Joey, that must have been another frustrating watch for you?
Yeah, it’s tough. You work hard all week and you want to give our fans a good account of ourselves, certainly after the disappointment of Morecambe last week, and within a minute and 30 seconds, we’ve conceded a penalty. You’re chasing your tail a little bit.
We had a lot of ball without loads of purpose, which is becoming a regular theme and we must be better, but I can’t fault the lads’ effort and application. They are still brave and trying to play and still trying to do the right things.
There are some good spells and moments in there, but if you don’t win games of football they don’t get remembered and people, obviously, get disappointed.
The second goal, we’re chasing the game and trying to get back in it and make something happen and we got sucker-punched on the counter.
Disappointing. We’ve lost three games to teams in the bottom five and six and it stings, but we’ve got to stick together and keep scrapping away because if we’re not careful, we could get drawn into a fight we don’t want to be involved in.
It seems like in all three games, the teams have set up deep defensively to deny you space in the areas where you have been so good this season and you have played a lot in front of them. You have got to find a way to penetrate those defences.
I just think you have runs in the season, certainly when you’re a newly-promoted side, when things go for you and you give a great account of yourself and you are going to have little blips and bad spells.
The key is making sure your good spells last long and your bad spells don’t last so long.
For us to lose three on the spin and if you tap in the cup game, that’s four, that’s not acceptable. To do ourselves justice, we need to be a little bit more productive in the final third with the amount of ball we’ve got, and not so much playing in front of the opposition team.
But again, you’ve got to look at the positives. Jarell Quansah in there, I thought he was outstanding today and it was a really mature performance. Young Lamare looked a really good prospect coming in and getting a cameo and there are enough good signs in our group and our team to know the best version of us is not what we have been in the past three games.
We’ve got to find our way out of this mini blip as soon as possible.
If you play the kind of football you like playing, when you’re short of confidence, sometimes that extra touch can give the defence the time to shift over and fill that space.
Yeah and when you don’t win games, naturally a bit of apprehension creeps in and you can see that. There are a lot of young players out there and they are not immune to that.
But also, the challenge as a young player or any player, is to have the bravery to play in those moments. Anyone can play when their tail’s up and they’re confident and they’re winning. Football’s an easy game.
The real characters step forward when the chips are against you a little bit and it’s tough and there is a tougher atmosphere. That is when the real leaders and characters step forward.
We’ve got a really good dressing room in there and they are hurting at the moment like all of us. We are feeling those defeats, but also I know we will use that as a fuel to drive us forward in the next period.
Are those the kind of things that you are saying particularly to the younger players that this is where you’ve got to show your bravery, not in your tackles but in the decisions they are making?
Yeah, and I’ve been here before with groups in the past. I’m four or five years into my coaching career now and you accept that there are highs and lows and everything else in between.
I have also been manager of a Bristol Rovers team that wasn’t capable of having a go and having a scrap and putting in 90-minute performances.
The first time I was here in League One, we had 38 points after 46 games. We have got 37 points with 17 games to go. It was 20 games, but now we’ve got 17.
There are no guarantees there, but also I know the quality we have. At the minute, for whatever reason, we’re not quite firing on all cylinders and the only way out of that is getting on the training pitch, sticking together and figuring your way out as a group through it.
We’ve got some really good lads in there that really care about the quartered jersey and we’re all hurting tonight and we will all make sure we work tirelessly this week to be better.
Joey, does it feel like Groundhog Day? You have conceded the first goal a lot lately and that has given teams exactly what they want, they have sat in shape and they have milked the clock and they have got you frustrated. Does it feel like you’re in a cycle and need to break out?
Yeah, and again, we watched the 18 minutes of the Morecambe game with the lads and it was a game we should be in the ascendancy in but a shot from distance ends up in the back of the net and we are chasing the game a little bit.
Today, the lads were keen to give a good account of themselves and pretty much the first venture they have anywhere near our box ends up with a penalty.
It is frustrating and it does go like that in football. There are times where you feel like there is a black cat in the building, but also on the other side of that, when you get your tail up like the end of last season, you get that bit of the rub of the green when you’re in the ascendancy.
We’ve got to get back to basics and back to being hard to beat. That leads to winning games because you are in games a lot longer.
We have got match-winners littered throughout our squad, but when they have a quiet day and they have them together, and certainly at this moment in time in the past three games, the strikeforce that has fired us into the play-off picture has naturally had a little bit of a dip in its output and the key is it puts pressure on other parts of the team that haven’t been functioning particularly well.
For us, we have got to be a lot more frugal with our defensive output because if you can’t keep clean sheets, you give yourself a mountain to climb virtually every Saturday.
If you can’t keep clean sheets, you have got to get that first goal because the opportunity for the opportunity to sit in and counter is difficult.
Where do you see the confidence of the group? Do you think they have got the blank minds where they are not weighed down by previous weeks, or do you think there are one or two feeling the slump kicking in?
It’s natural, when you win, everybody’s happy and confident; you can win 5, 6, 7 games on the spin but if you lose three that affects confidence levels. We’ve all played football and you play much better when you’re confident than when you’re apprehensive. The only way out of that is getting results and winning games.
We can moan about it and we can talk about it - the only way to change the feel is to only produce on a matchday. So all the work we do in the build-up is only training, and training only takes you so far.
When you get out there on the pitch, if you’ve had a great week’s training, it doesn’t count for anything unless you produce on the Saturday. So we’ve got to get back to playing as a team and being hard to beat and with the match-winners we have in our team, if we do that then we have a chance of beating anyone.
We can beat anyone in this division - that’s the most frustrating thing because we’ve lost three games to bottom six teams. But it’s a great learning for our younger players in terms of, if you come off of it by just a couple of per cent, anyone in this division can beat you. Similarly, if you’re at it and as close to 100 per cent as you can get, then you can beat anyone.
What is the situation with James Belshaw and Antony Evans, who both missed out?
Belly felt something in between his ribs in the warm-up at Morecambe. Obviously, he was diving around and saving the shots for the lads who were starting and he felt his rib.
He tried to train on Monday and Tuesday but he was struggling. He would have been able to go on the bench or start had he taken a painkilling injection, but as we were going to start Ellery, we said to Belly ‘Just get it right’.
By that time, Ellery will probably have played his third game and we’ll see where we are.
And Antony?
A bruised foot. He picked it up in the game on Saturday; somebody whopped him,
Again, he trained on Thursday and was in far too much pain and he couldn’t make the squad with the bruising in his foot.
It feels like Jordan Rossiter and Lewis Gibson will make a big difference when they come back. Is there any update on their injuries?
Yeah, I’ve got a flight booked tomorrow to Lourdes with the pair of them. We’re dipping them in the water and hopefully we get a miracle and they will be fit for Saturday.
But look, we’ve got enough good players out there. When those lads come back, they are really important players to us.
We have certainly missed them with the composure Lewis brings to the backline and the amount of turnover balls Jordan gets for the team, you just can’t replace the pair of them at this level.
But we’ve still got players out there that should be able to do the job and the blow of people getting injured is just normal for every team across the season. We can’t pin our hopes to one or two players staying fit.
It’s a group effort and there are going to be be suspensions and injuries and the squad has got to remain steadfast and make sure that level of performance is certainly higher than it has been in the past few weeks.
Will you add to your group via the free agent market?
No. I haven’t seen who’s out there but I can’t see it. I’m happy with what we’ve got. I was quite vocal with what I wanted (in the window), it didn’t materialise that way but I’m happy the window is closed because we’ve still got Collins and Coburn in the building.
We’ve had a few good additions. I think you’ve all seen what Jarell is, he’s a real quality player. Young Lamare is a real top player as well. He’s only a baby but I think he’s going to be a really good player; well thought of at Villa.
So, to add them to our group is key. What you get out of young players who knows, but just the little cameo from what we’ve seen of them we know they’ve got quality. Ellery and Grant, who are a little bit older, have come into that.
But we’ve flipped a few lads out, who just wanted to go and play, to freshen the group up. That’ll now settle down.
February, the window’s closed, everyone knows where we are, we know the group we’ve got and we just have to get to work, and make sure we get three points out of the next opportunity which is a tough away game at Lincoln.
Joey, obviously Jordan being out has been tough, but I thought Grant Ward offered a lot of energy in the middle of the park and was one of the better performers.
They had a go, the lads, and they have tried to play in the right way. Alright, we haven’t had much purchase; we huffed and puffed a bit and there were not as many quality moments in their final third as we would like.
But the penalty changed the game. It gets them the goal they need and it gives them something to hang onto and with the pace they have got on the frontline, there is always going to be a counter-attacking threat.
I do feel we controlled most of the game, but when you concede after two minutes, you make it tricky because they are fighting for their lives and they have got something to hang onto.
A frustrating day, but I can’t fault my players. They kept going, they kept scrapping for the shirt and trying to do the right things. If you keep that attitude and application, eventually, your results profile turns.
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