Joey, firstly on Alfie Kilgour’s departure. It’s always a little bit sad when people go but it is important for him to get some game time.
He's been chomping at the bit to play, Alf. We've had trials and tribulations in the backline but we didn't feel like he was the antidote. If he's not the antidote now, when is he ever going to be? That happens in football, sometimes, and you have to be men about it - have grown-up conversations. If you're not going to turn to them in times of crisis then certainly you can't hold their careers back.
Alf's a fantastic person, he does everything right and it's wrong for us to keep him if we can't give him the minutes. He's got a great affiliation with the club. He'll always be closely intertwined with what's going on here but I think it's the right juncture for him to go and continue his career and play regular football.
That is an out, you hinted there may be a few more. Is there anything else moving closer?
We're keen on moving out lads who don't have a chance. Who are just past the moments of production for us; we've given them opportunities but now we're out of the cups...
Trev's gone to Shamrock, I think we're all aware it's tough to get rid of Westy (Zain Westbrooke) at the minute, he's a bit of a footballing leper - which is bizarre because he is a quality player. It hasn't worked out for him here, he's had multiple opportunities, I just think he needs a fresh start.
Hopefully, he can find a coach who will give him a chance because it will take a bit of time to regain his confidence. A couple of loans haven't helped him. There is potential in Zain, it's just not going to be at this club.
We have tried multiple times and he has had lots of opportunities. Ben Garner signed him and hopefully we can get as many of them out of the building as possible because not one of them has been productive in my tenure.
That’s outgoings. On incomings, it’s never easy, but is anything getting closer?
I'm desperate to bring in five or six, for sure, but as you know whether it's possible will depend on people going out. I still think we're six players away from a side that is a promotion-tilted side. We're doing incredibly well at the minute but if we want to maintain our position and kick on from it, everyone who has been watching the Gas, will be aware of it.
I'm working tirelessly to get quality and experience in but it's tricky to find in January.
If you would like five or six, how likely is it that is the number you will get?
Oh, I think it's highly unlikely but you don't ask, you don't get. So we're working on it. If we end up doing two or three, that'll still be a good window for us. It's notoriously a tricky window, it's notoriously a window that goes right to the dying embers because people are playing the games that they're playing. It's just a merry-go-round of football transfers.
We have to stay as we normally do and hopefully we can get what we need. If we want to get promoted, we're six players away.
In midweek, I think a few of the players who had knocks and niggles got rested. Is there anything that is going to trouble them for the weekend?
No, for us, we want to progress in a cup competition but we’re also 13-15 points away from League One safety. It would have been nice to go to Wembley and all that thing, but the priority this season is getting 50-52 points on the board and seeing what we’ve got left to play for.
If we can do that in the next five or six games, it sets you up for a nice finish to the season, but for us it’s about winning the game on Saturday against Accrington.
We feel they are an opponent that if we execute, we can beat them, but if we defend the way we have defended at times, we could lose to The Red Lobster.
We knew Jordan Rossiter was getting closer, but is this going to be a game too early for him?
He’s not on the grass. You are looking at possibly after the window closes for Jordan, it might be February.
Lewis Gibson is going to be a little bit longer than we anticipated, mainly because he’s had problems in that area before so we just have to be careful with him.
But we still feel we have enough quality and people are scrapping it out. I have told people in no uncertain terms today that we will be scouring the market for better players and if you’re in the jersey now, you need to do everything you can to stay in it.
I think the front side of the team is pretty set and they are efficient. The backside of the team is absolutely still up for grabs.
We have got young players in there and if we can add a bit of nous or experience, I think we would be foolish not to do so and I’m possibly targeting two or three players in that defensive side of the team because if we sort that out, I think we’ve got a chance.
John Coleman is one of those who has been there, seen it and done it, but Accrington are probably struggling a bit more this season than they have for a few years.
Yeah, it’s tough to keep turning water into wine. It’s tough to keep finding Dion Charles and Colby Bishop. I think he took Colby Bishop from being a primary school teacher and sold him for £500,000 and it shows you the magic Coley is capable of.
What he’s done at that football club over that period… It probably wouldn’t be in existence if it wasn’t for John and Andy Holt and the shrewd acquisition and development of talent.
It has kept Accrington punching above their weight as a League One side and there have been a few seasons when they have been up in the higher reaches of the table and fell away because maybe they don’t have the financial resources of other teams.
I have no doubt they will be fine again. They had a bit of a wobble last year and Coley pulls it out. They have got enough components with the fact they have got to the Papa John’s semi-final, it shows you they have got enough depth to the squad to compete on multiple fronts.
