Alex Neil looks ahead to a difficult game away to Wigan, as the lads look to finally earn their first win under the Scottish Head Coach...
WATCHING WIGAN
"I was at their game against Crewe not long ago. I’ve been to see them two or three times this year already - just when I was going out and watching games. I think they’re experienced, I think they’ve got good know-how, they’ve got guys that know and understand how to get out of the division. I think they’ve got a good mixture between understanding when to turn the ball and try to play from deep. And obviously they’ve recruited a squad for them that’s going to obviously try and get them out of the division. They've added to that in the window as well with the likes of Magennis coming in."
AGE
"They certainly don’t have as many young players as we’ve got. I think that’s fair. If you look at the average age of the squad it’s significantly different from ours. Every club if you look at them across the board are different in some way shape or form."
BALANCE
"I’m trying my best but the difficulty you’ve got is with 13 games left that conundrum is kind of tough. Because ideally what we’d like to do is work the lads that haven’t been playing a lot harder an get them some more minutes. And equally for some of the lads that’ve done far too much, particularly for where they are in this current stage in their career, give them more air to breathe a bit."
VARIABLES
"The difficultly you’ve got is trying to maintain the quality levels in the starting 11 and be competitive, by not dropping some of the better players out and equally not players who are not up to speed which means they can’t give their best anyway. The variables are really hard to control at this moment in time and that’s probably my biggest challenge."
INJURIES
"I’d probably say I’ve got more problems and less solutions at this point in time. I’m obviously not going to divulge in terms of who that may or may not be. We’ve got a couple one’s we’re looking at and hoping can get rolled out for the game."
HARD WORK
"All I can say is I’m working as hard as I can - you know, I been here for just over a week. There are certain things that naturally I think we’ve brought to light, you can see where the issues lie so I’m not naive to that in any means. Equally, you’re always going to go through tough points in a season and unfortunately for us I’ve adopted a situation that hasn’t been going well. Obviously we’ve been trying to turn it around immediately. What I will say is sometimes I think it takes one result and things can quickly shift, in terms of the sentiment and feeling. I’m more talking about inside than outside. The facts are with the fans and the demands are there in terms of what they expect."
CHALLENGING
"It’s probably, I wouldn’t say difficult, more challenging in terms of the young lads and seeing where they are physically and mentally. And equally some of the older lads, we’ve brought in, where they are physically. So that’ll certainly make it more challenging."
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