Joey, a disappointing night I’m sure, but I imagine that disappointment will fade quite quickly knowing you got 90 minutes into the legs of 11 players?
Yeah, you always want to win. Ideally, you wouldn’t split the team across the games because we’ve probably just about got the squad for that with a load of young kids, unknown lads in the academy and I’m still learning their names, backing up and going on the bench.
It’s something Shorty (Tom Short) has done at Burnley in the past where you get that double hit and get 90 minutes into most of your players because at this stage of the season it is about fitness and making sure you get through this stage of the season with no injuries.
As we get into the league campaign, competition for places will naturally hot up.
What are the positives and negatives you’ll take from that?
Everyone got 90 minutes and everyone got through the game. Alfie Kilgour coming back from a long-term injury. Josh Grant, getting 90 minutes into his tank will be key. Sam Finley off the back of a bit of tonsillitis.
The real bright spark for me was Aaron Collins again. He looked like he summered really well and he was probably our most influential player. It would have been alright had one or two had turned up with him. Unfortunately, the other eight or nine decided to not have their best games tonight.
But we got the 90 minutes in and we look to get them back in tomorrow morning, reassess the bodied and build towards the game on Saturday against Swansea.
In the club interview, you hinted players are playing for their careers. Are you able to be more specific on that? Could players leave this summer if they don’t impress you in this last week or two?
Yeah, I think so. We’ve still got the group building and by the time you get to the end of pre-season and start getting into the season, your starting XI should start to firm up.
There will be a bit of wiggle room in the market, we’re aware we’ve got work to do and that means players in and players out. Pre-season is always an audition for players who maybe haven’t played the minutes they wanted to play last season.
You can see from Harvey Saunders nicking two and Johnny Marquis nicking two, we’ve got competition right throughout the squad. Lofty gets on the scoresheet tonight, Azza scored the other day in the Melksham game.
We want the strongest team we can going into League One and we won’t carry any passengers.
We haven’t spoken since you signed John Marquis. Can you sum up why you have brought him to the football club?
You can see tonight he is a proven goalscorer and he is someone who knows the level. It will take a little bit of time, he’s a couple of weeks behind the boys coming off the back of his honeymoon and he’s only played 45 tonight but he has managed to find the back of the net which I think will do him well.
When you look through it, Aaron was superb, certainly in the second half of the season last year, but not a tried-and-tested League One goalscorer. Lofty, the same. Harvey Saunders, the same. Although they’ve had a go, we needed somebody and, if I’m honest, certainly on that fronline we’ve got a bit of work to do.
I still think I’m six – and tonight has made me think possibly seven – away from being happy and in the course of that we will probably lose three or four as well.
Looking at what you had last season to what you have now, you’ve lost wingers and a starting centre-back. Is it right to presume those are areas of focus for you in the window at the moment?
Yeah, I think we need a left-back, or we certainly need to firm that position up. We need a right-sided centre-half, we need at least two more midfielders and probably three on the frontline.
We’ve lost Sammy Nicholson, Luke Thomas and Elliot Anderson and we haven’t replaced those as yet.
For us, the priority will be making sure that when we start the season we are not in a position where we are weaker than last season, but when you lose Elliot Anderson it is difficult to replace that. Apart from that outlier, we have to insulate the group against that.
For me, the amount of times I’ve gone through pre-season winning all the games and then losing the opening game of the season, and then other times losing all pre-season and then winning the opening game. That is the key for us. The key is Forest Green Rovers at our place on July 30 and making sure when we get there we’ve got our best XI available.
I remember last pre-season losing to Barnet 3-0, drawing with Havant & Waterlooville, drawing at Melksham, drawing with Plymouth and then beating Oxford with two Brett Pitman goals and then we lost on the opening day at Mansfield and lost to Stevenage.
We don’t want to be slow starters because it’s a tough league and we want to get to 52 points as quick as we can, but it is early doors in pre-season, we’re two weeks out and a load of lads have got minutes in the bag but they’ve also shown us the work we need to do in the market.
Jordan Rossiter missed the Melksham game and he missed tonight. What’s the latest with him?
Jordy’s trained and the game probably came three or four days early for him. Hopefully we’ll get him some minutes on Saturday, all being well.
Have you made headway in appointing a goalkeeping coach?
We’re monitoring it at the minute. We had a few different ideas and we were back and forth with the goalie coaches out there.
We interviewed a couple of candidates and we didn’t feel they were the correct feel for us. If you can’t appoint good people, don’t appoint people just for the sake of it.
We’re still figuring our way through it. Anssi is filling the position at the moment in the short-term.
I’m speaking to the keepers every day and so far it has been alright. They’ve got a good working relationship from last year.
Finally, can you sum up the trip to Portugal and to be able to finish it with such a prestigious game against former Champions League winners?
It was good. You’re always honoured to play clubs with that kind of standing in the game. It was a fixture that wasn’t ideal in terms of time of day due to our flight and we had to squeeze it in, but you can’t turn down the opportunity to play double winners in that country and Champions League-level opposition.
It was a great end to a good week. I thought we’d take some positives out of it and for our players, certainly our younger players, to test themselves and to see the body compositions of those players. A lot of them were struck by how fit and lean the boys were and they see the big fella Pepe at his age and he still looks really fit. He could be a big inspiration for some of the boys.
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