Ahead of our Good Friday clash against 17th placed Hull City, Tony Mowbray has opened up on the game…
MEDIA AFFECTING THE TEAM
‘I think driven by the way of the world all of the main sports TV shows that run on opinion now, spend a half hour driving in the morning listening to sports radios as well and it’s all opinion on you now if you lose a game then they question everybody. Now when I was a young player in the 80s and 90s, it was four or five local journalists and the guys you knew and then you would build up a level of trust with them, then sit in the pub after training and have a chat then the story would appear a day or two later. But now everything is online, everything is being discussed on podcasts and everybody has opinions, not just ex-footballer’s, ex-coaches and lots, and lots of different people but I think that is the way of the world. Is it more difficult because it stimulates conversation amongst the masses that watch and listen to it, and with football coaches/managers generally once you’ve lost the fanbase, never mind the owner it becomes difficult because it impacts the team.”
INJURIES
“The treatment room is pretty full, but I try not to focus on that too much, it’s difficult. It would be a similar scenario to the best team in the league, and the players that we tend to pick they find to work as hard as they do but we’ve got a really good set of guys, not just footballers but human beings that work really hard for each other so the injuries are not irrelevant because I’ve said all year, if we had have a centre-forward whose lived all of his life scoring goals and every time we had been on the pitch he was desperate to score we would have picked up more points but the effort, work-rate, togetherness, the camaraderie of the group and the connectivity with the support base is all strong.”
YOUNG SQUAD
“Rather than young, I would say they’re inexperienced to the Championship as it is a lot different to League One, I would suggest and the young lads that have come from abroad from France, and Costa Rica have adapted well to the league and tried to express their qualities. The job from the coaching staff is to try and gel them together, knit them together and when you’re so inexperienced and at a certain age it can be an eye-opener the Championship because of the intensity of it, the physicality of it and the fact that there is a game every three to four days it can catch people out. But they have adapted really well, and an amazing fan base behind them home and away, driving them on of course and keeping their adrenaline going but again I have mentioned it before that the teams that finished above them in the League One last year are well below them this year, and the players deserve huge credit for adapting to the environment.”
HOME FORM/HULL CITY
“We’ve talked about our levels at home really and searched about how much we do compared to what the opposition do at the Stadium Of Light. We have to try and find the answers, some teams come to play really negatively, waste time early on. It’s down to us to play progressive and on the front foot and yet sometimes against certain teams who’re pretty athletic, they’re more on the front foot than you are, the more vulnerable you become. So, we have to get the balance right each game and sometimes have to accept that it’s going to be a stodgy football match and hopefully we can nick a winner because if we are too brave or too adventurous with the formation or the players, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the counterattack. We’re doing alright, but Hull at home, we totally respect them. I think Liam’s done an amazing job site he’s been there, he’s took them right out of trouble, and he is a very, very talented coach, where I think it’s a dangerous game for us but one that we are aiming to be really aggressive, positive and get the points if can on the back of a point away at Burnley. Three points at home against Hull would be a very good result.”
EXPECTATIONS FOR THE GAME
“I think that Hull are very good in possession, generally they’ll drop into a 4-4-2 and drop pretty deep but when they have the ball, they ask a lot of questions of you, I think it will be a good football match and a tactical football match and we have to be mindful and wary of the decent results they’ve had of recent. They’re a dangerous team I would suggest, they’re more than capable to giving us some problems.”
