Well, Joey, what a game of football that was. Did you enjoy that? What are your thoughts on what you witnessed this afternoon?
It was a great game and a fantastic advert for League One football and South West football as well. The fans have turned up in their numbers and given amazing support, both sets of fans, and I think they’ve been rewarded with a fantastic game which was in the balance for most of the second half.
Really pleased in terms of getting back in it after being two down against the team at the top of the pile, but a tad frustrated because we feel we should have beaten them today.
Is there a sense of self-satisfaction when you make that substitution at half time and Josh Coburn scores within two minutes of coming on at half time? I know there was a lot of work still left to do, but that change and whatever you said at half time seemed to make a massive difference to galvanise your players.
No, absolutely not because if you take the praise for that, you have to take the fault for picking the team from the start. It was over to the players.
It was our first real acid test at the Mem in terms of a top side coming here and we’ve got enough confidence and enough of the real components now to feel this is a really good examination of us. We find ourselves 2-0 down at half time through two world-class strikes – the first one was worth the admission fee alone – and it is compounded when we go through with a fantastic chance ourselves and we don’t put it away.
And just before half time, they scored another really good goal. Is spoke to the boys at half time and I said ‘Where do you feel we are?’ and we felt we weren’t a million miles away. We felt if anything, we were probably the better side in the first half, albeit we were 2-0 down, and we said how incredible the fans had been even when we were behind.
We were shooting to the Thatchers and memorable moments of this group of players have been quite frequent in my time here. I said ‘Let’s create another one’.
You see two things: opportunity, or threat. I felt it was an opportunity for our lads to put another memorable moment into the Mem.
We were not downtrodden or disappointed, albeit we were losing the game, and we felt if we got the next goal the Gasheads would get with us and we felt we would have a lot of momentum and it would make it difficult for them.
As luck would have it, Azza puts a great ball in and Josh Coburn does what all great centre-forwards do. He put his body on the line to get himself in the scoring column.
After that, I felt there was only one team that was going to win it and our second goal is as good as any of theirs in terms of team play and a good finish from Aaron.
We feel we should have had a penalty. The lad has pulled the ball on the floor and the ref doesn’t give it.
We’re scaring their goal and the keeper has to make one save from Bobby Thomas. We just couldn’t manage to get that extra goal to put the game to bed.
How significant is it in terms of the confidence of the group and your momentum to know you can mix it with the league leaders like that and go toe-to-toe in that way? It must do wonders?
I’ve known that even when we had a lot of players out. We knew we were a decent side.
The past few weeks for us were establishing ourselves as a League One side against teams that if you finish above, you’ve got a really good chance of staying up, your Exeters, Cheltenhams, MK Dons, Cambridge.
Now we knew we were going to face the top boys in the division, league leaders today, Sheffield Wednesday on Wesnesday and Derby. We said this will be the acid test for our group.
We’ve drawn a game today and we can take lots of positives from that and I’m looking forward to the challenge of Hillsborough on Wednesday night.
Finally from me Joey, no Sylvester Jasper in the squad today. What happened there?
He wasn’t happy with the minutes he was getting and he’s gone back to Fulham.
Is that something he came to you about or did you go to him?
He’s obviously got disappointed and if you’re not happy… crack on, so he’s gone back to Fulham. We’ve got Scott Sinclair, we just keep moving forward.
Picking up on that, Joey, there’s no turning back on that one? He’s made his decision and he’s gone?
We’ve made the decision, not him.
Can you sum up your emotions on that? Are you disappointed?
I get when people aren’t playing, they get disappointed. I mean, Josh Coburn was disappointed he’s not playing today, we’ve probably got eight-nine lads disappointed they’re not playing but you’ve got to channel that into performance and what you can’t do is allow the outside world to see that disappointment.
We’re moving really fast here and if you want to be part of this, then you’ve got to buy into it absolutely. If not then you can crack on and there are 91 other professional clubs you can go and play for.
You’ve got a lot of available players now. Did you feel you needed to be ruthless in that scenario to make it clear what the rules are, that you need to buy in completely, even if you’re not playing?
No, it was just about we have an ethos and principles here and if those aren’t respected then we don’t want you in our football club.
He’s a talented boy, he’ll have a decent career and he’ll learn valuable lessons. It’s been explained to Fulham the reasons why and we wish him well. He had a couple of cameos for us but we have a lot of good players here and we haven’t got time to waste on disappointment.
One of those good players you have got is Ryan Loft. Can you sum up your thoughts on that performance from him?
I’m buzzing for him, I really am, because he is the epitome of hard work. If you keep working hard in this game and you keep turning up and doing the right things, it does reward you.
That’s my experience of it. If you cut corners and you think you’re too cool for school, football has a funny way of tripping you up.
