Lee Johnson met the press ahead of our trip to Pompey on Saturday. Here’s his craic…
ON MOMENTUM
“We’re always very processed here, in terms of our mindset and not believing our own hype. Not being to defeatist when we have a blip. We don’t actually mind who scores, just that we score and we’re winning. One week it’s going to be Nathan Broadhead scoring, the next week it’s going to be Stewart, we have to make sure we’re really consistent. Composure is one of the key words we use, if we can keep our composure, we can become a force to be reckoned with.”
DAJAKU’S FIRST GOAL
“What was nice is that his mum and dad came to see it as well. It was nice that they’d come over for the first time and he got a fair few minutes and it was beautiful finish after some really good work from Nathan Broadhead.”
PORTSMOUTH
What we really need to respect is that Portsmouth have got a really good fan base like ourselves. We know we’re still developing our game style and trying to improve it. We’ve seen some players who’ve started (recently) and they’ve looked like they’ve been here years. We’re always aiming for that dominance (talking about the Cheltenham performance in reference to the upcoming Pompey game).”
EXCITED
“I’m quite excited on where we can take this squad, I’m a bit warped like that in I tend to get a excited about philosophy. I believe good results come on the back of some executing the philosophy well.”
FANS
They can have the freedom to feel absolutely how they want. If they want to want fly away and be happy and delighted at the team then great, if they want to keep us (the team) pencil sharp and keep us honest then that’s ok as well. We’ll try and educate the players to play with real atmospheres as well. I’m not sure how many fans we’ll take down there (Portsmouth). I know we travel really, but, it’s such a long journey. As a manager, I always pick the team like my little girl’s life depends on it. There hundreds of hours of analysis gone into the opposition, our performance the players physical stat. You pull in all this information from the science, your eyes talking to the lads and watching them move. I’ve got so much on my mind at the moment, with the Papa John’s Trophy, the internationals and the team for Pompey, that I have got time to enjoy the wins too much. You often don’t get a chance to enjoy the wins. I always like it when the fans are happy, you know. I’m naturally the type of person that wants to people please. It’s nice to see a connection between the style of football, the brand and the fans, who are obviously passionate about the club. Obviously, on the flipside of that you want the players to be confident enough to produce that level of performance, but not for them (the players) to become overconfident and complacent.
