Jack Ross has been chatting about his managerial philosophies and his relationships with his co workers. “I’m probably the one who is a bit more balanced and pragmatic, measured in my approach. I’ve said a lot about my relationship with Stewart. He, as a person, genuinely gets excited about owning this football club and all that goes with it. He has been very supportive of everything I’ve tried to do at the club and he was wanting to make sure we left the window in a strong position and I feel he has managed to do that. I’ve got to be honest and it’s not too bad for me as a manager but speak to other people in the club and it’s a lot more hectic, Speak to the communications department, Brett (Baker, assistant club secretary) in his role, Leanne (Bennett, football admin manager), Karen (Casey, executive assistant), there’s people in the club it affects a lot more than me, but they don’t sit down in a press conference and explain what it’s all about! They do a lot of hard work that nobody sees and it probably does impact on them more.’ I probably have trained myself to be level and not get too up and not get too down in the whole job as a manager. You can get up and down very quickly anyway so I have the same approach in January and to the recruitment of players. If I didn’t have that outlook then I would be all over the place in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been OK in the whole process because I’ve worked on the basis – and it might sound very different – that for me my job is always to get the best out of what I’ve got. If the window shut and we hadn’t got anyone in then I wouldn’t have sat here and moaned about it, I would have looked at how I can make each of those players better every week of the season. That’s how I’ve always felt in the window. The January window is a peculiar one. Ask most managers and they will say it’s something that’s been created, well not created but it’s become something with showbiz and a hysteria surrounding it. It may have looked like that for us on Thursday but for me I’d prefer if it wasn’t like that. In amongst that I’m still doing my job which is preparing a team for Saturday and I can say there’s perception I’m sat in my office, with my feet up, TV on and a cup of tea and my mobile phone beside me. It’s not like that, I can tell you. I’m out there on the training pitch ready to do my job and on Thursday I was on the training pitch with my mobile phone away in the office. Probably, like a lot of things, if you are looking from the outside in then it seems to be more enjoyable than if you are on the inside.’’
SAFC MD Tony Davison reckons that the club’s running costs have been cut by half since the takeover: “We have halved our outgoings. We were a football club with expected costs of £50m and expected revenue of £15m. We have worked hard to cut that down to less than £25m and raise revenue. We have taken the first steps to make it a sustainable football club. If your outgoings are three times your income, you do not have a sustainable business. Everybody, from the board to the coach to the players and the hard-working staff we have here are committed to putting the club back at the heart of the city,” he said.
Meanwhile, Denver Hume had a run out with the U23s against Reading on Sunday and is feeling good about his overall rehab. "It's been a while but I'm obviously pleased to get back out there, pleased to get some minutes, and hopefully I can push on now. I did my medial ligament and I had a little tear in my meniscus, that was what was giving me the trouble, but once I got that sorted out, it has been quite good since then. It was just a case of seeing how long I could last on Sunday. I've been back in training for a couple of weeks now. They just said to see how I felt after 60 or 70 minutes on Sunday and it was all good, so I was pleased to play the full 90. I'm not sure of the plan now. Ideally I would maybe play one more game with the U23s just to get some more minutes and make sure I still feel good, but I'll wait and see what happens. All injuries are frustrating but you just have to try and bounce back from them and recover as quickly as possible. The injury came at the wrong time. I was doing quite well but sometimes things like that happen in football and you just have to recover from it and come back stronger. And at least the team has been doing really well while I've been out. It's good to see the lads doing well and we are pushing up the league, so hopefully I can get back in the team and play a part as well."
In other news, Jimmy Dunne has been chatting about his move to Sunderland how well he’s settling in. "It's not just the size of the club, it's the pressure and expectation that comes with that. It's got a huge history, and being part of something potentially amazing, you want that. I needed somewhere where I could keep learning and keep pushing forward. I want to thrive on that pressure, being out of your comfort zone is how you improve as a player. If you're too comfortable you won't push forward so the pressure of the club is going to help me improve. I'm glad that the expectations here are so high. The leagues I've been in previously have all been very physical ones so that's a part of my game now. In League One there's not a lot of time to settle in so you've just go to kind of jump in and go for it. I've tried to do that.”
