After last night’s 1-1 draw to Rotherham, the boss has had to defend some of his decisions regarding the starting line-up with some surprise inclusions.
NO EMBO
“I just felt we needed to win the midfield battle against them. Elliot Embleton is a wonderful footballer but he understands that there are certain specific games that I think are suited to specific players.”
PREPARATION
“People will argue if we did this from the start or we done this and done that…. all the homework that I’ve done, all the teams that have beaten Rotherham, I watched Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday, Oxford, all the best footballing teams and they’ve all lost. And then I watched Shrewsbury, Fleetwood who beat them twice.”
BLUEPRINT
“There is a blueprint for any team to beat any team and I’ve spent all week watching the best part of five or six matches to try and give us the best chance of winning the game. If it means having to drop a player out who played particularly well in the last game, then that’s fine.”
UNDERSTANDING
“The lads do understand that it is a squad game and that is what is required and needed at certain moments. Embo has been fantastic in the last three matches and came on and contributed to the game. It is what it is.
DESERVED
"It wasn't going to be a game full of chances, it was never going to be like Saturday. These teams don't allow you to pop it about, you beat them by going up, back and through. We didn't link the ball well enough in the first half but from the second half, I think we deserved a point.”
TRAI HUME
“Trai has trained really well. He’s arguably trained well enough that he should have started games well before tonight. Like I said to him, when I’ve got Winny [Carl Winchester] and different things, I just think at this stage in the season that it’s hard to put a kid in when he’s not had a lot of minutes and demand a lot of him.”
GAPS
“I think what you could see tonight was the certain gaps. We mentioned it a few times that we don’t really have any full-backs apart from Trai. Even when Broady [Nathan Broadhead] came off, I had to put Luke O’Nien up top. But we got there.”
BROADY
“He was touch and go. In hindsight I maybe shouldn’t have played him, but hopefully he’ll be OK.”
