With his Revels in hand Tony Mowbray faced the press today ahead of the second leg of our Championship playoff semi final against Luton Town tomorrow evening.
GOOD SPIRITS
“Yeah good I think the team are good in good spirits, I think I’ve said it all season we believe we can compete against anybody in the league. I think this game is against a team who finished eleven points in front of us, third in the league, fantastic season that Luton have had.”
SECOND LEG SIMILAR TO THE FIRST
“They’ve been growing their club for the last three to four years and they’ve got an experienced group of players, very together you can feel that as I said that in the last press conference we feel their comradeship and I think we did amazing to come out on top in the first game and I’m not anticipating too much different in the second game, it’s a tighter environment of course, if anything they might double down on what they do and how they play we have to try and do the same because as I’ve said all season we don’t have ‘plan B’ really, putting a quick guy up top and turning him around all the time and playing in behind. We will play as we play and try and create opportunities. What gives us a lot of confidence is we’ve generally scored a lot of goals without centre forwards and I think the team feel they’re going to score and if we score they need to score three to get through so we’ll be going to try and win the football match and be positive, play our game and see how we get on.”
TURNING NEGATIVES INTO A POSITIVE
“I think adversity is a strong bonder of players, they all take it on board, they all listen as I’ve said all season long, a lot of these players have got good strong mindsets, growth mindsets, want to improve and get better and I’ve told you Malcolm Allison once played me a whole season at left back, a 6’2 centre half playing at left back like a fish out of water and yet when I look through my career it taught me so much about angles and distances and there’s always a positive to come out of a negative, Lynden Gooch played left centre half in a back three, it’s a big call but the lad, a bit like Luke O’Nien desperate to please, I’ve told you the story of O’Nien says ‘get me upfront I’ll get you 15 goals” he says to me and I’m thinking its the same with Goochy, he’ll play anywhere really and he’s driven, motivated, committed and yeah let’s keep rolling with it he did very well the other day.”
TRAI HUME
“What do you say about Trai Hume? I remember trai coming to see me the first month or so I was here, telling me is he going to get a chance and the team were functioning alright, I said you have to be patient really wait his opportunity, you can see he’s a good player in training, I can see him pass the ball, I can see he’s mobile, got a good spring, he’s got lots of good attributes and once he got his opportunity he’s never looked back, he’s been an ever present in the team and played in numerous positions but another great lad really and as I go along whether I talk about O’Nien or Gooch or Trai Hume, there’s lots and lots of these characters you can depend on really and whatever you ask them do they embrace it and give it their very best.”