He would probably swap progression in the Papa John’s for three points on Saturday and, for us, we know it will be a tricky encounter. We’ve got to make sure we take care of business our end and start the game in the manner we can because Newcastle went to Hillsborough and got beat the other day, and we were unfortunate not to win there.
We’ve got to focus on being the best version of us for a 90-plus-minute performance. If we do that, it’s difficult for the opponent. If we have 88 minutes and a couple of Keystone Cops moments, we’re always vulnerable.
We’re striving hard to cut out those mistakes and in the next 20 days we will figure out whether that’s a personnel issue, or whether it was just a case of getting our heads together and being on the same page and making sure we defend our goal and our box more effectively than we have in the first part of the season.
It’s one of those strange anomalies that happen every now and again. Rovers have never won at Accrington.
There has probably never been as good a chance, has there? We’ve ended a few hoodoos at The Valley and stuff like that.
I remember just before I came in. Did it get Tisdale the pot after getting absolutely walloped at Accrington? But you’ve got to think about the absolute space cadets that were in the building then.
It will be two years we’ve been here in February and I have seen a stat doing the rounds after we won at the weekend. In that season, we had 46 games and 10 wins and 38 points and got relegated. We’ve already got 37 points and 10 wins with 20 games to go.
We already knew we were miles ahead of that group because if you had a pulse and a motive, you would be ahead of that group because it was very low on all the minerals you need to be successful as a professional football team.
But for us, that’s a bygone memory. The culture and everything that could be wrong was wrong from top to bottom.
Thankfully, that is not the case (now). We have scored 55 goals in 34 games and we’ve conceded 51. Right across the board, you can see what the problem is. It is keeping the ball out of the net.
We have got a top-three, top-four strikeforce in terms of the attacking side of the team, and a bottom-three, bottom-four defence and it is our job to fix that. January is a chance to do that and if I could, I would bring in a whole host of players.
I am looking for six and three of them are in the defensive area. Whether we get a chance to do that or not will depend on how savvy we can be in the market because we have two live loans before we reach the five threshold.
Whether we go beyond that and take a sixth loan or not, that will be for the dying embers of the window and it will depend on what player it is. If it’s a superstar, we would be foolish not to do it.
And maybe we have to get creative in the market and convert a couple of loans we’ve got now into permanents. We are exploring all avenues to try to give us maximum opportunity.
The group was being built to stay in the league and as everyone has realised, we’ve now switched targets to ‘Let’s get out of the league’. If we don’t get out of the league, we’ve achieved what was the goal at the start of the season, which was to get 52 points and stay up.
We’re aiming big and if we miss that by a short distance, we would still have a productive season. If we finish eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, I think when the dust settles that will be a good step in the right direction.
Because we’re impatient and greedy, we think we’ve got a chance of gate-crashing. There are three teams competing for the automatics and one of them is going to drop into the play-offs, so that means there are going to be eight or nine teams competing for three places. We are in that shakeup. I think we are dark horses.
I think if Portsmouth get their act together and it looks like Charlton have got their act together, if they have a go, they come into the mix.
I think we sit there with a live chance, albeit an outside chance based on the way we are defending. But if we can sort that out, think of how many points we have left out there and I do feel that is the easiest part to fix.
We’ve got to flush the market out and see what defenders are out there. Alf going frees up his salary and also the fee, we get to reinvest that back into the team.
There will be a few more shocks before the window is out, but my job is to relentlessly keep moving the team forward and sentiment doesn’t get you any points.
This is a good place to come and train if you’re doing well. If you’re not, you’re going to leave.
Joey, with the defenders, do you believe in them as individuals but the blend is wrong? They have all shown they can play so is it the collective that is the problem?
It’s a team sport but they are playing as individuals. If one doesn’t make a mistake, the other does and that has been across the board.
I do tack the midfield on, I do class the midfield as the defence and the strikeforce. Good teams tend to start defending from the front and our lads up front do work hard without the ball for the lads, so I can’t tack them into it – it’s not really their job. It is the midfield and the defence’s job to make sure the back door is closed.
We are getting better but it’s just not good enough, so I can wait and these lads can learn on the job and it is probably going to cost us a chance of getting promoted this year, or we can go ‘Lads, thanks for your work to this point, but we are bringing in men to do your job, unfortunately. You’ve had 34 games and you are conceding north of one goal per game’.
This isn’t a charity or a development group and we’ve got to shake up the backline until we get the right method. For me, method and motive is key.
