?
He had a little bit of tendinitis in the bottom side of his patellar. He had it in one knee last year. He’s come back and got it in the other knee.
Since I’ve been here, I think he’s had every injury and I’m hoping the scar tissue of all of them will strengthen him up. It’s frustrating for Josh because you all know the regard I hold him in firstly as a player and as a lad. I think he’s a superb kid and it must be so frustrating for him because there is a really good player in there.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t had that consistent run of training, which leads to a consistent run of games. He hasn’t been able to show the world just what a good player he is.
One day that will change, that is my belief. You’ve just got to keep believing one day that will change with all the work he is doing and the effort he puts in.
Josh is kind of on the edge because of his lack of his continuity, so you kind of put him out of your mind almost because you know James Connolly stays fit. Gibbo’s a bit different, but for us, getting Josh’s attributes into our group is so important because he can play four or five different positions and he also plays them at a high level because of the football acumen and IQ he has.
It’s really frustrating. I wish I could give him some of my body parts that I don’t need anymore so he can go and fulfil his potential because he’s a superb player.
Do you have a target date for James Connolly from the medical staff? Can you expect him back by the end of October, for example?
You’re going off a specialist. It was an old stress fracture that he had in his spine, so you’re waiting for the surgeon to give the OK. I think he’s due either Monday or Tuesday to get a thumbs up or a thumbs down to kick on to the next stage.
If he gets that, he’ll be two or three weeks away, but he’s in the specialist’s hands on that and we’re hoping for good news in the early part of next week. He feels OK and ready to kick on, but you’ve got to get the green light from the more intelligent people.
Trevor Clarke and Zain Westbrooke have come back into your group but we haven’t heard about Alex Rodman. What is the situation with Alex?
I think he’s just working on his golf handicap. I haven’t seen Rodders. He is in liaison with the club and Eddy.
I’m not sure what he’s going to do. I’m not sure if he’s decided to play on because, as you can imagine when you have a lot of setbacks like he’s had, he’s going ‘Is this time to draw up stumps?’
I don’t think he’s made anything official. Players usually make it official online and I don’t think he has done that. Maybe he is exploring that space, seeing if the body settles.
But for us, he wasn’t fit to be part of the playing part. He’s a top lad and I’ve got a lot of time for him, but you’re professional footballers and if you’re not out playing on the grass and you’re not really working in the gym to rehabilitate yourself, I know you’re being paid as a footballer but are you really a footballer anymore?
Finally, you’ve had the Royal Marines in. Can you talk us through what the players have been doing today?
They’ve just been learning how to cook relatively quickly, nutritious meals that if they’re living in a flat in Bristol and they’re partnered up that they can go and source the ingredients. It saves them getting a takeaway or whatever young players get in, Rustlers burgers or whatever crap they eat these days.
It’s just to cover off the bases. You’re educating young men, we’ve got 19 and 20-year-olds. The lads I’m talking to you about, seniors, Beefy (James Connolly) is like 20. We’ve got a good young group here and there is a smattering of old pros in and around it but on the whole, it is a young group, a lot younger than what we had last year.
Part of that is you have to show them when they are living on their own, quick and simple ways. I think they’re going through a couple of main course options and a couple of dessert options. If they want to get wives and girlfriends and impress them going forwards, I think women always like a man who can cook.
Do you want to give players a rounded experience here?
It’s like being a dad. In lots of regards, it is. I’m learning all the time. I don’t do any cooking at home. I left the nest and I was always looked after by my grandmother and my mother.
I moved in with my missus and my missus looked after me, so I’m struggling if I have to. I can’t cook, so I’ve learned a lot in there.
I just think if you have these life skills, we’ve got young people and it helps them. We’ve got to do everything we can to help these young men develop because if you get them at a young enough age and you give them good habits, they carry that on their journey.
The good side is the exchange, the collaboration with the Royal Marines. They get to see Mike Beaton in there. I think he was third in the world at triathlon so they hear about his life story and how he’s ended up doing what he’s doing and he ends up being a Royal Marine for 36 years.
The upside of that is we get to go and spend a couple of days in their billets. The lads won’t like that, but for us…
Is that pre-season next year?
Yeah, using their assault course, escape and evasion stuff, sending them into the kill house, loads of things. We’re looking to collaborate to get some team bonding because the young players we’ve got in our group, that’s what they get their new recruits when they’re coming through and it’s taking them from snotty-nosed adolescents. For us, it’s making them into footballers.
They’ve had a good laugh in there and hopefully, the lads take some life skills out of it. At worst, we get a really good assault course to beast them over for the early part of next pre-season.
SIGN UP: To receive our free Rovers newsletter, bringing you the latest from the Mem
READ NEXT:
