Bobby, what a performance. Two goals and a clean sheet, could it have gone any better?
It was one of those days where everything seemed to go right!
It’s important to enjoy those days in football, because they don’t come around too often, and to go to Aveley, who haven’t lost many games at home this season, it just makes the win even more incredible.
You said before Saturday how tough the ground was to play at, yet we attacked them with chances from the start. Was being dangerous and aggressive something that was drilled into the players?
I like my teams to be hard to beat, and when I say that I mean that I also like them to be dangerous and attack every single team, no matter who they are. We’ve always gone into every game with the intention to win, even the big guns, and, on Saturday, we just went there and had a go.
After drawing to two top sides, it was important for us to beat a great side, especially away from home. Now, we’ve ticked that off our list.
The whole team played well, but I’ll single out a couple of performers, one of them being Joel Rollinson. For someone who has just come back from loan, he certainly played like someone desperate to be involved in every game..
I hope people understand that I don’t just send players out on loan for the sake of it. I send them out for a reason. I wanted Joel to get match fitness ahead of important games like these. If he stayed with us during that time, he may not have gotten the game time that he needed. But, with him playing, he was able to come back straight into the team and put in a magnificent performance.
Everyone was excellent on the day, but there were two or three individuals that put in a hell of a performance. Joel was one of them.
We can’t ignore the goalscorer, Malachi Linton. What makes him so good is that he can do absolutely everything, so it’s fantastic that he’s consistently adding goals to his game.
He’s a special talent. People forget he’s only 23-years-old. To have him playing the way he is, that’s pleasing for me to see that.
A happy player is a good player. That’s something I try to instil into my players. We all enjoy the game when we start playing it. I think that’s something that’s forgotten in football today. I say to the players: “Remember that you’re at a big club, but enjoy yourselves, too”.
They played like experienced players at the weekend, so, when you analyse the age of the squad on paper, that just shows how hard they work behind-the-scenes. Someone actually said to me on Saturday that they’d never seen a side so organised for their age!
That hard work appears to be paying off. After losing three in a row, we’re now unbeaten in our last three games.
You’ve said in the past that the great thing about this team is that, after each setback, they dust themselves down and keep going.
When you have a young group of players, you will get setbacks. But, that is when you judge a man. This has been the case my whole life, which is why I just try to let the football do the talking as much as possible.
We had three really tough games, where we happened to get beaten by better sides. I’m not sure you could call that a setback. Our approach didn’t change during that time; we just need to make sure we continue our journey. That’s where I hope my experience can help these players.
We may lose the next three games, but that won’t make us a bad team overnight. It’s just about how we come out the other end, which is one thing we’ve always done well this season.
It seems that with our matches, as well as winning, learning from our losses is the most important thing for us.
One thing in football is that everyone is happy with a win. But, that’s unrealistic every week. You just have to pick up enough points to make sure that you are where you want to be.
We’re disappointed not to be a lot higher up the table, which is down to our draws. But, when I look at where we are, coupled with injuries to some of our key players, we are not far from being a top side. But, with what we have right now, you can already see glimpses of where we’ll be in the future,
Moving onto today, we spoke about adapting to tough away games last week. The boys will have to do the same tonight. What’s the mood like in the changing room going into this game?
As you can imagine, we’re going into the game with confidence. We’re very buoyant, even though we know that we’re going to an absolute mud swamp. So, we know we need to compete tonight against a physical side with a lot of powerful players. It will be a difficult tie, but there’s another three points up for grabs.
Instead of coming up against a team fighting for promotion, we’re now up against a team fighting to stay in the league. What sort of different challenges will exist in tomorrow’s game?
If they win their games in hand, they’re mid-table, so they’re only near the bottom right now because they’ve played less games than everyone else. I just think of tonight as the next game.
The condition of the pitch does suit their physical players better, but my group adapts to all conditions. That’s what I like about them so much. This will be a physical, demanding game, where my players will need to dig in.
I told them straight after the game on Saturday: “Let’s recover properly and analyse Truro. Forget the fatigue, the pitch, or the weather, let’s go there and beat them”.
As always, what has been your key message to the players going into tonight’s game?
No excuses. We need to turn up, challenge ourselves, and prove that we can handle any situation.
