Below are selected highlights from Monday morning’s press conference ahead of Town facing Luton on Tuesday night. You can find the full audio above or in your We Are Terriers podcast feed.
Lee Grant
Injury news?
It’s pretty early on still, it’s Monday morning so we’ve still got one or two to assess. We’ve come away in pretty good nick but of course it was challenging conditions and we’re into the stage of the season where we need to be mindful, so we’ll see. It’s nice to get one or two back into it but we have to make sure we keep it that way.
There’s one or two that are playing really good minutes currently that are probably doing that for the first time this season — probably more players than I would like, if I’m being really honest - but we’ve just come through a really challenging period for the squad in terms of availability.
So we’ve got to be mindful of that going forward, and look at managing people’s minutes and trying to keep as many of them fit and available to us for as long as we possibly can throughout this really busy phase.
Players that have filled in for injuries have done well
From day one really until this point, I’m always trying to have contact with the players and understand where they’re at in the physical aspect as well as the mental aspect. We’ve had conversations with Bojan and Dion around opportunity, and it’s of course a readiness to take an opportunity when it arrives, and it’s great that they’ve both grabbed that and are running with it currently.
There was definitely some frustration in there for Dion in terms of his own level, but at no point did he waiver at all in terms of his desire to be back to his own level and where he wants to be, and he has trust in the group and where we want to be this year. That was really refreshing for because he could have gone the other way, but he’s really stuck at it.
Bojan is a little bit different because he’s had to contend with knocks and one or two disruptions in pre-season for various reasons, but the rewards for his work have paid off. It’s no surprise he’s hit his stride and it’s a great example for the group in terms of rewards.
For Radinio, who has had to be really patient, going away with his international side has probably been helpful really. It’s disrupted in some respects, but it’s really nice to see him hit his stride and do the things he does more often than not and really showcase his talents.
I’m thankful to have big decisions to make on who’s starting, who’s on the bench. Not having those decisions to make has affected us. Thankfully we’re in a position now where players are coming back, the squad is looking fuller, and we’ve got some decisions to make…though I’m not looking forward to those decisions.
We can’t get carried away with thinking we can play same team every game when we’re in the middle of seven games in 22 days — I think we all know that’s not going to happen.
Important and tough run of games
We’re into the phase of clocks going back and games finishing in the dark now and weather conditions…it does require a different kind of mentality.
Coincidentally, that’s led to a different sort of phase for us as a squad as well. We’ve got bodies coming back and a rejuvenated attitude from results either side of the international break.
We know this is an important period and we just need to take that on now. We know the next challenge is coming around quickly and we head into what’s going to be another challenging fixture.
Sustaining a high performance level, the energy we’re showing, consistency in our mentality…that’s really top of our agenda.