If you’ve got the motive, you will find a method. The method could be wrong and you get it wrong, and at this moment in time our defensive method is wrong, we haven’t got the right components.
Now what we have to find out is if the players in there do have the motive.
I look at them now and the goals they conceded are really soft. We got pushed around and nudged about, so it starts to ask questions for me about motive because I guarantee you if you were in the street and you had your wallet and somebody came and started pushing you and nudging you in the back and you are 6ft 4ins like Bobby Thomas is or you are 6ft 3ins like James Connolly is, they wouldn’t be pushing you for very long.
But all of a sudden because they’re on a football pitch, it’s a bit of naivety and I do put that at the door of being young and naïve, but also I haven’t got time to waste while you learn. We’ve given you enough opportunity but there are a lot of players out there going ‘OK, I’ll come and play for Bristol Rovers, you’ve got a chance of being promoted’ that were not interested in coming and signing for us in the summer because League Two sides trying to establish in League One were not really for them.
Now we are a League One trying to get into the Championship, all of a sudden agents are on the phone and there is a different market available to us. That might not be there in the summer and as unfortunate as it is, you have to move quick.
If we were trying to stay in the division, we might be able to persist with a few of these mistakes because we are going to stay up with what we’ve done, barring something insane happening.
But that’s not the goal anymore, the goal now because we’ve got a chance of it is ‘Let’s go get in that play-off picture’. I think it is possible and a very quick way to do that is getting rid of the people that aren’t doing it and bringing in people that can do it.
At worst, we’re bringing in another defender and he can only be as bad as what we’ve got. They concede a goal a game.
I am not putting it at any individual’s door. It’s a team sport and it’s a collective, so you haven’t cared enough about your position to get the people around you on the same page.
The goal Ryan Hardie scores against us is just a communication error. Nobody has shouted that there is a runner going through there, so people are blind through people’s mistakes or lack of alertness or competent skills for the job.
People are costing us and, unfortunately, if I allow that to continue, it will ultimately cost me, it will cost the football club, so in that case I would rather nip it in the bud now while we can.
The lads have had ample opportunity to show me how they can defend and they’ve got another 20-odd days before the window closes. I am here to get the club into the Championship and we’ve got an outside squeak of it this year.
I might have to light a fire under a couple of the young defenders that are in our team currently because at this moment in time they can’t do the job I am requiring them to do, which is keep the ball out of our goal, keep danger from of our box and make sure when we go out on a Saturday that if we score one goal, that should be enough to win the game.
In the summer, you were bemoaning big clubs stockpiling their players and not loaning them out. Are you finding the same problems this time around or has the market opened up a bit more?
They do. They protect their asset and they're careful where they loan them. I'd be the same. The reality is once you lift the curtain up on most of them, they're a myth. You play in the FA Cup team where you've got (Ilkay) Gundogan and all those boys around them, Cole Palmer looks a lot better; you put him in Sunderland's team and throw him into the Championship then you'll find out what he's truly about.
It's different when you're playing with (Phil) Foden, (Jack) Grealish - the game is a lot easier with them boys, so you can look a lot better than what maybe you are. Once you come out standing on your own two feet, you get a true reflection of what the player's about and I do really believe the loan system benefits young players.
Every club has a different ideology; Man City believe in sending them to Scotland and Holland, because they're development leagues and it's a bit easier on them. They get protected a bit more. Liverpool are a bit different, Man United as well.
So the challenge is getting access to these players but, as you know, the talented boys, they can be on 40, 50, 60 grand a week at 16, 17, 18, and the last thing they want to do is lift the wizard's curtain up on them and then everyone realises actually he was a mega-talented 16-year-old but he's actually nowhere near the level to be a 20-year-old, and they want to keep that inflated opinion of them so they can recoup the money they've invested in them.
The last thing they want to do is send them on loan to League One and everybody gets a base marker on them and everyone realises this is a bang average young player who's had a lot of interest, we've paid him far too much for what his actual talent is and now we can't recoup the losses.
I get it, it's business, it's buying and selling assets. If I was in their situation, and maybe I will be one day, we'd do the same - you pump the assets up to get a maximum return for your club. The trouble with that is, you do lose opportunities for good young players to get exposure.
Look at Elliot (Anderson). Gets 60 minutes in the game against Sheffield Wednesday. You need regular rhythm, you need to know you're playing, or at least have a chance of playing, Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday.
Training is brilliant for young players, being with the first team - brilliant, but if you've not got games for them at the weekend, to get that regular rhythm... You saw the progress he made just by playing half a season with us. I'm not saying, come back to us, but I'm talking about that kind of player; Connor Taylor the same. It just doesn't aid their development.
