Below are selected highlights from Wednesday afternoon’s press conference. You can find the full audio above or in your We Are Terriers podcast feed.
Liam Manning
Adam Pope (BBC Radio Leeds): Alfie May is looking at a four game ban at the moment because of an early red card. Is there any thoughts of the appeal that was mentioned last night.
Yeah, we’re going to appeal it, I think only on the grounds that there’s no intent. Speaking with Alfie and when you see it, we’re not questioning whether he pulled Kasey Palmer’s hair, but there was zero intent, it’s completely accidental. If you watch the video back, quite clearly, he’s trying to grab his shoulder and pull him back, which is part of football, the contact that comes with playing the game. But unfortunately, he’s grabbed it, he’s let go of it straight away, and then apologised afterwards, but I think he was put down with violent conduct. It was definitely not that. So for me, we’ve appealed it, and hopefully common sense prevails.
AP: You also had an injury to Bojan Radulovic yesterday. How is he?
Yeah, he’s a little bit sore this morning, he’ll have scans tomorrow.
To know definitively what we’re dealing with, and the time frames on it, and everything that everybody want to know, we can’t really answer it until we know the outcome of that scan this tomorrow morning.
AP: If you are to be without those two players at the weekend at Peterborough, have you seen enough to suggest that you can re-fashion the team in a way that can be as effective as it has been so far?
I think you probably saw it for 70 minutes last night, right?
I think that that’s what we have got. We have got depth. We have got options. We have got different profiles. We have got really high quality amongst the group. People forget it’s a 50-game season. You need the squad.
I’m sure previously, other people were injured, and everyone’s asking same questions — ‘you’ve got this one missing’. But what we’ve got is people ready to step in.
We trained this morning with the lads that didn’t play last night or weren’t involved, or some of the subs, and the session was top this morning. I thought the attitude, the behaviour, the competitiveness, the work this morning was excellent, and that then means people are ready to step in when called upon.
I referenced David Kasumu Last night, someone that wasn’t involved at the weekend, then four days later, it’s on the bench because of how he applied himself in training on Monday. He comes on last night and does exactly what the team needs and puts in a really, really strong performance.
That, for me, is the Football League. It can happen so quick when you’ve got so many games and injuries, suspensions, form, people hitting a hot streak…you need to put them in at the right time, the same as when someone’s having a dip, you might need to pull them out. And that’s why it’s it’s not the starting 11 always. It’s very much the depth for the 20-25 that you’ve got.
Steven Chicken (We Are Terriers): The nature of the last couple of games you’ve not been able to use someone like Will Alves, who maybe in other circumstances you throw them on. Are you looking forward to getting the chance to play some of those players, if you can keep 11 men on the pitch?
Yeah, I had a chat with will about it today, and he was excellent today in training. I thought his quality, as well as his attitude and application, were excellent.
So, yeah, I’ve had that chat and it was pretty much what you just said there — you know, I really like some of the bits I’ve seen, be patient, stick at it, keep working hard and be ready when called upon.
What I can’t do is tell him when that will be and again, I think that’s the kind of the same message for the whole group: be ready when you called upon, and then it’s on them to give me a headache.
That’s what I liked across the last two games, even last night, with the subs coming on. Dion had such good impact and done exactly what we’ve needed in those moments, and that that’s what being a strong team is all about, having people that you know are ready when called upon.
Bali Mumba
AP: Liam’s managed to get off to a great start: two clean sheets, two wins. Where do you feel, after being with him for eight days now, he can improve you? What do you need to improve yourself?
I feel like we’ve already started this morning, in fact. He pulled me in the office, we had a chat, just a general chat, just about life and stuff, how’s things going, and then we went into further details with the game and football and stuff.
He’s one of the managers that’s willing to help you with your performance. He says it doesn’t really matter on whether it’s your strengths or your weakness, both of them — he’s willing to help you whether it’s something that you’re really quite good at, to get better at that and really hit a good level with that, or whether something that needs to be improved.
He’s willing to do both jobs and help you improve as a player, which is always nice. So yeah, we did speak about that this morning in terms of just obviously positioning when defending and stuff like that, which is quite key. It’s something that we can obviously work on one at a time, and then before we move on to the next thing that we need to improve on.
SC: Talking to Ryan Ledson the other day, said he feels like Liam has taken off a little bit under Lee. And do you feel like as an attacking player, he’s giving you that freedom?
Yeah, 100%, every game. The last two games, in the team talks that we’ve had, the last thing he always says that sticks with me is he always says, ‘Be fearless’. He tells everyone you know, be fearless.
That obviously goes a long way in terms of out of possession, in possession, just be fearless. Be you, express yourself.
He’s not one of them that they will judge you by your mistakes or what you do, as long as it’s a positive action. That’s something that as a player, you want to hear — you want to go into the game knowing ‘I can try things, I can take a risk, because obviously the manager obviously wants me to play with that fearless mindset’.