Lofty is a player who has come in and through the disappointment of the team catching fire after his transfer, he had to go and work incredibly hard to stay with the group. Not only has he done that, he has become a massive part of what we’re doing.
I look today, he’s unplayable at times, he really is. It’s not only that, it’s the shift he does for the team, which opens up channels and I know Azza is getting all the plaudits and if he gets the hat-trick ball, Rob Page’s Sunday roast is a bit trickier for him, but a lot of that comes off the bedrock of Ryan’s work and the shift he does for the team.
I’m pleased that the fans recognised that and he gets the ovation and the man of the match.
He works incredibly hard, not only on the hours. This is the thing with footballers, you get the training day but sometimes if you want to get better, you have to go beyond that. That’s taking yourself out to do extras or into the gym.
Lofty has bought into that 24-hour athlete. He’s preparing properly, he’s eating properly, he’s doing everything he can in the extra-curricular stuff to make himself a better player.
He’s 25 and looks like £50,000 well spent for us.
When he arrived, you could see the physical attributes, but he was not so refined in his build-up play. He surprised you, you said, on Tuesday with the brilliant lobbed finish. Today, it’s an unbelievable assist for a player of 6ft 4ins and 15 or 16st.
He’s a solid boy, I wouldn’t want a rumble with the big fella, and people forget his pedigree. He came through Spurs’ academy, he’s been at Leicester, so he’s not coming out of some barmy lower league and he’s so raw that you’ve got to put him together.
Someone who deserves enormous credit is Kev Bond. Bondy was a big champion of Ryan and worked a lot with him on the individual stuff, the stuff that he has closed the gap on and built his confidence.
This was last year when he wasn’t getting games because we had Aaron Collins and Elliot Anderson on fire.
You can only lead the horse to water and they’ve got to have that desire to go and make themselves a player. We’re lucky, we’ve got a few boys who have grasped that concept and if you do that at a young enough age, you can have a fantastic career.
I don’t think strikers peak until they are 26. I wouldn’t judge a striker and what he’s capable of until he’s 26, especially when they are tall like him. They take longer to come together because they are all arms and legs and there are growth spurts and confidence issues.
He’s moving nicely, but so is Aaron Collins, and Josh Coburn made an impact, I thought he was excellent.
The spirit of your group. It might be easy to get dispirited after two screamers in what was an otherwise even half. To take the handbrake off from minute one after half time showed the character of your group.
You know what we’re like, we go for it. If you lose 4-0, you lose three points. Sometimes, you can kind of get it with coaches, but I don’t understand it, maybe it’s just the rashness of me.
We’re here for three points. If we’re 2-0 down or 3-0 down, let’s keep going for it because the only thing it is going to cost you is three points. If you lose 7-0, OK, it’s a kick in the proverbials, but it’s only three points and people might argue it’s another point with the goal difference.
Our fans expect us to attack. We’re at the Mem, we’re in front of a packed-out Mem and the Gasheads are at it. We’re not going to sit back and allow Plymouth to come into our stadium, I had enough of that in my first period at Rovers when we couldn’t do anything about it.
I said we would create a group and the Gasheads can have a team that will fight for them tooth and nail and will never give up. The second half today was the epitome of that.
In your pre-match interview with the BBC, you said Paul Coutts has an ankle injury. What is the prognosis there?
He’s not going to be available for at least a couple of weeks, maybe months. We were having an 11v11 on Thursday and he done really well, ran through a little tight space and made a pass left-footed - he did complete the pass - but ended up rocking his ankle.
He felt he heard a crack so we thought it was a break but we had him MRI-d and X-rayed and he hasn’t. He’s got a tendon, so we need to find out the extent of that. He’s due to a specialist next week.
That was an enormous blow for us because in the last few weeks he’s been excellent and certainly the game plan we wanted to take the ball off them and make them run around for it a bit more.
And when you lose the skip and his quality, we altered the game plan slightly and somebody with his composure, presence and leadership, he’s a big loss for us but thankfully the lads absorbed that and got a point.
Joey, one player I thought played well today who might not get the headlines is Lewis Gordon. It was perhaps his best performance today?
I thought he was outstanding today. Bali Mumba is a really good player and he nullified him today. Lewis was first-class in everything he did.
The goal is that side, but you have to take your hat off to Finn Azaz’s quality.
The lads have just given him an ovation in the dressing room due to the quality of his performance. You forget he is only 21 and another young lad and that will do wonders for his confidence because he’s competed against the top team and also Mumba is a really good player.
Josh Coburn came on and his introduction allowed a bit more freedom for Aaron Collins and Ryan Loft.
Yeah, it’s something we’ve done in recent weeks. The team is in a slightly different groove.
We felt we could create pressure from different places in the first period and at half time, 2-0 down, you want to get your goalscorers on the pitch. He’s come on and scored with pretty much his first touch and that has given us the momentum to finish the game and we’re disappointed we haven’t won.
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