You think of how many people out there are being put through the same kind of process. I've been a young player, you look at them and you go, 'you've got to be out playing, you've got to get out there'.
There are some young players, Elliot is an example, who are demanding to go out. But they are the exception to the rule. I think there are a lot of players who are confident staying in the building, getting on the squad photo at the end of a game with the first team, being on the pitch with them with the trophy - Liverpool, Man City, whoever - putting the Instagram photos up.
I think, now, the world is slightly changing and football, because what it brings. When I was a kid, you wanted to be a footballer to be a footballer; you didn't know what was going to be £50m contracts around the corner. You knew you'd have a nice life but you didn't think of the figures that would be exchanged as they do now.
Now these kids don't only have themselves to look after, they've got an armada of people who are absolutely dependent on their financial income because that's their nest egg, that's their retirement pot. When you're young, because of your potential, people give you what you want to get you in the building. But you know from experience, if you give too much money to young people at the wrong time, you take away the motivation and you usually massively hinder the potential.
My colleagues at the Liverpool Echo reported you were at the Liverpool U21s game on Wednesday, how much of the process this month is about you getting out and about and looking at young players?
I say we need experienced defenders and then I go and watch a 21s game! I don't care how old they are, I'll level with you, whether they're 36 or 16 - I just want good players. I said to the lads, people talk about young players not talking but when do you start talking? One, 18 months? My little lad is four and a bit months now and he's making noises, he's not talking but he's making sounds, so he'll probably start speaking one, two, three years of age, depending on your cycle.
So, you've got no excuse at 18, 19, 20 to not be talking. 'Well, I'm a young player', no you're not, you're an adult. You've got a mouth, you can talk. Just because you're young, I don't get it. I went into the first team as an 18, 19, 20 year old and was just, as you can imagine, just talking all the time and before you know it, you integrate into the group.
As you get older, you become a lot more dependent on your communication because the speed of sound travels faster than any physical output you'll ever get, no matter how strong or fast you are. People don't utilise it, why? Because all the nonsense they're taught, all the theoretical stuff they're taught, they don't teach you what you need - you need to be able to speak. You can't raise your voice, you can't use swear words... well, that's no good because when you go into a stadium and there's 60,000 in, you think they're not going to raise their voice or swear at you?
So you're preparing people for something they're not going to face. I have to be careful here because of my Crystal Palace comments I annoyed the whole of Development footy. But you're preparing them for something that they're not going to face. Yeah, there will be the odd one who gets through into the Prem, and gets an opportunity, but everyone else is going to have to scrap between Premier League and probably National League to forge a career in the game.
if you're not allowed to swear on the training ground, and lads aren't allowed to raise their voices, well you're going to get a real culture shock when you get thrown into the arena with mortgages and points on the line. At that point, it's too late whether they sink or swim, that should have been done years before in the sanctity of an academy.
'Oh, what does he know?' I was forged at an incubator at Manchester City where they got after you. You were challenged and if you didn't do stuff there was a punishment; clean boots and if you answer back to the senior pros you got a clip for it. There was a consequence.
You could see the first team training pitch, everyone was capped in terms of salary, nobody was getting an agent or getting five-year deals. And we had 27 full internationals in about six years. City haven't done the same since and they've got an endless supply of money and talent. They've got one or two through, but nowhere near the numbers.
The reality of it is, the game at this moment in time is in a very precarious situation because we're bottle-necking elite players at 17-23 and if we don't get them out on loan we're going to kill the end product that they could be at 27, 28 for the parent club or the international team they choose to play for. Because those years are absolutely vital. And if you get stuck on your arse in the reserves or playing Carabao Cup and then not playing for another four months, then getting on for five minutes when the team is 4-1 up. If anyone thinks that's conducive towards developing a player then they're mentally ill.
Finally, is there any news on the Scott Sinclair situation?
We’re grafting away. We’ve made a bit of progress on it today (Thursday) and the ball is in Scotty’s court. We’ve given him a final offer and we hope that’s enough.
If it’s not, then we’ll be going in a different direction, but I need to get cracking here. I need to secure the assets I’ve got.
I think most of them are tied down now with Scotty being the last one, and then it will be flipping a few out.
Alfie’s gone today and he is the second one after Trevor Clarke going last week. That will give us a bit of space to bring people in and we’ve got to make sure we bring in quality.
It’s not about filling the training ground and changing room with bodies. We don’t need that, we actually need less bodies but more quality.
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